One of the most delightful and insightful books I’ve ever read. It is written with the fluidity of a poet and the preciseness of a mathematician.
“There are those special secret moments in our lives, when we smile unexpectedly –when all our forces are resolved. … When we know those moments, when we smile, when we let go, when we are not on guard at all–these are the moments when our most important forces show themselves.”
Reading the above passage was one of “those moments” for me. But what does it have to do with architecture? I found myself wondering, even checking the cover at one point to make sure I was reading the right book. The answer was simple and yet profound:
Architecture and Quality of Life
“We need only ask ourselves which places — which towns, which buildings, which rooms, have made us feel like this — which of them have that breath of sudden passion in them, which whispers to us and lets us recall those moments when we were ourselves.”
Places which have this quality, invite this quality to come to life in us. When we have this quality of life in us, we enliven towns and buildings which we build. It is the self-supporting, self-maintaining, generating quality of life. We must seek this quality of life, in ourselves, in our surroundings, in order that we can ourselves become alive.
It is perversely amusing when Alexander later relates that his office is “an ugly place, terrible, dark and dead”. And UC Berkeley, “A campus that was once beautiful, is now a litter of fragmented buildings.”
Patterns of Our Lives
A person’s life is governed by a number of patterns of events which s/he participates in over and over again. Those patterns of events are “habits”, and our habits constantly shape and ultimately govern us. It is therefore necessary to examine our habits, change the bad ones and cultivate the good ones.
We are also transformed by our relationships with other people, nature and our surroundings, i.e., the context of our existence. Those that make us feel more alive, free and happy, and share the same unspoken language; those that cause conflicts to arise in ourselves.
“The element itself is not just embedded in a pattern of relationships, but is itself entirely a pattern of relationships and nothing else.” The elementary particle, the electron, is a wave, both a pattern and an entity. So are human beings.
What is Genius
“A great architect’s creative power, his capacity to make something beautiful, lies in his capacity to observe correctly, and deeply.” The genius of great architects and painters lies in the depth of observation, to perceive the invariant patterns underneath the numerous combinatorial elements and the relationships between the elements. Because patterns relate forces that are in play in all, people from all walks of life share them. And by adopting the patterns as our own, we are also making a variation of the pattern that incorporates our individuality.
The genius of Alexander also lies in his profound depth of perception, and his natural ability to articulate his observations in a simple, beautiful and coherent manner. His use of images (photographs and diagrams) and rich narratives also make it easier for the readers to grasp the concepts, to see what he sees and feel what he feels, to contemplate and understand. After all, he is not describing something that is strange to our nature but simply reminding us and shedding light on the things that are already there, deep in us and in nature.
References:
- Alexander, Christopher. The Timeless Way of Building. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.
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