Christopher Alexander Quotes

Christopher Alexander — American Architect born on October 04, 1936,

Christopher Wolfgang Alexander is an architect noted for his theories about design as well as over 200 building projects around the world. Reasoning that users know more about the buildings they need than any architect could, he produced and validated a "pattern language" to empower anyone to design and build at any scale. He moved from England to the United States in 1958, living and teaching in Berkeley, California from 1963. Currently an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Alexander lives in Arundel, England... (wikipedia)

I believe that all centers that appear in space - whether they originate in biology, in physical forces, in pure geometry, in color - are alike simply in that they all animate space. It is this animated space that has its functional effect upon the world, that determines the way things work, that governs the presence of harmony and life.

But in practice master plans fail - because they create totalitarian order, not organic order. They are too rigid; they cannot easily adapt to the natural and unpredictable changes that inevitably arise in the life of a community.

In short, no pattern is an isolated entity. Each pattern can exist in the world only to the extent that is supported by other patterns: the larger patterns in which it is embedded, the patterns of the same size that surround it, and the smaller patterns which are embedded in it.

Nowadays, the process of growth and development almost never seems to manage to create this subtle balance between the importance of the individual parts, and the coherence of the environment as a whole. One or the other always dominates.

We define organic order as the kind of order that is achieved when there is a perfect balance between the needs of the parts, and the needs of the whole.

Christopher Alexander Quotes

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