By Arin Miller, Managing Editor

The curled handmade railings and intricate masonry catch your eye every time you pass. The windows, pleasant rectangles with quaint wooden sills placed in perfect relation to the soft, deep browns of the door. Something about them has always reminded you of a smiling face. These sorts of buildings always seem so magical—a relic from the past of a time when appearance was important. Many of us have dreamed of living in the ancient neighborhoods of Paris, boating along the waterways of Venice, or biking the streets of Amsterdam. We feel a certain draw to these places, especially in contrast to our often gray and monotonous environment. Why are we so pulled to these places? The connection is simple—all these locations are, in a word, beautiful. Beauty varies a lot throughout the world, but there are certain things that almost all of us believe possess it. Many people wish they lived somewhere prettier; however, almost none of them realize just how much the beauty surrounding where they live can affect them. It has become incredibly common to see row after row of buildings with gray, flat walls that have no personality or charm whatsoever. We see them everywhere, and although we may not realize it, these lifeless husks of buildings can have a massive impact on our well-being. This type of architecture is stress-inducing, which can greatly affect our mental and physical health (Mayo Clinic Staff 2021; Urist 2016). Our standards of beauty are deeply tied to our biology. This is why, despite many cultural differences, certain characteristics are commonly seen in our architecture, both past and recent, that make it widely considered beautiful. However, modern architecture often favors buildings that follow fast trends, including designs that are sharp, angular, and stress-inducing (Urist 2016). Or worse, they solely prioritize function, leaving the fact that people have to actually look at the design almost completely out of the equation. Modern buildings are often unpleasant, and research has shown that they can be linked to stress, depression, and disease. We need to start building with beauty and longevity in mind again for the sake of the middle class, the health of the planet, and those who are struggling the most in our societies.

We’ve already thrown around the term quite a bit, but what exactly is beauty? One definition that’s suitable is that beauty is the combination of qualities that, together, make something pleasing to us. This applies to all things material, from the shimmer on a glass to the towering ivory walls of the Taj Mahal. A commonly used phrase is that “beauty is subjective.” This phrase is true to a certain extent―everyone has certain preferences. However, there are certain qualities that are almost unanimously agreed upon to be beautiful. In his Ted Talk on the Darwinian Theory of Beauty, art philosopher Denis Dutton explains that architectural beauty always follows three common characteristics (Dutton 2011). They include pleasing shapes, they are fit for their purpose, and they are well made and display skill in their construction. These three attributes are very broad, but something that they each have in common is that they are tied to our biology. Recent research has explored some of the qualities that span beyond cultural differences that are tied to what we find beautiful (Che et al. 2018). It was found that symmetry, the golden ratio (a spiral commonly found in nature, think nautilus shells), and fractal patterns (patterns that go into infinitely small detail, think snowflakes) are some of the most common things found across cultures in art and architecture that were generally considered beautiful. This is an interesting connection to make because all of these things are found everywhere in natural environments. Biophilia is the word to describe the innate human desire to connect with nature, and it’s something that applies heavily to the architecture of almost every beautiful location and building in the world. One commonly used example is Le Louvre in Paris (see above image). Regarding its appealing features, there is significant research that supports that architectural curves are very pleasing to us (Sheik 2015). We see symmetry, as well as intricate masonry that resembles fractal patterns. It is fit for its purpose of housing some of the finest art in the world by being a beautiful work of art in its own right, and it demonstrates immense craftsmanship in its construction. These qualities help make Le Louvre one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, and one of the reasons is that in our past, things like symmetry and the golden ratio helped us survive. Our brains adapted to recognize these signals in our environments and in our mates because they signaled health and meant survival. The foremost goal of our brains is to help us survive—so when we do something that prolongs our life, it lights up the reward center in our brain (Chatterjee 2013). When we were hunter-gatherers, the same qualities that make buildings beautiful today helped prolong our lives. For example, a deer with impressive symmetrical antlers was likely a good source of meat, whereas a deformed fern may be dangerous. This is also the reason why a symmetrical face is generally considered one of the most attractive features. As we evolved, these reward cues were what caused our desire to look at art and are why beautiful things make us happy. So when we apply these deeply rooted biological cues to our environment, we create buildings that are unanimously agreed to be a joy to look at.

We now know what makes a building pleasing to look at, but what happens when these things aren’t present in our architecture? An extreme yet relevant historical example is the Pruitt-Igoe housing complex in St. Louis, Missouri, which stood from 1954 to 1972. This series of 50 high-rise housing buildings was a notable example of brutalist architecture—a type of architecture characterized by massive, monolithic, boxy buildings with a rigidly geometric style and large-scale use of poured concrete (Hohenadal 2022). Pruitt-Igoe quickly became known for its crime and violence after it was opened. The poor quality of the buildings, as well as their dull and lifeless appearance, contributed heavily to this, not to mention the massive spaces in between buildings and the rest of the city discouraged community-building (Marshall 2015). Again, this is an extreme example; however, we see many of the qualities that made Pruitt-Igoe so bad in a lot of the architecture in modern cities and low-income housing projects. In 2011, neuroscientist Colin Ellard did a study of people’s skin conductance, an electrodermal response indicating excitement. The study found that people were measurably less excited when walking by buildings with flat gray walls that participants described with words such as “bland, monotonous, and passionless” (qtd. Urist 2016). Seeing an unappealing building once or twice isn’t a big deal—however, in cases like that of Pruitt-Igoe, it can easily lead to problems. Studies have shown that “Skin conductance is one of the symptoms of the stress response” (Ouwerkerk 2020) and others have also linked these monotonous buildings with general unhappiness. Given the effects and the historical precedent, building without regard for appearance and quality needs to be avoided—it deprives people of their community and humanity.

How can we build ethically to avoid disasters like Pruitt-Igoe? One good option is evidence-based architecture, or the practice of designing buildings with mental health and research on beauty in mind. Variations of this have been implemented in many types of buildings, notably hospitals and other health facilities. (Verderber 2006) However, this type of design should be the requirement for all buildings—especially residential ones. Gregory Bratman and colleagues believe this type of design is “associated with increases in happiness, subjective well-being, positive affect, positive social interactions and a sense of meaning and purpose in life, as well as decreases in mental distress” (Weir 2020). Utilizing biophilia as well as the three characteristics proposed by Denis Dutton are just a few ways to create buildings that people want to look at.

One issue with this evidence-based design is that architects may feel it limits their creativity. Many architects understandably want to have complete control over their designs, and have a specific vision for their work. However, the goal of this approach isn’t to try and standardize architecture, in fact, one might say it’s the exact opposite. This method simply stops architects from making egregious errors like creating open blank walls and dimly lit corners that serve no purpose. Evidence-based design needs to become the standard. It would let architects make informed decisions, and provide a structure to their creativity. Most importantly, it would make our modern cities have life again.

Beauty is everywhere in the world, and it never ceases to amaze and delight us. We all deserve to see beauty every day, especially in the places where we spend the most time. By utilizing our biology and research, we can create a world where people don’t need to look at gray slabs their whole lives. We need beauty, and it’s for everyone, no matter who you are.

Arin Miller is a 9th grade student who is one of the copy editors for Valley Unveiled. Arin is involved in student government and is also passionate about tennis and cross country. On the side he enjoys cooking, drawing, and the outdoors.

References

Chatterjee, Anjan. 2013 “The Aesthetic Brain; How We Evolved to Desire Beauty and Enjoy Art” Oxford University Press, November 28. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-aesthetic-brain-9780199811809.

Che, Jiajia, Xiaolei Sun, Víctor Gallardo and Marcos Nadal. 2018. “Cross-cultural empirical aesthetics.” Progress in Brain Research, 237: 77–103. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.pbr.2018.03.002.
Dutton, Denis. 2010. “A Darwinian theory of beauty,” TED2010.

https://www.ted.com/talks/denis_dutton_a_darwinian_theory_of_beauty?language=en.Hohenadel, Kristen. 2022 “What is Brutalism?” The Spruce, February 03. https://www.thespruce.com/what-is-brutalism-4796578.

Marshall, Colin. 2015. “Pruitt-Igoe: the troubled high-rise that came to define urban America – a history of cities in 50 buildings, day 21.” The Guardian, April 22.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/apr/22/pruitt-igoe-high-rise-urban-america-history.Mayo Clinic Staff. 2021 “Chronic Stress Puts Your Health At Risk” Mayo Clinic, July 08. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress/art-20046037.

Ouwerkerk, Martin et al. 2020. “Deriving a Cortisol-Related Stress Indicator From Wearable Skin Conductance Measurements: Quantitative Model & Experimental Validation.” Frontiers in Computer Science, 2(39). https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomp.2020.00039.

Urist, Jacoba. 2016. “The Psychological Cost of Boring Buildings.” The Cut, April 12. https://www.thecut.com/2016/04/the-psychological-cost-of-boring-buildings.html.

Verderber, Stephen. 2006. Excerpt from Compassion in Architecture: Evidence-Based Design for Health in Louisiana. Center for Louisiana Studies: Lafayette, LA. https://escholarship.org/content/qt3km9j3g1/qt3km9j3g1_noSplash_e81a6fc62ed2d9b8192bb2c1964edc9a.pdf.

Weir, Kirsten. 2020. “Nurtured by nature.” Monitor on Psychology, 51(3). https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/04/nurtured-nature.

Sheik, Aasmeena. 2015. “Cognitive Architecture: Designing for How We Respond To the Built Environment; A Review.” Academia, December: 18–19. https://www.academia.edu/19786822/Cognitive_Architecture_A_Review.