Onky alexander biography of christopher

These included numerous papers and reports on the work he did with the Center for Environmental Structure. Others have explored the impact of his work in many books, academic papers, articles, videos and podcasts. Alexander taught Architecture for 38 years at the University of California Berkeley with students from all over the world.

His teaching method was unique. He shared his research queries with his students and worked closely with them, being genuinely interested in their way of thinking and conveying his experience in pursuing precise answers.

Onky alexander biography of christopher

Real projects and work in groups made his studio classes to be an introduction to the professional world of architects. Alexander founded the Center for Environmental Structure inas an independent non-profit corporation set up to create an environmental pattern language. Inhe was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Developer and game designer William R. Wright credited Alexander's works for influencing the concepts onky alexander biography of christopher his games "The Sims" and "Spore. Alexander moved from England to the United States inwhere he lived and taught in Berkeley, California. He currently resides in Arundel, Sussex, UK. And the floors we were asked to do were about two onky alexanders biography of christopher in size.

Very large concourses. And to do the kinds of intricate patterns of the kind that [the owner] specifically wanted in two acres, it looked as though there were likely to bepieces. Now, just to cutpieces of marble is an incredible problem in itself — let alone assembling it. On top of all that, we had to put that floor in — we were given two months to do it.

So we set out a way of using a water jet cutter, prefabricating pieces, creating circumstances where you could both do mockups while you were developing the floor, then you could do them again in the actual place. CA : Yes, exactly. All of this sort of thing. MM : Right. This business about finding a language of form which comes out of a technology, out of a technique, and out of the feelings that exist in our environment, is really the core of the matter.

But what they actually do with it is so peculiar and often offensive. MM : And they were embracing a form of industrialization that was — how would you characterize it? CA : Well, it was really limited. It really was the first few decades of industrialization. And the things that were being mass-produced, and what could be done by mass production, were very limited.

But more important, you know, all of that mass production stuff came from Taylor. And there are serious social problems. MM : I wanted to ask you what you think is happening to technology today, particularly computers, and the potential to create a more human kind of technology at this point. Special purpose, car manufacturer, furniture manufacturer, and so forth.

MM : Cabbage patch dolls, where each doll is different, to take a trivial example. Of recombination and recombination of components. MM : The reductive technology in the early industrial period which still very much grips us? Pulling things apart and putting them together in little bitty pieces instead of trying to create wholes? And of course what happens in the biological world is that the wholes come about by differentiation — not by assembly.

CA : Yes, very very — absolutely crucial. And the idea that all these folks might be playing roles in a differentiation process, and that it really and truly was that, is just I think almost out of reach at the moment. MM : Something else I wanted to ask you about is that in our current view, everything is personal taste. And anyone who suggests otherwise is a dictator.

And you certainly have had that allegation. Are we heading towards, you know, something where our freedom is going to be taken away? Tradition in the broad sense, not just tradition in the Classicist sense of following a historic pattern. It does seem to me quite plain that we must draw our material from that family. Because that statement can have a lot of different interpretations.

But of course if those things were actually said, it would indeed be frightening, because it would have a sort of deterministic quality which would be actually quite strange and I think uncomfortable, for anybody that was doing anything. And all of this is quite difficult to make estimates of. If you take a sort of middle-size building, a few stories high, and you say, OK, how many possible arrangements are there within the volume of that building and its immediately surrounding open space.

So then you say, alright, well now how many of those are probably living structures? Can one make an estimate? And that number is an infinitely small fraction of the first number that I just told you. But even though you have to divide that number by 10 to the godzillion, to get down to the living structures, when you try to estimate this out — the number of living structures is still utterly gigantic beyond measure.

Far, far larger than the number of seconds since the universe began, or the number of particles in the universe. Of course what they actually feel is free. Because they know what to do, and therefore they can do whatever they want. If you want to be appropriate, you can still do a million different things, but being appropriate is going to guide you, and that is what is going to tell you what to do.

MM : We talked a little bit about tradition and traditional cultures, and you addressed that in your paper on TradArch. And some of it is obviously murderous and horrendous and evil, and some of it is understandable, and something that we should perhaps pay more attention to. Oh, I think so. I think that there are two, kind of parallel courses.

And that that of course is people feel that their birthright is being taken away from them. And that provokes a lot more anger than just being poor. And they need to be dealt with. I remember, when we did the project in Peru. I think there were 15 architects from different countries in the UN, site of the competition, and then there were 15 Peruvian architects, designing these houses for Peruvian families of low income.

CA : Well, yeah, we — absolutely, we became members of families. And so, you know, we really immersed ourselves in it. CA : Yes, I think so. And what was incredible was, they came to me to find out what it meant to be Chinese, or Indian, or Alaskan, or Greek. CA : Yes. I think it has begun to change. And partly for reasons I think that are different from that, possibly related to the whole apparent conflict between Islam and Christianity.

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 not possible to make great buildings, or great towns, beautiful places, places where you feel yourself, places where you feel alive, except by following 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. More Quotes by Christopher Alexander ». We need you! Help us build the largest biographies collection on the web! Add a New Bio. Powered by CITE.