Why are some people drawn to minimalist architecture while others prefer nostalgic rooms filled with antiques and personal artefacts?

Writer and philosopher Alain de Botton believes the answer might lie deeper than taste. 

For many years, Alain has explored the emotional forces that shape our inner lives – from love and loss to status anxiety. Through his educational organisation, The School of Life, he has focused on wellbeing and self-understanding.  

Much of this thinking connects directly to the built environment.

In his book The Architecture of Happiness, Alain argues that buildings are never neutral: they can steady us, unsettle us, and quietly influence who we become.

In this conversation, Alain reflects on his own relationship with domestic space – and how, in many ways, he has spent a lifetime trying to recreate the modernist calm of his childhood home in Switzerland.  

Together, Matt and Alain explore beauty, belonging and control – and examine why so many of us turn to architecture in search of a kind of psychological skin. 
 

This is a conversation that goes to the heart of what Homing is about: how we build safety, both in the spaces around us and within ourselves. 

This episode was filmed at Alain’s house in North London.

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Matt Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496

Music by @simeonwalkermusic

Identity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office 

Produced by @podshoponline

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