The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher W. Alexander

The massive global economy derives its wealth from generating dead, soulless objects, while at the same time wiping out natural ecosystems. He saw that many of our structures today-from urban complexes, to buildings, to rooms, to windows, to door handles, to furniture-propagate an inhuman aesthetic. He warned of the folly of losing the nourishing sense of beauty. He feared that humanity’s self-inflicted moral and sensory numbness would lead to nihilism. He saw farther than anybody else, and what he saw was terrifying. I sensed a sadness in Christopher toward the end of his productive life. By defending traditional architecture and art, Alexander’s work challenged many contemporary architectural trends. Architecture is profoundly important beautiful architecture is healing, and ugly architecture, even if functional, can be harmful. In his books, including The Nature of Order, he aimed to articulate a method for designing beautiful and health-giving environments. Central to Alexander’s theory of architecture is the belief that the human mind instinctively desires to create structures that are not only utilitarian, but also beautiful. His designs and writings offer an antidote to our civilization’s eager pursuit of self-annihilation. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title.The architect Christopher Alexander (1936–2022), who passed away last month, showed us how to reconnect to the world through architecture. 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.' 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 thousands of years old, and the same today as it has always been. The Timeless Way of Building is the introductory volume in the Center for Environmental Structure series, Christopher Alexander presents in it a new theory of architecture, building, and planning which has at its core that age-old process by which the people of a society have always pulled the order of their world from their own being.Īlexander writes, 'There is one timeless way of building.

Now, at last, there is a coherent theory which describes in modern terms an architecture as ancient as human society itself. Yet the power of present-day ideas is so great that many feel uncomfortable, even afraid, to say openly that they dislike what is happening, because they are afraid to seem foolish, afraid perhaps that they will be laughed at. More and more people are aware that something is deeply wrong. The theory of architecture implicit in our world today, Christopher Alexander believes, is bankrupt.

The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher W. Alexander