Christopher Alexander Quotes

Quotes about:

Design Environment Giving Harmony Quality

Most of the wonderful places in the world were not made by architects but by the people.

Christopher Alexander

People, World, Wonderful

Christopher Alexander (1975). “The Oregon Experiment”, p.206, Oxford University Press, USA

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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.

Christopher Alexander

World, Patterns, Size

Christopher Alexander (1977). “A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction”, p.13, Oxford University Press

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There is a myth, sometimes widespread, that a person need only do inner work...that a man is entirely responsible for his own problems; and that to cure himself, he need only change himself....The fact is, a person is so formed by his surroundings, that his state of harmony depends entirely on his harmony with his surroundings.

Christopher Alexander

Happiness, Men, Facts

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The more living patterns there are in a place - a room, a building, or a town - the more it comes to life as an entirety, the more it glows, the more it has that self-maintaining fire which is the quality without a name.

Christopher Alexander

Fire, Self, Names

Christopher Alexander (1979). “The Timeless Way of Building”, p.10, New York : Oxford University Press

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We are searching for some kind of harmony between two intangibles: a form which we have not yet designed and a context which we cannot properly describe.

Christopher Alexander

Two, Design, Kind

Christopher Alexander (1964). “Notes on the Synthesis of Form”, p.26, Harvard University Press

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People are deeply nourished by the process of creating wholeness.

Christopher Alexander

Creating, People, Process

Christopher Alexander, Center for Environmental Structure (2004). “The luminous ground: an essay on the art of building and the nature of the universe”

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To work our way towards a shared language once again, we must first learn how to discover patterns which are deep, and capable of generating life.

Christopher Alexander

Patterns, Way, Firsts

Christopher Alexander (1979). “The Timeless Way of Building”, p.12, New York : Oxford University Press

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In an organic environment, every place is unique, and the different places also cooperate, with no parts left over, to create a global whole - a whole which can be identified by everyone who is part of it.

Christopher Alexander

Unique, Different, Environment

Christopher Alexander (1975). “The Oregon Experiment”, p.11, Oxford University Press, USA

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The specific patterns, out of which a building or a town is made
may be alive or dead. To the extent they are alive, they let our inner
forces loose, and, set us free; but when they are dead they keep
us locked in inner conflict.

Christopher Alexander

Alive, May, Patterns

Christopher Alexander (1979). “The Timeless Way of Building”, p.10, New York : Oxford University Press

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High buildings have no genuine advantages, except in speculative gains for banks and land owners. They are not cheaper, they do not help create open space, they destroy the townscape, they destroy social life, they promote crime, they make life difficult for children, they are expensive to maintain, they wreck the open spaces near them, and they damage light and air and view.

Christopher Alexander

Children, Light, Air

Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein (1977). “A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction”, p.115, Oxford University Press

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All space and matter, organic or inorganic, has some degree of life in it, and matter/space is more alive or less alive according to its structure and arrangement.

Christopher Alexander

Life, Space, Degrees

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Drawings help people to work out intricate relationships between parts.

Christopher Alexander

Inspirational, Relationship, Art

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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.

Christopher Alexander

Order, Practice, Community

Christopher Alexander (1975). “The Oregon Experiment”, p.18, Oxford University Press, USA

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When they have a choice, people will always gravitate to those rooms which have light on two sides, and leave the rooms which are lit only from one side unused and empty.

Christopher Alexander

Light, Two Sides, People

Christopher Alexander (1977). “A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction”, p.747, Oxford University Press

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There is one timeless way of building. It is a thousand years old, and the same today as it has ever been. The great traditional buildings of the past, the villages and tents and temples in which man feels at home, have always been made by people who were very close to the center of this way.

Christopher Alexander

Home, Men, Past

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Every place is given its character by certain patterns of events that keep on happening there. These patterns of events are locked in with certain geometric patterns in the space. Indeed, each building and each town is ultimately made out of these patterns in the space, and out of nothing else; they are the atoms and molecules from which a building or a town is made.

Christopher Alexander

Character, Space, Events

"The Timeless Way of Building". Book by Christopher Alexander, 1979.

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Speaking as a builder, if you start something, you must have a vision of the thing which arises from your instinct about preserving and enhancing what is there.

Christopher Alexander

Vision, Instinct, Arise

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It is possible to make buildings by stringing together patterns, in a rather loose way. A building made like this, is an assembly of patterns. It is not dense. It is not profound. But it is also possible to put patterns together in such a way that many patterns overlap in the same physical space: the building is very dense; it has many meanings captured in a small space; and through this density, it becomes profound.

Christopher Alexander

Space, Profound, Together

Christopher Alexander (1977). “A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction”, p.41, Oxford University Press

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To seek the timeless way we must first know the quality without a name. There is a central quality which is the root criterion of life and spirit in a man, a town, a building, or a wilderness. This quality is objective and precise, but it cannot be named.

Christopher Alexander

Men, Names, Roots

Christopher Alexander (1979). “The Timeless Way of Building”, p.9, New York : Oxford University Press

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The difference between the novice and the master is simply that the novice has not learnt, yet, how to do things in such a way that he can afford to make small mistakes. The master knows that the sequence of his actions will always allow him to cover his mistakes a little further down the line. It is this simple but essential knowledge which gives the work of a master carpenter its wonderful, smooth, relaxed, and almost unconcerned simplicity.

Christopher Alexander

Mistake, Simple, Differences

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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.

Christopher Alexander

Believe, Origin Of Life, Color

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The structure of life I have described in buildings - the structure which I believe to be objective - is deeply and inextricably connected with the human person, and with the innermost nature of human feeling.

Christopher Alexander

Believe, Swag, Feelings

Christopher Alexander, Center for Environmental Structure (2004). “The luminous ground: an essay on the art of building and the nature of the universe”

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Yet still, there are those special secret moments in our lives, when we smile unexpectedly-when all our forces are resolved. A woman can often see these moments in us, better than a man, better than we ourselves, even. When we know these moments, when we smile, when we are not on guard at all-these are the moments when our most important forces show themselves; whatever it is you are doing at such a moment, hold on to it, repeat it-for that certain smile is the best knowledge that we ever have of what our hidden forces are, and where they lie, and how they can be loosed.

Christopher Alexander

Lying, Knowledge, Men

Christopher Alexander (1979). “The Timeless Way of Building”, p.52, New York : Oxford University Press

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In my life as an architect, I found that the single thing which inhibits young professionals, new students most severely, is their acceptance of standards that are too low.

Christopher Alexander

Acceptance, Students, Architect

"Patterns of Software: Tales from the Software Community". Book by Christopher Alexander (Foreword), 1996.

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All matter/space has some degree of "self" in it, and this self, or anyway some aspect of the personal, is something which infuses all matter/space and everything we know as matter but now think to be mechanical.

Christopher Alexander

Thinking, Self, Space

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Born: October 4, 1936
Occupation: Architect
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