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Beauty, Neuroscience, and Architecture: Timeless Patterns and Their Impact on Our Well-Being
2019 Independent Publishers Book Awards (IPPY) Bronze Medal Award winner!
2018 Robert & Judi Newman Award for Literature & Journalism!
For centuries, men and women have sought to express beauty in architecture and art. But, it is only recently that neuroscience has helped determine how and why beauty plays such an important role in our lives.
Founded on a series of lectures architect Donald H. Ruggles has given over the past ten years, Beauty, Neuroscience and Timeless Patterns and Their Impact on Our Well-Being postulates that beauty can and does make a vital difference in our lives, including improving many aspects of our health. In this volume, Ruggles suggests that a new, urgent effort is needed to refocus the direction of architecture and art to include the quality of beauty as a fundamental, overarching theme in two of humanity’s most important fields of endeavor—the built and artistic environments.
“Since the beginning of time,” Ruggles notes, people have “looked for certain patterns and a balance of space. . . . There is a deep-seated need for beauty and when that need is filled, a sense of safety and comfort is created.” In Beauty, Neuroscience and Architecture Ruggles draws on more than fifty years of architectural experience to delve into the forces behind the transformative emotion of beauty. Focusing on new discoveries in the science of the mind and neuroscience, as well as recent developments in fractal geometry theory, microbiology, and psychology, Ruggles leads the reader on a journey through architectural and art history to discover the importance of patterns in our perception of beauty—and its emotional content.
2018 Robert & Judi Newman Award for Literature & Journalism!
For centuries, men and women have sought to express beauty in architecture and art. But, it is only recently that neuroscience has helped determine how and why beauty plays such an important role in our lives.
Founded on a series of lectures architect Donald H. Ruggles has given over the past ten years, Beauty, Neuroscience and Timeless Patterns and Their Impact on Our Well-Being postulates that beauty can and does make a vital difference in our lives, including improving many aspects of our health. In this volume, Ruggles suggests that a new, urgent effort is needed to refocus the direction of architecture and art to include the quality of beauty as a fundamental, overarching theme in two of humanity’s most important fields of endeavor—the built and artistic environments.
“Since the beginning of time,” Ruggles notes, people have “looked for certain patterns and a balance of space. . . . There is a deep-seated need for beauty and when that need is filled, a sense of safety and comfort is created.” In Beauty, Neuroscience and Architecture Ruggles draws on more than fifty years of architectural experience to delve into the forces behind the transformative emotion of beauty. Focusing on new discoveries in the science of the mind and neuroscience, as well as recent developments in fractal geometry theory, microbiology, and psychology, Ruggles leads the reader on a journey through architectural and art history to discover the importance of patterns in our perception of beauty—and its emotional content.
136 pages, Hardcover
Published January 12, 2018
128 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 18, 2023
Three stars are for "I'm not sorry I read this." This gets two, for "I am sorry I read this."
The first section is about the brain. The author talks about the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, which are about survival and pleasure, respectively. So this sets up the idea that we are hardwired to seek pleasure. Sure, that makes sense.
The second section is about beauty in nature and architecture. The examples of beauty are like, "hey everybody believes these are beautiful." Then he goes into the Nine-Square Pattern, which is supposedly one of the most basic ideals of beautiful architecture. You take a facade and divide it with two horizontal and two vertical lines, and that's nine "squares." You can have rectangles or missing squares, but that's the basic idea. Then he spends 40 pages giving examples. He'll say, "here's a classic building. You know it's beautiful because it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site," then give a diagram showing how it's divided into nine-square. But some of them, it's a real stretch to divide them up that way, and some of them I have no clue how he places these dividing lines. And some of them just aren't all that beautiful, to be honest.
The final section should have been where he pulled it all together, but if feels like he realized he didn't have anything to add, so he just kinda reviewed the situation. I reread the last chapter, hoping I'd missed something, but there was nothing. If you took out everything that wasn't "the brain seeks beauty, we should surround ourselves with it," then I'm sure I would have enjoyed it... a little more. but it seems like it's going to explain the why. Also it spent too much time on this nine-square thing trying to justify an idea that didn't need justification.
The first section is about the brain. The author talks about the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, which are about survival and pleasure, respectively. So this sets up the idea that we are hardwired to seek pleasure. Sure, that makes sense.
