This article is inspired by and based on the wonderful video that The Aesthetic City published on YouTube, ‘What Makes Buildings Beautiful (And Why Does Beauty Matter)’

I highly highly recommend watching this video, and others from The Aesthetic City as well as checking out their website www.theaestheticcity.com

The topic and research laid out by The Aesthetic City here is extremely important.

Anyone who has spent time talking to critical people about better city design eventually get stuck on this very debate. At least, this is the debate that I get into every single time I try (read: tried) to have the discussion with anyone. Before this video, people left me at a dead end because they are not necessarily wrong that beauty is subjective. But the clear fact, which is outlined in this film, is that beauty is only SO subjective. Most people can agree (when they are willing to say the truth) that certain designs and cities simply ARE beautiful. It ties back to actual and specific facts about humans. These elements, The Aesthetic City says, are tied to human evolution, to our amygdala, to our connection to nature; to our brains’ desire for details & ornament, and for organized complexity.

Takeaways:

(And topics to research further)

Beauty Philosophy

• People DO value beauty and DO desire beauty to be in their lives

  • It is* why people climb mountains

  • It is why people journey through jungles

  • It is why people travel all over the world to see beautiful landmarks and beautiful cities

  • It is why people travel to beautiful places for their vacations (which also, interestingly, tends to be far away from their ugly everyday reality)

  • All of the above points show that people crave beauty
    
    
    

• Beauty in buildings and in cities is more important than we think

• Many civil servants, decision-makers, politicians, and developers don’t consider beauty. They believe that architecture should strive forward for pregression’s own sake. Since we can’t turn beauty into numbers, why bother? It’s easier to make glass or concrete boxes anyway.

• Although the ultimate interpritation of what you see and hear is a mental process, and the resulting opinion (of beauty) slightly differs between people, studies show that there are striking similarities in what people find pleasing

  
  
  

• There is a measurable emotional attachment to places that are beautiful.

  • There is stronger correlation to people’s satisfaction that comes from a place’s physical beauty than any other factors (of those in a study across multiple cities).

  • A Gallop Poll of 43k people across 26 U.S. cities found that aesthetic attraction to their city was 3rd most important to citizens, above safety, education, and basic services. 2

    • (The only two seen as more important, #1 and #2, where social offerings - places to meet others, and openness- how welcoming a community is of different types of people, respectively. I’d like to mention that these also benefit with the beauty, and density of a city’s design)

    
    

• Beyond simply having ‘green space’, the quality of a natural space is important.

  • A study found that the more scenic an area, the healthier the people were, even when accounting for differences such as income and data on air pollution into account. 3

• If you want to attract and keep skilled workers in your area, make it a great (and beautiful) place to live.

• The Design Disconnect - architects, and the public, each like different kinds of buildings (David Halpbern’s experiment)

  • Over time architects’ design taste change. The longer the architect student had been studying, the less and less they liked the building designs that the other students liked.

    • This is a problem because architects are supposed to later design buildings for a population with exactly the opposite views.

    • This contributes to why buildings are built so sterile in the U.S.

    • Many avant-garde architects actually prefer to live and work in traditionally designed buildings, instead of the modernist buildings they create.

How Do We Build Beautiful Places That People Like?

• There are elements of the built environment that inherently trigger our fight-or-flight response. 1

  • We can CHOOSE to design things that make us feel safe and pleasant, or— stressed and anxious

Human brains ARE wired to like to certain shapes/features. They automatically draw our attention.

• These elements, when dissected have something in common, they all found in nature- animals, plants, faces, and humans. (Biophilia)

• What the human brain likes: as based on research 4 (biophilic elements)

  • Fractals - nested structures

  • Symmetry- examples: bilateral, rotational, and translational symmetry (evokes the feeling of power, wealth, etc.)

  • Ornament - “Details and ornament allow human beings to connect to geometrical structures - like buildings” This is because human brains quickly recognize areas of high contrast and patterns, and the right amount stimulates our brains.

    • Ornaments can supply a structure with the fractal, symmetrical, and biophilic elements that we enjoy from nature.

  • Organized complexity— a beautiful mix between absolute order and chaos

  • Curves - (& domes, spirals)

  • Nature - calm us, we heal faster, increases happiness

Resources Mentioned in This Video:

1 — Bar, M., & Neta, M. (2007). Visual elements of subjective preference modulate amygdala activation. Neuropsychologia, 45(10), 2191-2200.

2 — Soul of the Community Project, (2010), Soul of the Community 2010 Overall Findings, p.9. Available at http://knightfoundation.org/sotc/overall-findings/

3 — Seresinhe, C. I., Preis, T., & Moat, H. S. (2015). Quantifying the impact of scenic environments on health. Scientific reports, 5(1), 1-9.

4 — Sussman, A., & Hollander, J. B. (2021). Cognitive architecture: Designing for how we respond to the built environment. Routledge.

Others:

Denis Dutton’s TED talk on Beauty: https://youtu.be/PktUzdnBqWI

Mehrabian, A. (1976). Public places and private spaces: The psychology of work, play, and living environments. Basic Books.

David Halpern, Mental Health and ‘The Built Environment: More Than Bricks And Mortar?’

* ‘a reason why’ — I do talk in absolutes on this blog. This is because it is simpler, quicker, and I hope that the readers of my blog have the common sense and ability for critical thought so that they understand when I speak in absolutes, there are obviously acceptions. This used to be given but now it needs to be stated to avoid criticism.

Green is used in this article to include/insert my own added thoughts/comments to those in the video, without interruption.

My response/comment on this video:

THIS information and discussion are soooo important to urban development and re-development today.

Why do we still find old architecture beautiful? That 'style' was for a different period in time, and now we have the modern (lifeless) style, right? 'Modern' is the style of this time period, and *that* style was for *that* time period, no? Nope.

Thank you for dissecting this PARAMOUNT topic. And it is paramount, spend any time talking to critical people about better city design and this is what you get. At least, this is the debate I get every single time. Before now, those people left me at a dead end because they are not necessarily wrong that beauty is subjective. But the clear fact, which you have outlined, is that beauty is only SO subjective. Most people can agree (when they are willing to say the truth) that certain designs and cities simply ARE beautiful. It ties back to evolution, to our connection to nature, to details & ornament, to organized complexity.

I think a huge part that people do not understand, which I am doing more research on, and which you touched on briefly, is that when you live in a beautiful place with community, there are deeper benefits beyond the aesthetics, even beyond the happiness you may feel in the space. One is that you can then have an amazing, fulfilling, and simple life. And I don't mean just if you were to do so, you can step back and appreciate it, I mean you will FEEL like you are living an amazing life. You will hopefully value hard work, and leisure, and a balance between the two. You will have more time to devote to hobbies which will likely turn into full-time pursuits because if you can achieve a beautiful life with close friends and family then you will not feel the need for a job to pay for a bigger and bigger house. Then more people will also work in industries they adore, and own their own businesses, and then, as one commenter mentioned a 'skilled labor crisis,' will be corrected because there will be more life-sustaining career avenues when everyone doesn't need to work for a massive corporation and instead their small business can thrive (in any field). And that is cyclical as well, because communities can then sustain themselves as their community members retain money in the local economy. They visit local bakeries and restaurants and cafes and artisans and designers and local entertainment.

I know this will NOT fix all of society's problems. No one can ever do that. But the United States can get a heck of a lot closer. I think a lot of problems faced within households would be improved by new human-based and human-scale higher-density designing. There will always be criminals and people who want to live differently, but I think the average level of happiness would go up drastically, at least from my perspective of the current situation in the United States.

- Amy xx