CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER

CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDERChristopher Alexander was born in Vienna, Austria, and raised in Oxford and Chichester, England. He graduated from Cambridge University, where he studied Mathematics and Architecture. He then obtained a Ph. D. in Architecture at Harvard University.

For his Ph. D. Thesis, later published as the book Notes on the Synthesis of Form, he was awarded the first Gold Medal for Research by the American Institute of Architects.

Since 1963 he has been Professor of Architecture at the University of California at Berkeley, and Director of the Center for Environmental Structure. In 1980, Professor Alexander was elected member of the Swedish Royal Academy; and in 1996 he was elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Christopher Alexander is a Trustee of the Prince of Wales's Institute of Architecture.

PUBLICATIONS

Dr. Alexander is the author of numerous books and papers. He has initiated a new approach to architectural thinking, in which the same set of laws determines the structure of a city; a building; or a single room. He has spent most of his life in searching for these laws.

His approach to solving this universal problem takes advantage of scientific reasoning, and totally opposes other, unscientific approaches based on fashion, ideology, or arbitrary personal preferences. This is so different from the way architecture has been taught since the second world war that it causes conflicts with established architectural schools.

Alexander offers definitive solutions to the problems of urban architecture and design. It is a great pity that these were not adopted when first published. Fortunately, a small number of his ideas have been incorporated into the "New Urbanism". Nevertheless, this very recent movement by no means represents a wholesale application of his results.

Alexander has actually abstracted the process by which organic and inorganic forms evolve -- which is the same process that governs the growth of a city. These results lie at the basis of how matter organizes itself coherently, and are the opposite of the modern planning approach in which grids, zones, roads, and buildings, based on some preconceived design on paper, are imposed on human activity.

Some of Alexander's key publications are:

1. Christopher Alexander, Notes on the Synthesis of Form (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1964).

2. Christopher Alexander, A city is not a tree, Architectural Forum 122 April (1965)

3. C. Alexander, S. Ishikawa, M. Silverstein, M. Jacobson, I. Fiksdahl-King and S. Angel, A Pattern Language (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977).

4. C. Alexander, H. Neis, A. Anninou and I. King, A New Theory of Urban Design (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).

5. Christopher Alexander, The Nature of Order (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).

PHILOSOPHICAL CONTRIBUTIONSAlexander's architectural writings at the same time develop a philosophy of nature and life. He proposes a more profound connection between nature and the human mind than is presently allowed either in science, or in architecture.

Alexander sees the universe as a coherent whole, encompassing feelings as well as inanimate matter. This strongly Taoist viewpoint was first developed in his book The Timeless Way of Building (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979). To some readers, this is a book on architecture written in a philosophical style; to many others, it is a book on philosophy with architectural examples.

A large number of people have embraced the philosophy of the Timeless Way of Building, finding in it universal truths on how man interacts with the world. Towards the end of his life, the philosopher and teacher J. J. Krishnamurti enjoyed having sections from the Timeless Way read to him each evening.

In both the Timeless Way and the Pattern Language, there are sections of text in which the language itself assumes a peculiarly imprecise, poetic quality. It is exactly at those instances, when Alexander the mathematician appears to be abandoning his customary precision, that Alexander the philosopher is communicating on an entirely different and more fundamentally emotional level.

The unconventional syntax he employs is merely a means of conveying deeper philosophical meanings. (It helps to read those passages aloud). Some people readily find a spiritual content in his works. From such people, who may be otherwise indifferent to either architecture, or computer science, Alexander has won a deep and lasting respect.Many of the patterns in the Pattern Language provide guiding points for Alexander's philosophy. There is an emphasis throughout on the potential of the individual; the importance of a spiritual connection to the built world; the need for cooperation among people; the empowerment of individuals or small groups of people to shape their environment. All of this is elaborated further in the forthcoming The Nature of Order, and has far-reaching social and political implications which may be alarming to some and inspiring to others.

Alexander insists that his philosophy is inseparable from his architectural theories. This point worries architects used to doing things in a certain way, as it does potential clients who think conservatively.

Some of Alexander's staunchest supporters argue that, in order to facilitate their adoption, his architectural method ought to be decoupled from the accompanying philosophy. After all, in an imperfect world, every architectural project represents a series of compromises.

Alexander warns against a superficial application of his method that misses the fundamental point. He has stressed repeatedly in his writings that achieving coherence between built forms and people has to be accompanied by changes in our basic outlook.

CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STRUCTURE SERIES

Christopher Alexander and his colleagues at the Center for Environmental Structure have published a major statement in the form of three books - The Timeless way of Building, The Oregon Experiment, and this book, A Pattern Language which will, in their words, "lay the basis for an entirely new approach to architecture, building and planning, which will we hope replace existing ideas and practices entirely." Volume I, The Timeless Way of Building, lays the foundation of the series. It presents a new theory of architecture, building, and planning which forms the basis for a new traditional post-industrial architecture, created by the people. Volume 2, A Pattern Language, is a working document for such architecture. It is an archetypal language which allows lay persons to design for themselves.

"I believe this to be perhaps the most important book on architectural design published this century. Every library, every school, every environmental action group, every architect, and every first-year student should have a copy."