The second section is about beauty in nature and architecture. The examples of beauty are like, "hey everybody believes these are beautiful." Then he goes into the Nine-Square Pattern, which is supposedly one of the most basic ideals of beautiful architecture. You take a facade and divide it with two horizontal and two vertical lines, and that's nine "squares." You can have rectangles or missing squares, but that's the basic idea. Then he spends 40 pages giving examples. He'll say, "here's a classic building. You know it's beautiful because it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site," then give a diagram showing how it's divided into nine-square. But some of them, it's a real stretch to divide them up that way, and some of them I have no clue how he places these dividing lines. And some of them just aren't all that beautiful, to be honest.
The final section should have been where he pulled it all together, but if feels like he realized he didn't have anything to add, so he just kinda reviewed the situation. I reread the last chapter, hoping I'd missed something, but there was nothing. If you took out everything that wasn't "the brain seeks beauty, we should surround ourselves with it," then I'm sure I would have enjoyed it... a little more. but it seems like it's going to explain the why. Also it spent too much time on this nine-square thing trying to justify an idea that didn't need justification.
April 1, 2020
I love the promise implicit in examining "timeless patterns" and how they interact with our well-being, especially from a neuroscientific point of view. Unfortunately, the book did not deliver, and did not come close for me. A range of concepts are grossly mishandled (fractals, patterns, evolutionary psychology, etc.), and the core argument of the book hinges on the spurious correlation of the "nine square" (a flexible tic-tac-toe board pattern) in space/buildings as an indicator of beauty.
Reading this book was an extremely distressing experience. That said—except for questionable tic-tac-toe image overlays—the photography is beautiful and the hard cover book is nicely designed.
Reading this book was an extremely distressing experience. That said—except for questionable tic-tac-toe image overlays—the photography is beautiful and the hard cover book is nicely designed.
June 5, 2024
Overall a respectable addition to the growing literature on neuroaesthetics, with this book focused on architecture. The chapter on how architecture affects our nervous system — the sympathetic system (our fight-or-flight survival response) versus the parasympathetic system (pleasure response) — is interesting and well argued. Also solid is Ruggles' chapter on fractals. His theory comparing the "nine grid" to human face-seeking seems plausible, though a bit more scientifically shaky.
Beautiful photos throughout — but a bit heavy on examples and thin on analysis.
For an architecture book with more emphasis on the neuroscience, I'd recommend Cognitive Architecture (Sussman & Hollander).
Beautiful photos throughout — but a bit heavy on examples and thin on analysis.
For an architecture book with more emphasis on the neuroscience, I'd recommend Cognitive Architecture (Sussman & Hollander).
December 2, 2022
While Beauty, Neuroscience, and Architecture didn't go into as much depth as I had hoped, it is still a good primer on the evolutionary basis for the emotional impact of certain forms in architecture, and in art & design in general.
January 31, 2026
Beautiful book about beauty in architecture and why it matters.
I would have loved to have read it when I was still in architecture school; I think it would have been extremely reassuring, considering the questions I had at the time. Don balances very well the explanations behind what we perceive as beautiful architecture with funny stories from his practice and early days, when we almost discovered it intuitively. The explanations of why fractals, the nine-square model, the golden ratio, or even face-like façades are pleasant and reassuring to the human brain are easy to follow, without lacking the detailed, evidence-based grounding that will satisfy even the most curious among us. I truly recommend it to any student, architect, or, more broadly, to anyone interested in the discipline.
I would have loved to have read it when I was still in architecture school; I think it would have been extremely reassuring, considering the questions I had at the time. Don balances very well the explanations behind what we perceive as beautiful architecture with funny stories from his practice and early days, when we almost discovered it intuitively. The explanations of why fractals, the nine-square model, the golden ratio, or even face-like façades are pleasant and reassuring to the human brain are easy to follow, without lacking the detailed, evidence-based grounding that will satisfy even the most curious among us. I truly recommend it to any student, architect, or, more broadly, to anyone interested in the discipline.
April 29, 2021
An interesting theory of what humans find appealing in architecture and nature based on a nine square pattern of bilateral symmetry similar to a human face.
January 25, 2022
Stupid book
January 23, 2025
Lightweight info
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews