When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in .

You've reached your limit of one free article.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime .

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Exclusive International news coverage

Ad-free experience NEW

Weekly digital Magazine NEW

9 daily & weekly Newsletters

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Free trial

30-days free access, then $2.90
per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
CLARIN

How Architecture Can Lift Our Mood And Boost The Bottom Line

Empire State of mind.
Empire State of mind.
Miguel Jurado

-Analysis-

BUENOS AIRES — We seem to have forgotten how architecture can affect us and for that, perhaps, we can blame some of the excessive statements made about it. Consider Leon Battista Alberti, an early theorist of Renaissance architecture, who declared in 1400 that the balance of classical forms could turn barbarian invaders into civilized citizens. Was that wishful thinking? If you think Leon can be excused for his belief because he was from such a distant past — when people did and said silly things — let me point out that, at the start of the 20th century, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who counts the Guggenheim museum in New York among his many emblematic works, said that good architecture could save the United States from corruption.

This and other nonsensical claims have made us all forget a basic thing: that architecture does affect psychology.

The topic became relevant again eight years ago, almost fortuitously, when British researchers found one of the links between architecture, city planning and people. Apparently a 10-minute walk along one of the main roads in southern London put psychotic patients in a worse state of mind although I am confident a 10-minute walk along two of our own capital's shopping streets, Florida and nearby Lavalle, would worsen any psychotic case and prompt a psychotic symptom or two among the sane.

The Australian architect Jan Golembiweski, who is a specialist in how environmental factors affect mental health at Sidney University, has found that a positive environment can inspire good mental health. In one study, he concluded that people with psychological problems reacted far more often to bad environments than the mentally healthy.

The impact of architecture can be greater when the scale is larger. Robert Moses, a planner working in New York from the 1930s, built highways, avenues, bridges and his famous parkways for the exclusive use of cars. In addition to their aesthetic quality, these areas prevented buses (and their lower-class passengers) traveling to exclusive destinations like the Jones Beach State Park, which itself was another one of his crafty projects.

Many believe that this champion of discrimination learned many of his city planning tricks from Baron Haussmann, the mid-19th century official who helped reshape Paris into a city of boulevards. The aim behind creating the wide axes often leading to some grand monument, as conceived by emperor Napoleon III, was to put a permanent, preventive end to street revolutions. The wide boulevards effectively made it difficult to build barricades or obstruct the army and their construction opened up excellent real estate opportunities.

While architecture can influence people's moods, the correlation is presently no more scientific than the realm of color therapy: light colors make you happy, dark ones sad, yellow and green are soothing, red is a stimulant and the like. But as we have seen, city planning can be a potent instrument of control and discrimination.

Architectural psychology is already being used every day in the design of shops, hotels, casinos and parks. Design is now known to influence customers after observing the behavior of visitors at Disney's big shopping outlets. The data these observations yielded led store managers to systematically relocate mirrors, piles of cans, posters or seats.

The researcher William Poundstone has stated that the U.S. firm Sorensen Associates uses tracking devices on supermarket trolleys to see what customers do. The firm reportedly observed that shoppers circulating anti-clockwise are, on average, likely to spend $2 more per supermarket trip than customers moving clockwise. That led supermarkets to put entrances on the righthand side to prompt this pattern of movement and, ultimately, ensure their owners became wealthier. Just one of the many uses of architectural psychology.

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

FOCUS: Israel-Palestine War

Wartime And Settlements: Preview Of Israel's Post-Netanyahu Era

Heated debate in Israel and abroad over the increase in the budget for settlements in the occupied West Bank is a reminder that wartime national unity will not outlast a deep ideological divide.

photo of people in a road with an israeli flag

A July photo of Jewish settlers in Nablus, West Bank.

Nasser Ishtayeh/SOPA Images via ZUMA
Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

PARIS — During wartime, the most divisive issues are generally avoided. Not in Israel though, where national unity does not prevent ideological divisions from breaking through into the public space.

Benny Gantz, a longtime Benjamin Netanyahu nemesis, who became a member of the War Cabinet after October 7, criticized the government's draft budget on Monday. It may sound trivial, but his target was the increased spending allocated for Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. Gantz felt that all resources should go towards the war effort or supporting the suffering economy — not the settlers.

For the latest news & views from every corner of the world, Worldcrunch Today is the only truly international newsletter. Sign up here.

The affair did not go unnoticed internationally. Josep Borrell, the European High Representative for Foreign Policy, said that he was "appalled" by this spending on settlers in the middle of this war.

Keep reading...Show less

The latest