Reviews"Excellent text for architectural theory and design--a must for design students."--Brad Grant, California Polytechnic State University, "Excellent text for architectural theory and design--a must for design students."--Brad Grant,California Polytechnic State University, This book is more a philosophy of life than an architectural commentary. David Abbott gave it to me some years ago and I constantly refer to it. It is full of wisdom and inspiration, written in Alexander's beautiful prose style ... anyone who cares about the spaces we inhabit should read it.
Dewey Edition22
SynopsisVolume 1, The Timeless Way of Building, lays the foundation of the series. It presents a new theory of architecture, building, and planning which forms the bsis for a new traditional post-industrial architecture, created by the people. "Read it for inspiration; as a practicing planner, an educator, or a student, you cannot help but be challenged and stimulated by this book."--Dennis Michael Ryan, Journal of the American PlanningAssociation Volume 2, A Pattern Language, is a working document for such an architecture. It is an archetypal language which allows lay persons to design for themselves."I believe this to be perhaps the most important book on architectural design published this century. Every library, every school, every environmental action group, every architect, and every first-year student should have a copy."--Tony Ward, Architectural Design Volume 3, The Oregon Experiment, shows how this theory may be implemented, describing a new planning process for the University of Oregon."The Oregon Experiment is perhaps this decade's best candidate for a permanently important book."--Robert Campbell, Harvard Magazine, The theory of architecture implicit in our world today, Christopher Alexander believes, is bankrupt. More and more people are aware that something is deeply wrong. 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. Now, at last, there is a coherent theory which describesin modern terms an architecture as ancient as human society itself. 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. Alexander writes, "There is one timeless way of building. It is thousands of years old, and the same today as it has always been. The great traditional buildings of the past, the villages and tents and temples in which man feels at home, havealways been made by people who were very close to the center of this way. 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 thetrees and hills, and as our faces are.", The theory of architecture implicit in our world today, Christopher Alexander believes, is bankrupt. More and more people are aware that something is deeply wrong. 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. Now, at last, there is a coherent theory which describes in modern terms an architecture as ancient as human society itself. 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. Alexander writes, "There is one timeless way of building. It is thousands of years old, and the same today as it has always been. 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. 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."
LC Classification NumberNA2500.A45 1979