A Vision of a Living World

The Nature of Order #3

by Christopher W. Alexander

In Book 3 of this four-volume work, Alexander presents hundreds of his own buildings and those of other contemporaries who have used methods consistent with the theory of living process.

Nearly seven hundred pages of projects, built and planned in many countries over a thirty-year period, illustrate the impact of living process on the world. The book provides the reader with an intuitive feel for the kind of world, its style and geometry, which is needed to generate living structure in the world and its communities, together with its ecological and natural character.

The projects include public buildings, neighborhoods, housing built by people for themselves, public urban space, rooms, gardens, ornament, colors, details of construction and construction innovation. The many buildings shown, and the methods needed to design and build these buildings, define living structure in a practical way that can be understood and copied.

". . . Alexander's approach presents a fundamental challenge to us and our style-obsessed age. It suggests that a beautiful form can come about only through a process that is meaningful to people. It also implies that certain types of processes, regardless of when they occur or who does them, can lead to certain types of forms."-Thomas Fisher, former editor of Progressive Architecture.

Christopher Alexander is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, architect, builder, and author of many books and technical papers. He is the winner of the first medal for research ever awarded by the American Institute of Architects, and Emeritus Professor of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught for 40 years.

Genres: Architecture, Design, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Science, Art, Urbanism

682 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2002

About the author

Christopher Wolfgang John Alexander was an Austrian-born British-American architect and design theorist. He was an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His theories about the nature of human-centered design have affected fields beyond architecture, including urban design, software, and sociology. Alexander designed and personally built over 100 buildings, both as an architect and a general contractor.

In software, Alexander is regarded as the father of the pattern language movement. The first wiki—the technology behind Wikipedia—led directly from Alexander's work, according to its creator, Ward Cunningham. Alexander's work has also influenced the development of agile software development.

In architecture, Alexander's work is used by a number of different contemporary architectural communities of practice, including the New Urbanist movement, to help people to reclaim control over their own built environment. However, Alexander was controversial among some mainstream architects and critics, in part because his work was often harshly critical of much of contemporary architectural theory and practice.

Reviews

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a perfect example of a book to read right as going to bed. A book of reasonably true fairy tales for architecture nerds, where everything gets built exactly right, starting from the shape of public space and slowly working downwards in scale until concluding on color. It's compelling, beautiful, and just the right amount of strange to start one's journey into the world of dreams.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterclass on the process of architectural unfolding. A compendium of a huge array of Alexander's built works, detailing elements of process and decisions across all the levels of scale from the shape outdoor space and building mass all the way down to the subtlest choice of pigments that ornament a tile floor, a kitchen wall, or a bedroom alcove.

In some ways, it is a tragic joy. Alexander shows the possibility of such a beauty that we can create and bring forth in our world. Its naive and unconcerned simplicity highlights a near-incomprehensible gap between what is possible and feels whole and alive, and what is prized by our current architectural and developmental orthodoxy.

[Private Account · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book is 4 stars, gets an extra star because the ideas are so interesting and important and different.

"The life of any center only comes about when this center is making life in some larger center."

[Robert Paterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part of a 4 part series that I value the most of all the books I own

[Paul Brooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every book in this series is an Ars Magnum in it's own right. Alexander does it again!

[David Hunter · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little too long and repetitive. The first two volumes are great, but this felt too bloated.