Beauties and eyesores

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To call him a polymath would be a gross slander. Alain de Botton knows everything. Sim- ple as that. He’s just far too modest to admit it. And I’m happy to report that his great mission to turn every facet of civilisation into a coffee-table book continues. Philosophy, art, travel — all done. Buildings are next. His approach is studiously unhurried. He gives the impression that he didn’t set out to write a book at all. It just sort of happened. He apparently spends his life flitting from continent to continent, staying in fancy hotels, roaming capital cities, noticing things and examining the condition of his temperament. The charm, the good taste, the erudite sophistication and the generosity of spirit all get a bit irritating after a while. He writes like a wise and beautiful old matriarch rocking by the fireside, sipping mint tea and reminiscing about the passions that troubled her distant youth.

His favourite emotion is sadness. Many things evoke sadness. Botticelli’s angels in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum. Outer Tokyo and its ‘ruined landscapes of bland housing estates’. Buildings that ‘deny their setting’. Experiments like Poundbury which refuse to come to terms with the present. But the melancholy mood is fleeting. De Botton casts about for ‘aesthetic relief’ and his temper is sweetened by a graceful bridge across a ravine or a harmonious Swedish interior.

Another favourite disposition is the mask of forced naivety. Can buildings make us happy? he ponders winsomely. (Translation, does architecture influence conduct?) The answer is no. The murder rate in Venice is no lower than that of uglier cities. And the Nazi leaders, squatting in the most splendid palaces in Europe, continued to plot war and death.