Of course, architecture can't on its own always make us into contented people. Witness the dissatisfactions that can unfold even in idyllic surroundings. One might say that architecture suggests a mood to us, which we may be too internally troubled to be able to take up.
Its effectiveness could be compared to the weather: a fine day can substantially change our state of mind - and people may be willing to make great sacrifices to be nearer a sunny climate. Then again, under the weight of sufficient problems (romantic or professional confusions, for example), no amount of blue sky, and not even the greatest building, will be able to make us smile. Hence the difficulty of trying raises architecture into a political priority: it has none of the unambiguous advantages of clean drinking water or a safe food supply. And yet it remains vital.
Credit: Lorenzo-Nencioni/Vega MC
Our sensitivity to our surroundings can be traced back to a troubling feature of human psychology: to the way we harbour within us many different selves, not all of which feel equally like 'us', so much so that in certain moods, we can complain of having come adrift from what we judge to be our true selves. Unfortunately, the self we miss at such moments, the elusively authentic, creative and spontaneous side of our character, is not ours to summon at will. Our access to it is, to a humbling extent, determined by the places we happen to be in, by the colour of the bricks, the height of the ceilings and the layout of the streets.
We depend on our surroundings obliquely to embody the moods and ideas we respect and then to remind us of them. We look to our buildings to hold us, like a kind of psychological mould, to a helpful vision of ourselves. We arrange around us material forms which communicate to us what we need - but are at constant risk of forgetting we need - within.
In other words, our buildings can present us with an ideal. A great work of architecture will speak to us of a degree of serenity, strength, poise, and grace to which we, both as creators and audiences, typically cannot do justice - and it will for this very reason beguile and move us. Architecture excites our respect to the extent that it surpasses us.
All works of design and architecture, from a parliament to a fork or cup, talk to us about the kind of life that would most appropriately unfold within and around them. They tell us of certain moods that they seek to encourage and sustain in their owners. While keeping us warm and helping us in mechanical ways, they hold out an invitation for us to be specific sorts of people. They speak of particular visions of happiness.
