Alain de Botton "The Architecture of Happiness" In conversation with Christopher Hawthorne, LA Times architecture critic October 12, 2006

Alain de Botton was born in Zurich in 1969 & now lives in London. He is a writer of essayistic books, which refer both to his own experiences & ideas-& those of artists, philosophers & thinkers. It's a style of writing that has been termed a 'philosophy of everyday life.'

His 8 books include How Proust Can Change Your Life; The Art of Travel & The Consolations of Philosophy. A multi-part series on The Art of Travel & The Consolations of Philosophy will be aired on PBS in the summer of 2006.

His most recent book, The Architecture of Happiness, discusses questions of beauty & ugliness in architecture. Much of the book was written at de Botton's home in West London, just near Shepherd's Bush roundabout, one of the uglier man-made places, which nevertheless provided helpful examples of how important it is to get architecture right. The Architecture of Happiness will be aired as a three-part series on PBS in the fall of 2006.

www.alaindebotton.com

Christopher Hawthorne is the architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times, a position he has held since 2004. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Washington Post, Slate, and Metropolis. With Alanna Stang, he is the author of The Green House: New Directions in Sustainable Architecture (Princeton Architectural Press, 2005), and co-curator of an exhibition based on the book running through June 2007 at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. A graduate of Yale University, he has taught at Columbia University and UC Berkeley, and in 1998 was awarded a yearlong fellowship at Columbia's National Arts Journalism Program.

Louise Steinman 213-228-7472

Official Website: http://www.lfla.org/aloud/calendar/