Our Happy Life: Architecture and Well-Being in the Age of Emotional Capitalism

The architectural implications of the intangible guidelines of happiness indexes, the new marketplace of emotions. and the relentless ideology of positivity.

How do we design our cities when our most intimate experiences are incessantly tracked and our feelings become the base of new modes of production that prioritize the immaterial over the material? Since the 2008 financial crisis, lists of well-being indicators, happiness indexes, and quality-of-life rankings have gone viral. Concurrently, the emotional data presented in these surveys--including perceptions on questions such as loneliness, friendship, and intimate fears--feed an expanding political agenda of happiness and a new form of market whose most decisive asset is "affect."

Our Happy Life investigates the architectural implications of this trend by dissecting and questioning the political, economic, and emotional conditions that generate space today. Organized as a visual narrative with critical readings by Will Davies, Daniel Fujiwara, Simon Fujiwara, Ingo Niermann, Deane Simpson, and Mirko Zardini, the book reveals architecture, city, and landscape as contested surfaces, caught between the intangible guidelines of happiness indexes, the new marketplace of emotions, and the relentless ideology of positivity.

Contributors

Will Davies, Daniel Fujiwara, Simon Fujiwara, Ingo Niermann, Deane Simpson, Mirko Zardini

This volume is published in conjunction with an exhibition organized by and presented at the Canadian Centre of Architecture in Montreal from May 8, 2019 to October 13, 2019.