Christopher W. Alexander > Quotes

“Within this process, every individual act of building is a process in which space gets differentiated. It is not a process of addition, in which preformed parts are combined to create a whole, but a process of unfolding, like the evolution of an embryo, in which the whole precedes the parts, and actually gives birth to them, by splitting.”
― Christopher W. Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building

“fundamental view of the world. It says that when you build a thing you cannot merely build that thing in isolation, but must also repair the world around it, and within it, so that the larger world at that one place becomes more coherent, and more whole; and the thing which you make takes its place in the web of nature, as you make it.”
― Christopher W. Alexander, A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction

“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 W. Alexander, A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction

“towns and buildings will not be able to become alive, unless they are made by all the people in society, and unless these people share a common pattern language, within which to make these buildings, and unless this common pattern language is alive itself.”
― Christopher W. Alexander, A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction

“A digital computer is essentially a huge army of clerks, equipped with rule books, pencil and paper, all stupid and entirely without initiative, but able to follow millions of precisely defined operations. The difficulty lies in handing over the rule book.”
― Christopher W. Alexander

“Indeed, in the sense I shall now try to describe, architecture did actually fail from the very moment of its inception. With the invention of a teachable discipline called "architecture," the old process of making form was adulterated and its chances of success destroyed.”
― Christopher W. Alexander, Notes on the Synthesis of Form

“One of the most moving moments in my life, was also one of the most ordinary. I was with a friend in Denmark. We were having strawberries for tea, and I noticed that she sliced the strawberries very very fine, almost like paper. Of course, it took longer than usual, and I asked her why she did it. When you eat a strawberry, she said, the taste of it comes from the open surfaces you touch. The more surfaces there are, the more it tastes. The finer I slice the strawberries, the more surfaces there are.”
― Christopher W. Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building

“from an estimate of the global population in the year 2000, which is anticipated to rise to the 10,000 million mark, I suggest that we should be thinking in terms of an ideal regional state at something around ten million, or between five and fifteen million, to give greater flexibility. This would furnish the U.N. with an assembly of equals of 1000 regional representatives: a body that would be justified in claiming to be truly representative of the world’s population.”
― Christopher W. Alexander, A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction

“Indeed, in the sense I shall now try to describe, architecture did actually fail from the very moment of its inception. With the invention of a
teachable discipline called "architecture," the old process of making form was adulterated and its chances of success destroyed.”
― Christopher W. Alexander, Notes on the Synthesis of Form

“light on two sides” was a tenet of the old Beaux Arts design tradition.)”
― Christopher W. Alexander, A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction