The Interiors of Happiness: Why We’re Drawn to Certain Aesthetics

What is it that makes us desire certain aesthetics?

Our aesthetic preferences are not random. They mirror how we choose partners: part intuition, part necessity. A quiet negotiation between longing and logic. A dance of compatibility.

In many ways, our aesthetic desires are an attempt to resolve something. An unmet need, a missing feeling, a cultural void we don’t yet have language for. We turn to art, interiors, and furniture the same way we turn to fashion: as a form of self-expression. Not only to the outside world, but—more importantly—to ourselves.

My partner, Zack, often speaks about the principle of Be, Do, Have - not - Have, Do, Be. The idea that we must first become the person capable of holding the life we want before we can truly have it.

Our aesthetic choices reinforce this truth.

To consciously decide what enters your home requires an inward gaze first. Who do I want to be in this space? What does that version of me need to feel grounded, inspired, at ease? Good design asks us to embody the self we are becoming before we make decisions about what surrounds us.

I’m currently reading The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton (hence the influence of this journal’s title). In it, de Botton explores how architecture and aesthetics are shaped by the psychological and emotional deficits of a society.

Referencing Wilhelm Worringer’s essay Abstraction and Empathy, de Botton writes:

“.. values in which the society in question was lacking, for it would love in art whatever it did not possess in sufficient supply within itself. Abstract art, infused as it was with harmony, stillness and rhythm, would appeal chiefly to societies yearning for calm - societies in which law and order were fraying, ideologies were shifting, and a sense of physical danger was compounded by moral and spiritual confusion….. We can conclude from this that we are drawn to call something beautiful whenever we detect that it contains in a concentrated form those qualities in which we personally, or our societies more generally, are deficient. We respect a style which can move us away from what we fear and towards what we crave: a style which carries the correct dosage of our missing virtues.” 

Abstract art, he explains, appeals to societies yearning for calm. Societies where ‘law and order are fraying, ideologies are shifting, and physical danger is compounded by moral and spiritual confusion.’

As an American living in the 2020s, that sentence lands uncomfortably close to home.

We are living inside constant noise: political, digital, emotional. The frequency of crises has become so relentless that numbness feels like a survival strategy. And because of this or in spite of it, the home has taken on a new role. For many of us, it is the only place where safety still feels possible.

Botton notes that in times like these, societies gravitate toward aesthetics rooted in harmony, stillness, and rhythm. This helps explain the dominance of Japanese and Scandinavian minimalism over the past decade. It explains the rise of Le Corbusier and Mies Van der Rohe in the early-mid 20th century as we went through 2 world wars.

But harmony does not have to mean sterility.

Stillness does not have to mean absence.

Rhythm does not have to mean sameness.

“We shouldn't believe that the modern age, which often prides itself on rejecting signs of gentility and leaves walls unplastered and bare, is any less deficient. It is merely lacking different things.” - Alain de Botton

I challenge us to ask: How do we create spaces and lives rooted in harmony, stillness, and rhythm while still expressing individuality?

At Curio Studio, we reject the idea that peace only looks like a white box. 

Our work is about helping clients articulate what they’re craving: psychologically, emotionally, culturally, and translating that into environments that support who they are becoming.

Because happiness is not found in objects.

It’s cultivated through intention.

And the interiors we choose shape far more than we realize.

Love, Sav

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