Beauty, Neuroscience, and Architecture

For centuries, men and women have sought to express beauty in architecture and art. But, it is only recently that neuroscience has helped determine how and why beauty plays such an important role in our lives.
 
Founded on a series of lectures architect Donald H. Ruggles has given over the past ten years, Beauty, Neuroscience and Architecture: Timeless Patterns and Their Impact on Our Well-Being postulates that beauty can and does make a vital difference in our lives, including improving many aspects of our health. In this volume, Ruggles suggests that a new, urgent effort is needed to refocus the direction of architecture and art to include the quality of beauty as a fundamental, overarching theme in two of humanity’s most important fields of endeavor—the built and artistic environments.
 
“Since the beginning of time,” Ruggles notes, people have “looked for certain patterns and a balance of space. . . . There is a deep-seated need for beauty and when that need is filled, a sense of safety and comfort is created.” In Beauty, Neuroscience and Architecture Ruggles draws on more than fifty years of architectural experience to delve into the forces behind the transformative emotion of beauty. Focusing on new discoveries in the science of the mind and neuroscience, as well as recent developments in ­fractal geometry theory, microbiology, and psychology, Ruggles leads the reader on a journey through architectural and art history to discover the importance of patterns in our perception of beauty—and its emotional content.