One of the great causes of both happiness and misery is the quality of our environment: the kind of walls, buildings and streets we are surrounded by.

The Architecture of Happiness starts from the idea that where we are heavily influences; who we can be, and argues that it is architecture’s task to stand as a reminder of our full potential.

However, many architects are alert of discussing the word “beauty”. The book centers the question: what is a beautiful building? It amounts to a tour though the philosophy and psychology of architecture, which aims at changing the way we think about our homes, streets and ourselves.

“Beauty is the promise of happiness” is the author’s point. The book is an interesting and perhaps important addition to the century-lasting debate over the connection between beauty and happiness that our cities and buildings have on us.

Taking architecture seriously means acknowledging the importance of our surroundings. The buildings we admire are ultimately those that refer to such positive qualities as friendliness, strength and intelligence.

Our sense of beauty and our understanding of the nature on a good life are blended. We can be moved by a column that meets a roof with grace. Why exactly is that? What makes some places beautiful and some not? De Botton thinks that beautiful places possess particular virtues: order, balance, elegance and self-knowledge.

Can a building make you happy? The Architecture of Happiness tells us to trust our senses and experience over the question. The author ends with a passage about how just about any land looks better before you put a farm or a city on it. So the duty is to make it look at least as good.

Likewise, we owe it to the worms and trees that the buildings we cover them with will stand as promise of the highest and most intelligent kind of happiness.

Architecture’s task is to render vivid to us who we might ideally be. Because we are, for better or worse, different individuals in different places.