People and places: essay five
Beauty, well-being and
prosperity
Bonnie Greer
Contents
Published in 2010 by the Commission for
Architecture and the Built Environment.
Graphic design by CABE
Cover photo: Beaumont Leys and Stocking
Farm Sure Start, Leicestershire by Groundworks
Architects © Joe D Miles
The views expressed in this publication are the
author’s and do not neccessarily reflect those of
CABE.
Introduction
5
A study of beauty 7
What does beauty mean to us?
12
About the author
16
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influencing and inspiring, we work to create
welldesigned, welcoming places.
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3
The Parthenon, Athens, Greece © Flickr/ roblisameehan
Introduction
Beauty is a
necessary
component
of our very
existence
We have a notion of beauty as something frivolous:
a tool for the indolent; the domain of the rich,
the powerful; and of those lucky enough to see
it or have it. But beauty is more than that; it is a
necessary component of our very existence.
We are hardwired to respond to beauty. Our love of
beauty has evolved, specifically its little sister ‘cute’.
The big eyes, fat cheeks, and round body of the
human infant encourage us to care for our young.
If we did not consider babies beautiful, we would
leave them to die.
One of prehistoric human’s responses to the
animal life around them was to etch and paint these
animals on the walls of their caves. Making them
into art and rendering them beautiful was a natural
response – a way to help make sense of a hostile
and confusing world.
Certain clans in sub-Saharan Africa celebrate male
beauty. The men prance and parade in front of the
womenfolk, preening openly in a bid to attract and
win them as wives. For them, male beauty is a sign
of reproductive success.
We do the same thing but call it sport…or war. In
ancient Britain, tribes sang songs of praise to the
beauty of their chief which signified the wellbeing of
the gods and therefore blessings and success for
the people.
Before the Reformation, churches, monasteries,
4
5
A study of beauty
Mathematicians
use the word
‘beauty’ more
than artists.
cathedrals and other places of worship in England,
Scotland and Wales, were full of intense colour.
Making these places transmitters of beauty aided
and encouraged worship – colour and glorious
statuary stimulated contemplation, prayer, silence,
peace, and pleasure. It could be argued that the
consequences of the iconoclasm wreaked such
havoc that the destruction of the statues and the
whitewashing of the walls still echo through the
British psyche.
Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth – Gloriana
– used beauty as symbols not only of their special
destiny and that of their upstart dynasty, the Tudors,
but also of England: Shakespeare’s ‘green and
pleasant land’ and the island that held the world
together.
Nature itself uses beauty. Bees are born in
Fibonacci numbers, a sequence that is incredibly
beautiful to scientists and beekeepers – it stretches
into infinity and applies to everything from biology
to economics and vulcanology. Fibonacci is well
known to lay people because it is beautiful, and
because it is the golden mean – the great equation
embedded in every heroic structure in ancient
Greece.
6
Endangered native species of plants and insects
have recently been given English names by the
public. The conservationists who created the
contest to name these species believed that if
people could come up with names they thought
were beautiful, then they would notice these
species, conserve them and love them.
These were ordinary people naming species of
plants and insects – not poets or lyricists – who,
when challenged, created names with a level of
whimsical artifice worthy of the characters in A
midsummer’s night dream. From now on, a species
found exclusively near Windsor Castle will be
known not only by its Latin name, but also by its
new name, The Queen’s Executioner, while another
is to be called Witches Whiskers.
By asking the public to name plants and insects,
conservationists tapped into a wellspring lying
dormant within those who chose to take part. It is
obvious that making up beautiful names to describe
the beauty surrounding them had meaning for those
involved.
Beauty means something to mathematicians as
well. They often use the word more than artists.
Beauty is an essential component of an equation
and one of the factors that determines its success.
And like the face that a baby responds to, beauty
in a set of numbers implies its own kind of health –
that the theory or equation is true.
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Beauty is both concrete and abstract, nameable
and quantifiable, and impossible to name or to
quantify. Questions about beauty are difficult to
set, and difficult to respond to, because it exists
at such a subliminal level for most people. Yet, as
the indigenous population ages newer populations
increasingly define society; and as the generational
differences in notions of beauty become more
evident, investigations into the existence and
qualities of beauty, as well as its necessity, become
more urgent.
