this week a few lucky people were given a great opportunity to hear the famous austrian designer stefan sagmeister speak about beauty at angewandte innovation lab. sagmeister told attendees that beautiful things work better and have a more positive effect on our wellbeing. he demonstrated this theory using a number of examples from new york, where he has been living for more than 25 years. a twitter mood-board demonstrated that our environment has a strong influence on us. it was clear to see that the mood of new yorkers was worse near the rather ugly penn station, while people often felt much better around the much more beautiful grand central station. creating a beautiful piece of art under a bridge in dumbo brookly converted this rather unattractive, smelly and dirty place into a tourist attraction and a popular backdrop for freshly married couples. the recently redesigned high-line became such a beautiful and harmonic place, with not one single crime having been reported from there. like happiness, beauty is a very broad concept, nevertheless stefan added a number of surprising and mind-blowing viewpoints.

thank you stefan for this great talk and for having a tabtag glowing on your macbook!!!