Excerpts: “You’re a quiet one. It’s a great relief. Can you imagine two of us gabbling away like me? It would be intolerable.” “Experience is a paltry thing. Everyone has it and will tell his tale of it. … The present is truly unscrupulous. I am a poet. I’m interested in where I am eternally present and active”. “Tell me then about your wife. … How beautiful she was, how […]
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“The Nature of Order: The Process of Creating Life” by Christopher Alexander
As someone with a biology and computer science background and no creative power whatsoever, I’m fascinated by Dr. Alexander’s notion that the creative process is essentially the same as the genetic process (seen in the unfolding of an embryo or the growth of a seed). Both processes are subclasses of the Living Process, which is defined in this book. The Creative Process “The whole system of order we observe is […]
Read more“A Pattern Language” by Christopher Alexander
An Architect’s Utopia “Do what you can to establish a world government, with a thousand independent regions, instead of countries”. This statement alone should alert readers that A Pattern Language is not just a DIY manual for home builders, although it is a good manual too, as the reviews on amazon.com can attest. This book is very ambitious and impressive in the breadth and depth of its coverage, touching on […]
Read more“Mary Rose Museum” by Christopher Alexander
What I find particularly interesting and fascinating about this book is how Dr. Alexander describes in vivid detail what one would experience when he visits the museum, what he would see and how he would feel at various places, though the museum was never built due to a lack of funding. In the book “The Nature Of Order Book II: The Process of Creating Life”, Dr. Alexander says the first […]
Read more“The Production of Houses” by Christopher Alexander
This book is about building houses, but it is more about life. There is joy, there is disappointment and sadness, but above all, there is hope. The Joy of Building For someone like me, who absolutely abhors construction sites and all the raw materials, Alexander brings them to life in a way that only he can. His “physical love for the buildings and the building materials, … the way a […]
Read more“The Timeless Way of Building” by Christopher Alexander
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 […]
Read more“The Oregon Experiment” by Christopher Alexander
The Principle of Participation: The fundamental human needs: to create, to control, to identify with the environment in which they live and have a sense of ownership. The Principle of Diagnosis: The well being of the whole is protected by an annual diagnosis which explains, in detail, which spaces are alive and which ones dead, at any given moment in the history of the community. The Principle of Piecemeal Growth: […]
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