Questions asked in a study by the Commission
for Architecture and the Built Environment
(CABE) investigate the demand for a society that
understands and provides beauty for everyone. And
this research is a revelation to me in that it provides
a way to roadmap a kind of aesthetic.
The research was undertaken in Sheffield, a
city undergoing immense change and a perfect
microcosm of the nation. Above all, beauty for the
respondents is overwhelmingly bound up with the
natural environment; a surprising response from the
residents of a major city.
The natural environment, its enjoyment and its
accessibility, are seen as essential to wellbeing
– and as a right. This ultimately has great
consequences for central government as it cannot
leave this right to volunteerism or localism alone
– these will not ensure the universal and equal
access to beauty that is essential.
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Universal and
equal access to
beauty that is
essential.
‘For example, you’ll be out in the fresh air and you’ll
see the trees and birds and then you’ll hear singing
and it makes you stop and listen and as you’re
doing that you’re feeling calmer and enjoying the
moment a bit more and…do I need to go on?’
The fact is that most of the people featured in the
research feel most comfortable with nature. The
natural environment rates highly in Sheffield as a
place where everyone can and should experience
beauty. Experience is the most popular method
of accessing beauty – the ability to have an
environment in which they can receive the best of
what that it has to give.
Memory comprises one of the most powerful
components of beauty for the people of Sheffield.
The research tells the story of Paul, who takes us to
an area which he believes most people would see
as ‘an absolute dump’, but is where he escapes to
find calm and peace.
And it is full of memories. It is here – through nature
and memory – that he experiences beauty.
Another participant talks about the importance
of memory in his relationship with the estate
where his family lived before it was emptied for
redevelopment. The report reads, ‘Jack talked about
the community feeling that existed with everyone
saying “hello” to each other and the difference
it made to the area which now feels hauntingly
empty’.
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And it is not only nature which provides beauty
through memory. Some participants see
Hillsborough, Sheffield Wednesday’s stadium, as a
place of beauty because of their memories.
Beauty is
bound up with
the emotional
and historical
characteristics
of a place.
The research also asks which areas of Sheffield
were considered more or less beautiful. Most
responses were based on the emotional and
historical characteristics of a place: ‘People
would refer to the look and feel of a place and the
aesthetic appeal, or lack of. This was often tied up
with how the place was seen in more holistic terms
(the people, memories, crime ratings). This made it
hard for people to see beyond this to see a building
or area simply for the materials it was made with, or
architectural details.’
for participants. Without natural light, places were
seen as gloomy, depressing and unappealing –
pity was in fact expressed for anyone who cannot
access natural light.
‘It’s about a whole feeling isn’t it? That moment
between everyday life and taking time out, when
you can stop and sit somewhere nice for a bit.
That’s why I like Peace Gardens or Winter Gardens
and places like that. Places that are away from
hustle and bustle, more peace and quiet. I can
enjoy the city more when I’m there, surrounded
by green. It puts me in a good mood, makes me
comfortable.’
Comfort and calm in the built environment create
beauty for many of those surveyed. Yet many of
those under 45 were more likely to find beauty in
fashion, people and in consumer products than in
the countryside.
The built environment, as well as memories, must
contain some of the qualities of nature for the
residents of Sheffield to consider it beautiful –
natural light and the use of natural light was crucial
© Flickr/Xurble (Gareth Simpson)
10
11
What does beauty mean to us?
Some people featured in the research consider
their homes as places of beauty, but only if they are
new and ‘worth something’. A new home provides a
measure of how far they have come from the local
estate – and that trajectory itself is a measure and
statement of beauty.
The answers to the principal research questions,
‘what does beauty mean to you as an individual?’
and ‘what does beauty mean for places and
communities?’, show that beauty creates calm,
engenders neighbourliness and co-operation, and
even affects crime statistics.
So beauty seems to counter the vicious cycle
of demotivation and inaction for the people of
Sheffield, and aids the essential component of our
very humanity: meaning. The distinguished writer
on religion, Karen Armstrong, believes that we are
‘meaning-seeking creatures’. Humans cannot thrive
without meaning.
