Christopher Alexander Quotes

33 quotes in 619 categories

• Complexity is one of the great problems in environmental design. Complexity
• All matter/space has some degree of "self" in it, and this self, or anyway some aspect of the personal, is something which infuses all matter/space… All
• The buildings that I build very often have a dreamlike reality. I don't mean by that they have a fantasy quality at all, in fact… All
• I mean, making simulations of what you're going to build is tremendously useful if you can get feedback from them that will tell you where… Build
• Speaking as a builder, if you start something, you must have a vision of the thing which arises from your instinct about preserving and enhancing… Arise
• It is possible to make buildings by stringing together patterns, in a rather loose way. A building made like this, is an assembly of patterns.… Assembly
• When they have a choice, people will always gravitate to those rooms which have light on two sides, and leave the rooms which are lit… Always Gravitate
• There is a myth, sometimes widespread, that a person need only do inner work...that a man is entirely responsible for his own problems; and that… Change
• Images in the 20th century had a unique power where image became divorced from reality, and often more important than reality... Buildings were judged -… Became
• A building or a town will only be alive to the extent that it is governed in a timeless way. It is a process which… Accord
• We define organic order as the kind of order that is achieved when there is a perfect balance between the needs of the parts, and… Achieved
• But in practice master plans fail - because they create totalitarian order, not organic order. They are too rigid; they cannot easily adapt to the… Adapt
• This is a fundamental view of the world. It says that when you build a thing you cannot merely build that thing in isolation, but… Becomes

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