Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Phenomenon of Life: The Nature of Order, Book 1 by Christopher Alexander ISBN: 0-9726529-1-4 Publisher: Center For Environmental Structure Pub. Date: June, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $75.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Magnificent, worthy of close study
Comment: "The whole is more than the sum of its parts" is commonly said or writ, but never before have i read so much detail, amply illustrated, of just how that works. There are pictures of beautiful things, and some horrendously ugly things (a certain postmodern house in particular made me laugh out loud), and some side-by-side comparisons of two moderately beautiful things that made me think...which has more "life"?
My interest in architecture is limited to a desire to build an Earthship or cob house sometime in the next few years. I wonder why i find such houses more beautiful than the conventional kind?
Well, understanding the 15 properties gives one an excellent mental toolkit for studying beauty and beautiful things, and figuring out how to make a place or structure more welcoming to human life. Practical exercises and advice, along with all the examples, help the reader develop an eye for these qualities.
As an artist, i can apply these properties to creating and
critiquing my works, and perhaps even to know better how to fix an image that has gone awry. The author's sketches of beautiful patterns of objects, some in which he didn't quite capture the magical essence of life and examines why, enlightened me as i followed the development of his ideas through the book. Always a doodler, i've had a great time hanging out in coffee shops with some 4x6 cards, pencils, Alexander's book, experimenting with following and sometimes deliberately (and sometimes accidently) violating each of the properties, coming to understand them better. Be warned: really "grokking" the material will take much time and much fun!
I actually started with volume 2 then went into volume 1, and that worked okay. Volume two reviews the 15 properties sufficiently, and i found processes to be a more interesting place to start. But partway through vol. 2 i just had to dive into vol 1 wholeheartedly to really understand all 15 of the properties.
Rating: 5
Summary: Essential Reading for Architects
Comment: Christopher Alexander's latest series of books, "The Nature of Order", propose new ways of understanding the built environment, as well as new methods of practicing architecture, and as such should be part of every architect's library. As a practicing architect, I have found that "The Nature of Order" series has had a profound impact on the way that I design and create buildings, as well as on the way that I understand architecture and its connection to the larger physical world. The theoretical framework that Alexander sets up in his first book, The Phenomenon of Life, coupled with the analysis and exploration of generative processes presented in his second book, The Process of Creating Life, propose a fascinating and intriguing new way of understanding the physical structure of the world. Alexander presents us with a unified theory where art and science are part of an integrated system that together define the physical structure of all matter, including "life" itself.
In the first book, The Phenomenon of Life, Alexander proposes that the physical environment consists of discreet entities that form specific geometrical relationships, and that these geometrical relationships each have an intrinsic value; a value that can be objectively identified and measured with a significant degree of accuracy and agreement among many observers. Alexander goes on to identify this degree of value as "life", expanding the current biological definition to one that includes strong coherence of geometrical structure. In analyzing thousands of examples, Alexander and his colleagues have identified 15 geometrical properties that, when present in a physical structure or design, help to increase the degree of life, in that particular place or object. These properties can be easily identified and measured, by each one of us, and thus form the basis for an objective form of aesthetic judgment. Questions that address degrees of value, such as "what is a good building?", "what is a good piece of art?", and "what is a good environment?" can now be answered using objective criteria, where consistent agreement among individuals is possible.
It is Alexander's objective approach for judging aesthetic quality, combined with his unified view of the physical and aesthetic world, that has profoundly influenced my own work. As I work on projects every day, going through the process of testing different ideas and possibilities, I now have the tools and framework for making good design decisions - decisions that can be objectively evaluated in terms of their impact on the "life" of each project. In addition, Alexander has provided me with a deeper understanding of the place of my own work in the physical world - how whatever I make, whether it is the creation of window seat or the lay-out of a series of buildings, has a direct connection to the larger and smaller geometrical structures of which it is a part. Of course this approach leads to a sense of deep responsibility for the enhancement and betterment of the physical world; a responsibility that I believe should be fundamental to the practice of architecture.
Rating: 5
Summary: The question of judgement in architecture
Comment: "The Nature of Order" is a series of four books, a work that has taken 30 years to complete. It is an ambitious attempt at synthesis, a near-impossible challenge to join together, in one generative thought, all the aspects of man in the universe. Consequently, the critical and wary reader will possibly detect traces of what could possibly resemble an immense megalomania, as Christopher Alexander aims to reunite physics, biology, and the wholeness of human beings in a geometric conception of the universe. Nevertheless, this same reaction is triggered by every real effort of synthetic thought that tries to build a vision of the world less fragmented than today's.
