style of life and dwelling

Abstract

The 14th Dalai Lama Lhamo Dondrub said that one can achieve happiness in two ways. The first way is external. By acquiring a better dwelling, better clothes, nicer friends, we can achieve happiness and satisfaction to a greater or lesser extent. The second way is the way of spiritual development...

But for the architect, spiritual development is inextricably linked to the dwelling, its arrangement and appearance. Probably, only the place where one is happy can be called home. At home even the walls help, my home is my fortress, there is no place like home... The dwelling that a person calls home reflects and preserves his or her image and style of life.

Interior painting is an ancient and everlasting way to make a dwelling cosier, friendlier and closer, that is to make it a home. Especially in the case of mass housing, when the houses are initially standard and impersonal. Builders can provide people with square meters of housing, but the houses are often seriously transformed by landlords after their occupancy. How should we deal with these processes? Alejandro Aravena’s projects welcome the self-activity of tenants. Are the standard designs which are now replicated in mass construction ready for this?
Our view on a happy house is supplemented by comparing standard housing with unique projects of talented architects (the article about the manor designed by Totan Kuzembaev). Comparing traditions and customs of different and distant cultures helps to see the complex nature of a happy house. It includes not only walls and furniture but also methods of protection against climate extremes, the music playing in the house and the role that the ancient element of fire plays in the house.
Not humant hills that oppress the individual, but Houses – stable, worthy of a long life span of generations, and renewable. Like in our favourite books by the Strugatsky brothers, where the most diverse people, regardless of age, education or worldview, find their own, intimate thoughts, we want everyone in our cities to find a place to live and fulfil themselves, a place to be happy.