Post by Poundbury on May 10, 2006 21:57:22 GMT 1
"Alain de Botton seems to have discovered the key to living a happy life in a perfect home. So why does he look so miserable?
Sam Wollaston
Monday May 8, 2006
The Guardian
Driving back from a friend's wedding in Dorset last weekend, I found myself on a roundabout on the edge of Dorchester. There was a sign to Poundbury, which I remembered is Prince Charles's funny makey-uppy olde-worlde ideal village, so I took a little detour to have a look.
It was immediately obvious that Poundbury is a terrible mistake. But I couldn't properly pin down why it's so awful. It felt dead rather than alive; the people who live there have turned their backs on the modern world, and it gave me the creeps. But that's about the best I could do.
Having now watched the first of Alain de Botton's The Perfect Home (Channel 4, Saturday), I think I have a better understanding of what's wrong with it (even though Poundbury itself didn't feature). I like that about Alain de Botton: he works stuff out, with that enormous brain of his, then he passes it on, in a deadpan, slightly morose, way. It's strange that someone so obsessed with happiness should be so morose. Or maybe not - maybe he's obsessed with it, because he doesn't have it.
And that, interestingly, is the problem with places like Poundbury. German art historian Wilhelm Worringer (no, don't be daft, this is coming from A de B, not me) said that, when it comes to architecture, we fall in love with that which we don't have enough of in ourselves. So the quaint rustic style (of, say, Poundbury) will appeal to people who believe progress has been too fast and created an atmosphere of moral and spiritual confusion. Prince Charles, in other words.
The difference between Alain de Botton's obsessions and those of Prince Charles is that one leads to entertaining and thought-provoking TV programmes, while the other is ruining the country. Well, it's really the fault of all the property developers building pastiches and unconvincing reconstructions of buildings from the past, but it's more fun to blame Charles.
Nietzsche (obviously) was good on the subject. "The worst sickness of men tends to originate in the sentimental way they try to combat their sicknesses. What seems like an easy cure, in the long run produces something worse than what it's supposed to overcome. Fake consolations always have to be paid for with a general and profound worsening of the original complaint."
Meaning, when applied to architecture? That a good new building shouldn't be shutting itself off from reality. The point of our buildings is to reconcile us with the facts of our lives, not to pretend they don't exist. The modern world can be both exciting and somewhere to feel at home in.
The people who want to live in these fake old rustic homes are not much better than Marie Antoinette, playing peasant in her mock village in the grounds of Versailles. And look what happened to her. Maybe we should be bashing down the gates of Highgrove and dragging Charles off to be beheaded.
Alain de Botton was brought up in an interesting 1960s concrete apartment in Zurich. We see a photo of him, at home, as a boy. It's long before his expanding brain pushed his hair out from the roots, and he looks quite sweet in his blue pyjamas. But he seems to have huge adult feet, and hands, like some strange kind of man-boy. Dead serious, too, and most probably unhappy, even then."
Sam Wollaston
Monday May 8, 2006
The Guardian
Driving back from a friend's wedding in Dorset last weekend, I found myself on a roundabout on the edge of Dorchester. There was a sign to Poundbury, which I remembered is Prince Charles's funny makey-uppy olde-worlde ideal village, so I took a little detour to have a look.
It was immediately obvious that Poundbury is a terrible mistake. But I couldn't properly pin down why it's so awful. It felt dead rather than alive; the people who live there have turned their backs on the modern world, and it gave me the creeps. But that's about the best I could do.
Having now watched the first of Alain de Botton's The Perfect Home (Channel 4, Saturday), I think I have a better understanding of what's wrong with it (even though Poundbury itself didn't feature). I like that about Alain de Botton: he works stuff out, with that enormous brain of his, then he passes it on, in a deadpan, slightly morose, way. It's strange that someone so obsessed with happiness should be so morose. Or maybe not - maybe he's obsessed with it, because he doesn't have it.
And that, interestingly, is the problem with places like Poundbury. German art historian Wilhelm Worringer (no, don't be daft, this is coming from A de B, not me) said that, when it comes to architecture, we fall in love with that which we don't have enough of in ourselves. So the quaint rustic style (of, say, Poundbury) will appeal to people who believe progress has been too fast and created an atmosphere of moral and spiritual confusion. Prince Charles, in other words.
The difference between Alain de Botton's obsessions and those of Prince Charles is that one leads to entertaining and thought-provoking TV programmes, while the other is ruining the country. Well, it's really the fault of all the property developers building pastiches and unconvincing reconstructions of buildings from the past, but it's more fun to blame Charles.
Nietzsche (obviously) was good on the subject. "The worst sickness of men tends to originate in the sentimental way they try to combat their sicknesses. What seems like an easy cure, in the long run produces something worse than what it's supposed to overcome. Fake consolations always have to be paid for with a general and profound worsening of the original complaint."
Meaning, when applied to architecture? That a good new building shouldn't be shutting itself off from reality. The point of our buildings is to reconcile us with the facts of our lives, not to pretend they don't exist. The modern world can be both exciting and somewhere to feel at home in.
The people who want to live in these fake old rustic homes are not much better than Marie Antoinette, playing peasant in her mock village in the grounds of Versailles. And look what happened to her. Maybe we should be bashing down the gates of Highgrove and dragging Charles off to be beheaded.
Alain de Botton was brought up in an interesting 1960s concrete apartment in Zurich. We see a photo of him, at home, as a boy. It's long before his expanding brain pushed his hair out from the roots, and he looks quite sweet in his blue pyjamas. But he seems to have huge adult feet, and hands, like some strange kind of man-boy. Dead serious, too, and most probably unhappy, even then."
it was very interesting to see what other countries are doing to try and provide affordable housing. 
