CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER

Christopher Wolfgang Alexander (born October 4, 1936 in

Vienna, Austria) is an architect noted for his theories about
design, and for more than 200 building projects in California,
Japan, Mexico and around the world.
Reasoning that users know more about the buildings they
need than any architect could, he produced and validated a
"pattern language" designed to empower anyone to design and
build at any scale.
Alexander is often overlooked by texts in the history and
theory of architecture because his work intentionally disregards
contemporary architectural discourse. As such, Alexander is
widely considered to occupy a place outside the discipline, the
discourse, and the practice of Architecture.
In 1958 he moved from England to the United States, living
and teaching in Berkeley Californiafrom 1963. He is professor
emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley .Now retired
(though still active), he is based in Arundel, Sussex, UK

He graduated with degrees in mathematics and architecture

from Cambridge University and with a Ph.d in Architecture from
Harvard University. For his doctoral dissertation, Alexander
developed a computer program that attempted to analyze and
create new environments based on logical programmatic
analysis. This interest in creating new environments would
mark all of his future works
Eventually his confidence in mathematical methods as a
basis for better design declined and he utilized empirical
research to create patterns. Disenchanted with computerdriven design, but more than ever interested in what made
certain places work both spatially and psychologically,
Alexander developed a theory of "fit" in terms of what he called
"patterns". This theory suggested a means for creating
successful places that blended application of logic with
collective experience.

Embodied in the books "A Pattern Language" and "The

Oregon Experiment", pattern theory inspired many, but also
failed to consistently lead to beautiful buildings.
In the late 1980's Alexander started to develop a further
theoretical basis for good design based on a careful definition
of "wholeness", or a kind of deep and abiding beauty.
Although most of his buildings have effectively supported his
theories, Alexander has mainly influenced the architectural
profession through his writings and teaching rather than
through his completed buildings. Due to a softening in his
stance, his critics now accuse him of embracing ornamentation
and craft at the expense of modern technology.

A Pattern Language : Towns, Buildings, Construction

Perhaps Alexander's most widely admired and quoted
book. A really valuable resource for refining and inspiring
beautiful and responsible design and good design thinking.
The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth);

Timeless way of building

A New Theory of Urban Design (Center for Environmental
Structure Series, Vol 6) .
The production of houses

The Timeless Way of Building (1979) described the perfection of

use to which buildings could aspire:
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. It is not possible to make great
buildings, or great towns, beautiful places, places where you feel
yourself, places where you feel alive, except by following this way.
And, as you will see, this way will lead anyone who looks for it to
buildings which are themselves as ancient in their form, as the
trees and hills, and as our faces are.

A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (1977)

described a practical architectural system in a form that a
theoretical mathematician or computer scientist might call a
generative grammar.
The work originated from an observation that many medieval
cities are attractive and harmonious. The authors said that this
occurs because they were built to local regulations that
required specific features, but freed the architect to adapt them
to particular situations.
The book provides rules and pictures, and leaves decisions to
be taken from the precise environment of the project. It
describes exact methods for constructing practical, safe and
attractive designs at every scale, from entire regions, through
cities, neighborhoods, gardens, buildings, rooms, built-in
furniture, and fixtures down to the level of doorknobs.
A notable value is that the architectural system consists only of
classic patterns tested in the real world and reviewed by
multiple architects for beauty and practicality.

Buildings
Among Alexander's most notable built works are:
the Eishin Campus near Tokyo
the West Dean Visitors Centre in West Sussex, England;
the Julian Street Inn (a homeless shelter) in San Jose,
California (both described in Nature of Order);
the Martinez House (an experimental house in Martinez,
California made of lightweight concrete);
the low-cost housing in Mexicali, Mexico (described in The
Production of Houses); and several private houses (described
and illustrated in "The Nature of Order").
Alexander's built work is characterized by a special quality
(which he used to call "the quality without a name", but named
"wholeness" in Nature of Order) that relates to human beings
and induces feelings of belonging to the place and structure.
This quality is found in the most loved traditional and historic
buildings and urban spaces, and is precisely what Alexander
has tried to capture with mathematical design theories.

The West Dean Visitors Centre, is part of the West Dean

College estate and grounds, including the Arts and Crafts
college, and the refurbished Victorian garden. The architectural
commission to build a Visitors Centre and gardens in the heart
of the community, came as part of a request by Edward James
Foundation that a simple and beautiful community be made to
extend the growing work of West Dean College and Victorian
Gardens.

Eishin Gakuen, an innovative private high school, was

originally located in Musashino-shi, outside Tokyo. They
decided to build a new school which was to become a
combination high-school and college, on a new site of 9
hectares, once tea bush land, outside Tokyo, in Iruma-shi,
Saitama Prefecture. The architectural commission to build this
community, came with the explicit insistence, by the managing
director of the school, that he wanted the project to be done
under conditions where faculty, staff, and students, were all
taking part in the design process.
the client wanted to rebuild their own culture, in such a
way as to build deeper allegience and practice to humane
principles .
this is one where the development of the pattern language
and generative process received the most complete, and
formal process of discovery of patterns, experiments,
modification and formulation of patterns, hammering out a final
version in committee, and then formal ratification of our final