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The Nature of Order, Book 1: The Phenomenon of Life,
by Christopher Alexander.
The Phenomenon of Life is
the first of a four part magnum opus by Christopher Alexander,
known as the co-author and primary voice behind A Pattern
Language, a "handbook designed for the layman
which aims to present a language which people can use to
express themselves in their own communities or homes, and
to better communicate with each other." If that is
a handbook, this four-parter is his Theory of Everything,
a combination of science and architecture proposing that
wholeness and life are all pervasive in varying degrees.
Book 1 outlines this idea, using
the first half to explain the author's "theory of centers",
where wholeness is not a sum of parts but a complex of overlapping
centers of greater and lesser intensity. It is a theory
that may be hard to grasp for many readers, though Alexander
uses a series of illustrations that ask questions like,
"Does A have more life than B?" In many of these
the answers are obvious, and we see that the choices one
answers yes to tend to be handmade over machine-made, natural
over synthetic, ornamented over plain, etc. These qualities
- which appear to be a reaction to mid-20th-century Modernism
and its lasting impact on architecture - are illustrated
as fifteen fundamental properties found both in the man-made
and natural environment. It's the ubiquity of these properties
where Alexander bases his theory, though he admits that
any general scientific validation is years off, perhaps
beyond his lifetime.
This problem doesn't stop him, instead
he boldly proclaims in the second half of the book that
a new form of scientific observation is required in order
to show that his theory is true, something he already believes
without validation by his peers. In this second half, he
sets forth an extremely interesting proposal: deep emotion
is not subjective but objective. He argues that our surroundings
have an impact on us, they make us a feel a certain way
deep down and that feeling is shared not subjective or separate.
Here we see why Alexander must propose a new scientific
method, as testing the impact of our surroundings on our
internal feelings would be a long and difficult process.
If anything his goal isn't to complete this process but
to explain that a new method is worth exploring, so in the
future it may happen.
Alexander's theory, while intriguing,
suffers from an over-dependence upon images, especially
in terms of the aforementioned A vs. B comparisons. In many
of those, the answer was clear, and clearly against Modernism,
another aspect that taints his theory: Is it a discovered
theory, as he mentions? Or is it a theory born from a hatred
of modern architecture and its lasting influence? I think
it's a mix of those two. He was probably driven to find
something to counter Modernism's effects, though what he
found wasn't prescribed, but discovered. A third hindrance
to Alexander's theory is the quality of his own architecture,
which appears to be a far cry from the other precedents
he uses in the book, though ultimately very little comes
close to the quality of places like Ise, Japan. Regardless
of these shortcomings, the theory he proposes is very intriguing
and spurs me to complete the other three books. If Alexander's
goal is successful he will have changed my thinking about
space and architecture, as well as the legions of other
architects and students that don't currently prescribe to
his beliefs.
. . or . . 
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