Joy, Sparked

Christmas this year was particularly mellow, absent the normal stress of travelling to and fro to be with family. Instead, my wife and I spent a quiet day by ourselves at home, preparing our own turkey dinner and relaxing and reflecting upon the meaning of the holiday. We also spared ourselves the pressure of having to select gifts for each other, treating ourselves instead to ones of our own choosing. For my wife, this meant selecting two pieces of whimsical art by Rosie Nice (Robertson/Sherwood/Architects’ longtime office manager, now retired and enjoying life as a successful artist), whereas I ordered a couple of books from Amazon, which I’ll briefly describe in a moment. 

We really don’t need any more stuff. Neither of us had a Christmas gift wish list. I don’t think we’ve ever felt compelled to acquire many things for their own sake, particularly newer and “better” ones. Our habit has been to only purchase what we need and then only replace them when they’re old and worn out. And yet our house seems overwhelmed with clutter, mostly because we’re so reluctant to throw anything away. Perhaps 2020 will be the year when we overcome our hoarding tendencies and unleash our inner Marie Kondo and furiously purge, neaten, and clean. One can dream. 

Things we do “need” should be things we use frequently, actively improve our lives, or bring us joy. My burgeoning collection of books on architecture and urban design is something I truly value and take pleasure in but is also a source of considerable clutter. I’ve consistently added to it since my college years, so it now approaches a couple hundred volumes in size (not including my accumulation of  magazines from 40-plus years of subscriptions to Architectural Record, Architect, and other periodicals). Together with my wife’s eclectic assortment, we own so many books we’ve run out of shelf space in our home. 

E-books aren’t the solution. My wife and I both prefer real books to e-books. E-books may be functional—they take up no space and you can easily carry many at one time on a single e-reader, which is great if you’re traveling—but they can’t provide the concrete experience of physical books. Real books offer haptic and tactile pleasure: they have texture, weight, and require physical interaction. They invite deep and focused reading. Books work just fine without batteries—their power is lasting. Books also have aesthetic appeal, decorating our walls, coffee tables, and nightstands. 

The two latest additions to my library are Sir John Soane’s Museum: A Complete Description (13^thedition, 2018) by Bruce Boucher, and Louis Sullivan: Creating a New American Architecture (2011) by Patrick Cannon. 

I first became aware of Soane’s museum many years ago when I read Robert Venturi’s seminal book Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. Soane’s idiosyncratically mannerist design served as a rich case in point for Venturi’s manifesto in favor of non-straightforward architecture. The early 19^th century design would subsequently prove profoundly influential to the Postmodern movement in architecture during its 1970s and 80s heyday. Boucher’s book about the museum is richly illustrated, if short on analysis. (1) 

I’ve been fascinated by the work of Louis Sullivan for some time, but Creating a New American Architecture is the first book in my collection devoted entirely to his oeuvre. It is a visual treat, with excellent color photos of Sullivan’s surviving designs complemented by historical images of those buildings that sadly are no longer standing. On the opposite side of the ledger, Creating a New American Architecture did not delve as deeply into how Sullivan developed his distinctive and original vocabulary of ornamentation as I hoped for. 

Despite their shortcomings, I’ve completed reading both books and am happy I acquired them. I tend to reread my books repeatedly, valuing them as references and sources of inspiration. I’ve caught up on my reading, so I’m looking forward to my birthday in April as an excuse to again treat myself by purchasing another book (or two). 

My wife and I need our books because they are sources of joy in our lives. The downside is they do take up considerable room. Even though I’m an architect, I haven’t invested any effort since we bought our home in 1989 in plans to expand or improve it to help address our book storage problem. We currently have an assortment of bookcases scattered around our house, with a good share of our collections additionally monopolizing two closets. More occupy boxes in our attic and garage. 

I have fantasized about converting our third bedroom into the “perfect” home library. Maybe it will happen someday, perhaps once I retire from practicing architecture fulltime. In my mind’s eye, that library would feature sturdy floor-to-ceiling shelves lining the walls, and balanced, controlled daylight from both a generous window and a skylight or dormer. At its center would be a special chair to read in, accompanied by a stylish side table and lamp. I would pour my heart and soul into the design of that library. 

Library in the home of the late Arthur Erickson, one of my architectural influences (photo by Simon Scott).

As Marie Kondo advises, we should only keep items that spark joy in us. Our books do this . They help us remain mindful, introspective, and forward-looking. If we must own stuff forever, I’d rather it be the books we chose to make ours, and the art we have collected too. We realistically could do without most everything else we presently have: our cars, the clothes we no longer wear, our other materialistic trappings. Decluttering and only keeping what we truly value is also a constructive mindset to help realize joyful architecture, particularly in a world beset by excess, over-consumption, and resource-depletion. 


(1)  I do regret not visiting the museum in person during either of my two visits to London (in 1979 and 2001).