Evolutionary Architecture: 1. Why Architecture Matters
Every year, 20 million tourists flood Venice — not just for its food or culture, but especially its beauty. This tells us something profound about human nature: we desire beauty in our built environment. Ever since humans started building, they’ve been practising architecture – a word that comes from the Greek arkhitekton, meaning 'chief creator'. Architecture1 is the art and technique of designing buildings before they’re built. It serves two purposes: it meets practical needs (keeping us warm and dry) and aesthetic needs (looking beautiful and meaningful).
The proven benefits of good architecture
Modern research proves that architecture is important:
Your brains see things that you don’t: Psychology and brain science show that beautiful buildings improve our mental2 and physical3 health. We don't just live in buildings – they live in us, shaping our minds, health, and happiness every single day.
Studies on children show that the buildings around them affect how their brains develop.4
Economic data reveals architecture's economic value — millions of tourists visit cities like Venice, Florence, Prague and Paris largely to see their beautiful buildings. Everywhere, streets with beautiful buildings are worth more than those with ugly buildings. Although the value of a building’s beauty is often overlooked because it doesn’t completely accrue to its owner, its significance is evident and confirmed by research.5
Evidence from History
From Aztec pyramids to Japanese temples, from African mud mosques to European cathedrals — every human society that could afford it has invested heavily in beautiful buildings. This can't be coincidence. The importance of beautiful buildings is easy to see: every advanced civilisation in history has spent enormous resources on making buildings beautiful. Wherever societies could afford it, they've created beautiful architecture — regardless of when or where they lived. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, for example, all cared deeply about how their buildings looked. In Pompeii and Herculaneum, millions of visitors today still admire the wall paintings Romans used to decorate their homes. On the other side of the world, Native American civilisations were also designing beautiful buildings long before Europeans arrived.
This shows that the value of architecture is universal. It's not tied to any specific culture, time or place. The human need for beautiful buildings must be built into our nature — It can’t be something that started in one place and spread to others, because these civilisations invested in beauty long before they first made contact with each other. Wherever human civilisations developed, they created their own architectural styles independently, adapting to their environment, economy and tastes.
Why this matters
Bad architecture isn't just ugly – it increases stress, reduces productivity, damages mental health, and destroys billions in property value. Because architecture has such a huge impact on human wellbeing and development, we need to understand what makes architecture 'good' or 'bad'. Understanding how architecture affects public health and creates or destroys value could help governments and developers better serve the public.
Defining good and bad architecture
In this series, I'll define:
Good architecture as designs that improve human wellbeing
Bad architecture as designs that harm human wellbeing
Most people would agree with these definitions.
What's next
Next, we'll uncover why your brain is hardwired to love symmetry – and why modernist architects' rejection of it goes against 100,000 years of human evolution.
Click here for the next article of this series.
Encyclopedia Britannica, retrieved 11 September 2021: https://www.britannica.com/topic/architecture
Weich, S. et al., May 2002, ‘Mental health and the built environment: Cross – sectional survey of individual and contextual risk factors for depression’, The British Journal of Psychiatry
‘Mental Health and the Built Environment: More Than Bricks and Mortar?’, David Halpern, 2014
Caspari, S. et al., 15 February 2011, ‘The importance of aesthetic surroundings: a study interviewing experts within different aesthetic fields’, retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-6712.2010.00803.x
Jedon, R., de Paiva, A., December 2019, ‘Short- and long-term effects of architecture on the brain: Toward theoretical formalization’, Frontiers of Architectural Research, retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095263519300585
This research will be covered in article 8.