Often in the scientific community, great researchers allow themselves, towards the end of their career, some philosophical height in order to consider the world in the light of the particular discoveries they have made. Some of them -- the most reductionistic -- try to explain whole phenomena by a generalisation of laws they had previously discovered in a particular context. In fact, they reduce the whole world to the phenomena they are able to explain, and try to affirm the supremacy of a particular point of view. These are, for example, the common "all is social", or "all is biological", explanations. Some other scientists, much less pretentious, explain that their discoveries come to support or to lighten in some way certain elements of forgotten and ancestral wisdom. Thus, they indirectly point towards a return of those wisdoms, but without necessarily showing the way. Christopher Alexander belongs to a third category of scientific researchers : those who develop during a lifetime of inquiry their own general vision of the world, continuously nourishing it with the particular progresses of science and the local lessons of practice.
If Christopher Alexander appears to have been obsessed all his life by one and only question (how to make good architecture?), he did not lock himself up in architectural practice, nor in a particular scientific discipline, nor in any philosophy. This is why he knew how to develop and considerably deepen a way of building that is not directly linked to ancestral techniques but possesses even today their immensely wise qualities.
Because of the vast implications of Christopher Alexander's work, I will comment on only one aspect of the first volume (The Phenomenon of Life) ; that is, the issue of judgement in architecture.
In this first book, Christopher Alexander introduces and describes a single criterion to define the architectural value of any building. This criterion is (1) empirical, based on experience, and (2) objective, because it can be shared among several individuals. Each building, each construction, can be characterized by its degree of life. Provided with this criterion it is possible to discriminate between "good architecture" and "bad architecture". This degree of life depends on the presence or the absence of a spatial structure which he calls living structure and which can be used to explain judgements after they have been made. Provided with the properties and qualities of this living structure, it is then possible to look for the processes that governed its growth, in order to formalize a knowledge of the ways of designing and building that lead to "good architecture".
The empirical results are based on comparisons of objects, photographs, situations, or buildings. They are obtained by asking one question : which one of these two buildings has more life ? This question can be reformulated as follows : which one of these two buildings best represents the whole of yourself, which one best represents at the same time all your qualities and all your faults, all your forces and all your weaknesses, all the events you lived and all the ones you hope to live in the future, all the things you love and all the ones you hate, etc. If the answer to this question is sincere, the results are shared in common for a majority of people, and the measurement, which is made by comparison, is valid. For my own part, I did not find anything to object to the possible validity of this method.
If one starts to analyze this question, one realizes that it cancels (or tries to cancel) the majority of the determinisms that we are carrying and that we inherited more or less luckily during our life. It cancels the determinism of personal history by the opposition of past versus future, it cancels psychological determinism since it calls upon forces and weaknesses, it cancels aesthetic determinism by opposing what one loves and hates, etc. Finally, this form of judgement tries to reach the Wholeness which is present in each one of us. It aims at a criterion which is both personal and objective.
By raising this question, one establishes empirical results without dividing the individual into biological, psychological, sociological (and many more) components, because this question addresses the individual in his wholeness. And good architecture should not address only the psychological component of the individual, or the sociological or the historical ones, but the whole individual. Hence this form of judgement constitutes a solid proposal to define the value of architecture.
However it is not easy to apply in today's world, because obviously, we are not used to asking ourselves this type of question. One could even think that all the analytical developments around architectural and urban questions that exist today have as a principal function to circumvent this question that we refuse to ask ourselves directly, and when faced with it, the majority of us is in great difficulty. But to avoid judging is to make ourselves unable to judge, therefore unable to appreciate the things that have value. Most importantly, avoiding this judgement consequently makes us incompetent to design and to build valuable buildings. The issue of judgement, which introduces this first volume of The Nature of Order, is an essential precondition to the construction of a true knowledge in architecture.
Thus my opinion on this book is extremely positive. Without doubt, it is the best book on architecture I have ever read.
 |
Title: The Process of Creating Life: The Nature of Order, Book 2 by Christopher Alexander ISBN: 0972652922 Publisher: Center For Environmental Structure Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $75.00 |
 |
Title: A Vision of a Living World: The Nature of Order, Book 3 by Christopher Alexander ISBN: 0972652930 Publisher: Center For Environmental Structure Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $75.00 |
 |
Title: The Luminous Ground: The Nature of Order, Book 4 by Christopher Alexander ISBN: 0972652949 Publisher: Center For Environmental Structure Pub. Date: November, 2003 List Price(USD): $75.00 |
 |
Title: A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein ISBN: 0195019199 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 1977 List Price(USD): $65.00 |
 |
Title: Notes on the Synthesis of Form by Christopher W. Alexander ISBN: 0674627512 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: June, 1970 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