Look around you: the depressed, the dispossessed,
and the jobless often say that their lives have no
meaning. The ability to extract meaning from our
existence in this transient, fragile, dangerous world,
and impart it to our lives, is one of our species’
distinguishing traits. And it is through beauty that
we impart meaning to others: the recent explosion
of violence in Northern Ireland during the marching
season, and the sanctification of a killer on
Facebook, are all recent indications of a society in
search of meaning.
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The ability
to extract
meaning from
our existence
and impart it to
our lives is one
of our species’
distinguishing
traits.
For me, the research identified two potential crises
that beauty will have to address and which only
central government can tackle. One of the most
striking discoveries is that beauty matters less for
the black and ethnic minority poor than it does
for their counterparts in the majority community.
This indicates a major disconnect with potentially
catastrophic consequences – does beauty matter
less, or not at all, to these communities because
it is not defined by them? If so, this implies
that beauty is considered by central and local
government, municipalities, funders, the media, and
opinion-formers as overwhelmingly Eurocentric.
In other words, to black people and other ethnic
minority communities, beauty is overwhelmingly ‘not
them’.
Could these communities therefore see beauty as
defined and determined outside of themselves?
And, if so, what does this mean in terms of how
they access and relate to beauty, and do they feel
a part of the general conversation about beauty?
What does it mean for all of us if a significant,
and growing, segment of the body politic feels
completely out of the loop?
If this conclusion is true, does it mean that ethnic
minorities are being denied the comforts that
beauty gives to others? And the country in which
they were born is depriving them of meaning,
that essential component without which a host of
ailments – physical, mental, social and spiritual –
present themselves.
13
The other looming crisis is this: according to the
report, young people are more likely to take their
notions of beauty from the media, which causes
a more people-orientated response to questions
about beauty – making beauty, possibly, more
homogenised and open to control as a result.
This collective versus individual aspect – the
collective was more common in those over 45 –
lays the ground for a clash of generations which will
have to be anticipated and managed.
We are in an era in which the young, in particular,
are creating a world that exists largely indoors.
What will happen within the consciousness of a
population who, at present, perceive beauty as
having to do with nature, fresh air and calm?
There could be an intra- and extra-generational
collision clash around the collective agreement,
made evident in the research, that classical – that
which was created or built before the 21st Century
– is considered more beautiful than the modern.
What will happen to architecture if the younger
generation are disconnected from architecture and
never notice buildings?
How does a nation go forward if the built
environment is not connected with the needs of
a mobile, more IT-orientated culture? What will
happen to the natural environment if, as far as this
generation is concerned, nature is not really seen?
14
Government
and politicians
need to
engage with,
understand
and protect
beauty
More community participation in planning
decisions will help. And this will become crucial
as the generational divide becomes more evident.
Participation mediated by experts and professionals
is needed to find a common language and a mutual
way of moving forward. New technologies using
social networking can be used to create a ‘We
Generation’ that can cross those generational
boundaries and bring people together around
conservation, making the built environment better.
The questions and responses in the report present
possible consequences that are urgent and new.
The need for government and politicians to look
at, engage with, understand, promote and protect
beauty is apparent.
It is clear from CABE’s research that government
would benefit from knowing more about why beauty
matters to people and what it means to them. This
research allowed the public to speak directly about
its understanding of and need for beauty. And in
these times of austerity, more than ever, citizens
need not only to survive, but to thrive. Beauty
therefore becomes not just an abstract notion but
a necessity, a portal through which the nation can
understand and maintain wellbeing, prosperity,
growth, relevance, competitiveness and, above all,
meaning.
15
Bonnie Greer thinks that an
understanding of beauty lies
at the heart of our culture.
But, she argues, the cultural
significance of beauty does
not lie in appearance, but in
helping us to find meaning.
Government at every level
has much to gain from
understanding why beauty
matters to people.
About the author
Bonnie Greer OBE was born in Chicago where
she studied playwriting with David Mamet. She also
studied playwriting at the Actors Studio in New
York City with the late Elia Kazan. She is an awardwinning playwright, and critic, and has published
two novels and a memoir and political analysis,
Obama Music. Her book on the African American
poet/activist Langston Hughes Langston Hughes,
The Value Of Contradiction will be published
in 2011. Her opera Yes will be produced at the
Lindbury Theatre, part of the Royal Opera House’s
“Operashots” season. She is Deputy Chair of the
British Museum and on the Boards of RADA and
the Serpentine Gallery.
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