Tony Ward, Architectural Design

Volume 3, The Oregon Experiment, shows how this theory may be implemented, describing a new planning process for the University of Oregon.At the core of these books is the idea that people should design for themselves their own houses, streets, and communities. This idea may be radical (it implies a radical transformation of the architectural profession) but it comes simply from the observation that most of the wonderful places of the world were not made by architects but by the people.At the core of the books too is the point that in designing their environments people always rely on certain "languages," which, like the languages we speak, allow them to articulate and communicate an infinite variety of designs within a formal system which gives them coherence.This book provides a language of this kind. It will enable a person to make a design for almost any kind of building, or any part of the built environment.This book can be used to design a house for yourself with your family; you can use it to work with your neighbours to improve your town and neighbourhood; you can use it to design an office, or a workshop, or a public building. And you can use it to guide you in the actual process of construction.

"Patterns," the units of this language, are answers to design problems (How high should a window sill be? How many stories should a building have? How much space in a neighbourhood should be devoted to grass and trees?). More than 250 of the patterns in this pattern language are given: each consists of a problem statement, a discussion of the problem with an illustration, and a solution. As the authors say in their introduction, many of the patterns are archetypal, so deeply rooted in the nature of things that it seems likely that they will be a part of human nature, and human action, as much in five hundred years as they are today.

A PATTERN LANGUAGE: TOWNS, BUILDINGS, CONSTRUCTION. "One of the great books of the century" About the authors:Christopher Alexander, winner of the first medal for research ever awarded by the American Institute of Architects, is a practising architect and builder, Professor of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and head of the Center for Environmental Structure. Sara Ishikawa is a licensed architect, and Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of California. Murray Silverstein also teaches at the University of California and has written several articles on pattern languages. Max Jacobson has a Ph.D. in architecture and also teaches at the University of California. Ingrid Fiksdahl King is an architect and painter. Shlomo Angel has a Ph.D. in city planning and now teaches at the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok. The six of them, together with others, have worked for eight years to write this book.

Alexander tried to show that architecture connects people to their surroundings in an infinite number of ways, most of which are subconscious. For this reason, it was important to discover what works; what feels pleasant; what is psychologically nourishing; what attracts rather than repels. These solutions, found in much of vernacular architecture, were abstracted and synthesized into the "Pattern Language" about 20 years ago.

Unfortunately, although he did not say it then, it was obvious that contemporary architecture was pursuing design goals that are almost the opposite of what was discovered in the pattern language.

For this reason, anyone could immediately see that Alexander's findings invalidated most of what practicing architects were doing at that time. The Pattern Language was identified as a serious threat to the architectural community. It was consequently suppressed. Attacking it in public would only give it more publicity, so it was carefully and off-handedly dismissed as irrelevant in architecture schools, professional conferences and publications.

Now, 20 years later, computer scientists have discovered that the connections underlying the Pattern Language are indeed universal, as Alexander had originally claimed. His work has achieved the highest esteem in computer science.

Alexander himself has spent the last twenty years in providing scientific support for his findings, in a way that silences all criticism. He will publish this in the forthcoming four-volume work entitled "The Nature of Order". His new results draw support from complexity theory, fractals, neural networks, and many other disciplines on the cutting edge of science.

After the publication of this new work, our civilization has to seriously question why it has ignored the Pattern Language for so long, and to face the blame for the damage that it has done to our cities, neighborhoods, buildings, and psyche by doing so.

The second of three books published by the Center for Environmental Structure to provide a "working alternative to our present ideas about architecture, building, and planning," A Pattern Language offers a practical language for building and planning based on natural considerations. The reader is given an overview of some 250 patterns that are the units of this language, each consisting of a design problem, discussion, illustration, and solution. By understanding recurrent design problems in our environment, readers can identify extant patterns in their own design projects and use these patterns to create a language of their own. Alexander and his co-authors present us with over two hundred (roughly 250) "patterns" that they believe must be present in order for an environment to be pleasing, comfortable, or in their words, "alive." The patterns start at the most general level -- the first pattern, "Independent Regions," describes the ideal political entity, while another , "Mosaic of Subcultures," described the proper distribution of different groups within a city. The patterns gradually become more specific -- you'll read arguments about how universities should relate to the community, the proper placement of parks, the role of cafes in a city's life. If you wonder about the best design for a home, the authors will describe everything from how roofs and walls should be built, down to how light should fall within the home, where your windows should be placed, and even the most pleasant variety of chairs in the home. An underlying theme of all the patterns is that architecture, at its best, can be used to foster meaningful human interaction, and the authors urge us to be aware of how the houses we build can help us balance needs for intimacy and privacy. They admit that they are uncertain about some of the patterns -- they indicate their degree of certainty using a code of asterisks placed before the pattern. For each pattern, the authors summarize the pattern in a brief statement printed in boldface, and then describe it at length, drawing upon a variety of sources to give us a full sense of what they mean: these "supporting sources" include an excerpt from a Samuel Beckett novel, papers in scholarly journals, newspaper clippings, etc. Most patterns are accompanied by a photograph (many of them beautiful and fascinating in their own right) and all are illustrated by small, casual hand-drawings. Taken together, "A Pattern Language" is an extraordinarily rich text, visually and conceptually.

"A Pattern Language" has changed the way people look at buildings and neighborhoods -- this book has you attuned to what works, and what doesn't work, in the human environment. You are constantly realizing things about buildings and streets that this book helps you see -- things that make people feel at home, or feel "alive," in their surroundings, or conversely, things that make people uncomfortable. And the book makes you think differently about life because it shows you how our well-being depends so much upon the way our buildings fit, or don't fit, us as unique individuals.