Metropolis Magazine:
How the ?Happiness Industry? Is Changing Architecture
7 May 2019
FG: The exhibition has a precise chronological moment - the ten years between 2008 and 2018. It is true that this weird entity of "happiness," as we are defining it, was happening in the early '90s. That is the moment it began to be marketed in a new way, as a set of positive emotions to be used as an asset. Will Davies's book The Happiness Industry describes the story very well. In 2008 you have the economic crisis. You have figures like Richard Layard, considered one of the main figures in the U.K. behind the World Happiness Reports. Then there was the Stiglitz Commission's report, which suggested a political strategy to go beyond GDP. At the same time you have the release of the first iPhone, which makes data collection very easy but also allows us to track our own lives. These are just a few points, but the exhibition reads this moment very critically.
The World Happiness Report 2019, produced by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). Editors John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard, Jeffrey Sachs.