DESIGN DIMENSIONS Cultivating ‘hygge’
It was a few years ago during one of my travels that I first heard of “hygge”. It was a trip I made with no real agenda but to come up for air after fulfilling a long to-do list and a string of commitments. I was in a shop browsing through a pile of books that dealt with the subject of well-being, a much-needed antidote for my then state of mind. I picked up a few books and flipped some pages. One of them was “The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living”.
So the term “hygge”, it turned out, is the Danish term for the positive quality of one’s emotional state. It denotes coziness, friendship, conviviality, contentment, security and a quiet inner joy. Derived from “hyggja”, a Germanic term that means “satisfaction”, it is also the word from which our English “hug” is derived, giving us a good insight into what hygge would feel like.
In her book “The Year of Living Danishly”, British writer Helen Russel defines hygge as “taking pleasure in the presence of gentle, soothing things”— more like having a glass of warm milk rather than a shot of whisky. In simple terms, it’s an appreciation of the simple and familiar things. The cultivation of hygge has become such an integral component of the Danish culture that it has been described by Meik Wiking, CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen, as “a defining feature of our cultural identity and an integral part of the national DNA”. It’s no surprise then that Denmark has been voted the happiest place on earth (sorry, Walt Disney) for so many years.
In Scandinavia, hygge is often portrayed with candles and fluffy blankets as it first evolved as a remedy to counter the lonely effects of cold winters.
In other places where the concept of hygge has become popular, there is a contradictory onslaught in the marketing of hygge-inducing accessories and decor for the hygge-conducive space. But all these new merchandise run contrary to its concept of appreciation for the simple and familiar, most of which are already present in our own spaces and probably in our storage bins too. So how does one make way for a hyggeinducing space? Here’s a short list of guidelines.
Hygge is taking pleasure in the simple things, and deliberately cultivating them into your life. In “The Book of Hygge: The Danish Art of Living Well,” author Louisa Thomsen Brits writes: “to hold twilight or watch it darken, describes the pleasure we take in pausing to observe as day slips into night. To stand at our window, wrapped in the half-dark and watch the day disappear... is a moment of hygge.”
This is mine, too. But instead of dusk, my first hygge of the day happens at the crack of dawn, in tranquil solitude, looking out windows designed to be large and to face east, and to take in the hills, the morning sunlight, and the warm glow of the happy day to come. Can you feel the contentment in that?