
Some Notes on Christopher Alexander (2008) - ics
http://zeta.math.utsa.edu/~yxk833/Chris.text.html
======
downerending
This page seems to omit it, but there was a third book in the _Pattern
Language_ series where he applies the ideas to a small complex in a city in
Oregon. Sadly, I read somewhere that this got tangled in local politics and
was ultimately crushed.

The ideas of anyone as truly gifted as Alexander are doomed to failure, at
least within their lifetimes. One look at our current celebrated architecture
fills me with mourning for what could have been.

~~~
lidHanteyk
Where did you read that? The book you are thinking of is "The Oregon
Experiment" [0], the "small complex" is the University of Oregon [1], and the
project was broadly successful. To quote WP:

> In the late 1960s and early 1970s, students and faculty at the University of
> Oregon protested against log trucks driving through campus; against the
> destruction of a 19th-century cemetery; against the military draft and the
> invasions and occupations in Southeast Asia; and against the idea that the
> University was acting in place of students' parents.[4] On top of this,
> buildings created since the end of World War II included Brutalist
> architecture, which was aesthetically polarizing.

I grew up in Eugene and can confirm all of this. Following the restructuring
of Franklin Boulevard, there are no longer any logging or gravel trucks
driving through the Ferry Street, downtown, or university areas. The cemetery
grounds across from McArthur Court [2] are preserved and maintained. Many of
Alexander's buildings and courtyards are still there, along with some of the
older brutalist buildings as well as some of the newer buildings built with
donor money [3][4].

I would say that the University is tangled not with local politics, but with
multinational money. Nike has had a strong grasp on the University's spending
habits for many decades, and their influence twists and distorts everything in
the area. Despite Nike's attempts to stop it, though, the University still has
an excellent architecture program to this day, and the campus is beautiful and
walkable. I would say that the experiment succeeded beyond expectations.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oregon_Experiment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oregon_Experiment)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Oregon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Oregon)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McArthur_Court](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McArthur_Court)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatfield-
Dowlin_Complex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatfield-Dowlin_Complex)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Knight_Arena](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Knight_Arena)

~~~
downerending
I was mostly going by this article, which seems factual.

[http://www.rainmagazine.com/archive/1994/alexander-visits-
th...](http://www.rainmagazine.com/archive/1994/alexander-visits-the-oregon-
experiment)

Just to reaffirm my prior comment, I think Alexander is a genius. Having
walked through the UO campus, it doesn't particularly remind me of his ethos.
(The cemetery, of course, is quite nice, but not part of the campus.)

I don't see any indication that Alexander was involved with Hatfield-Dowlin or
the Matthew Knight Arena. Is there a source on that?

As for the quality of the architecture program, the campus speaks for itself.
I particularly liked that quote about "Science losing faith in the Arch".
Ouch.

~~~
lidHanteyk
I suppose I wasn't very clear. Alexander not only was not involved with those
donated buildings, but he would presumably not have liked what they did to the
landscape. The Arena, in particular, is bad for traffic.

I am saying that the University both takes input from qualified architectural
plans, and also takes cash from folks at Nike. This article is very
interesting and provides great historical context, but pales in comparison to
the millions of dollars that Phil Knight and friends have poured onto campus,
and the corresponding shift in power. Knight has demanded changes to
University staff and faculty, and gotten them, multiple times over the
decades. He's also managed to keep his influence well-hidden; "Nike" barely
appears at all in this magazine article, for example, despite already being a
powerful donor on-campus by the 90s.

~~~
downerending
Agreed.

To concentrate on the positive for a moment, if you ever get there, don't miss
the Dracula hall (Deady?) and there's the most beautiful ancient and massive
lounge inside Gerlinger (?). Johnson Hall (from Animal House) is attractive.
And Streisinger (?) evokes Escher in a pleasing way.

All of these are quite old, but I'm almost as.

------
skilesare
I'd recommend Thriving System Theory by Leslie J. Waguespack that integrates
Alexander's Ideas across the development of systems. -
[https://amzn.to/3bdoSxA](https://amzn.to/3bdoSxA)

I also wrote a book where I took a number of Alexander's ideas and applied
them to creating a crypto based economic system. -
[https://amzn.to/2RGhfIf](https://amzn.to/2RGhfIf) \- Probably not interesting
unless you are really into crypto or really into pattern languages.

I was in Berkeley a couple of years ago and went on a bit of a pilgrimage up
the hill to find some of the house that he designed. I ended up running into
some of his family and felt like an ass for invading their privacy(I had no
idea they still lived in one of the houses), but was able to speak with one of
his daughters and he was apparently not doing so well back then. Every time I
see his stuff come up on here I worry that it is bad news.

------
thdrdt
Recently I had to think about Alexander when I saw the empty streets of New
York. Without people you will notice much more how the buildings overwhelm and
cast shadow everywhere.

This is exactly what Alexander was fighting against: building structures that
go against human nature.

I read a couple of his books and saw some of his talks. It sometimes makes me
a little sad to see through his eyes how we are building today.

~~~
abjKT26nO8
Shadows aren't bad. They're the best thing that can happen during summer.
Well... Them and the wind.

------
hosh
Alexander’s books have been on my bucket list for a while. He is one of the
few thinkers bridging between traditional and modern, and designing lived
experience. It is no accident his work extends beyond building design and into
human user experience and software architecture.

~~~
skilesare
Don't wait. The timeless way of building can be finished in an afternoon and
is worth your time.

~~~
hosh
Thanks for the encouragement.

I was also eying his other books because I realized that the principles of
those design also extends to society, community, and governance. Meaning, with
the right living architecture, we can have permissionless community, a lot of
similarities to the "Te" chapters of the Tao Te Ching.

I know one of the things that keep coming up is how can one balance between
global and local concerns. Our society is coming apart at the seams with a
culture war, and the pandemic highlights that tension between global and
local. Everything I have read about Alexander's work suggests that he cracked
open a way to pull that off.

------
afc
I just read A City is not a Tree, linked somewhere here
([http://www.patternlanguage.com/archives/alexander1.htm](http://www.patternlanguage.com/archives/alexander1.htm))
and found it quite interesting.

~~~
rgrau
Santa Fe Institute has a podcast on complex systems. There's a chapter on
cities that might be interesting if you liked 'A City is not a Tree':
[https://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/4](https://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/4)
.

------
readthenotes
He missed that Notes on the Synthesis of Form inspired the software design
perspectives of coupling and cohesion

~~~
stareatgoats
source?

~~~
ics
They may be referring to the mention on C2.

\-----
([https://wiki.c2.com/?NotesOnTheSynthesisOfForm](https://wiki.c2.com/?NotesOnTheSynthesisOfForm))

I'm struck by the resemblance between the rule of CouplingAndCohesion and
Alexander's formal treatment of the "main" problem of design - hierarchical
decomposition of the set M of misfit variables (the "things which might
possibly break") into subsets which

    
    
        maximize the connections between their components (high cohesion) but also
        are minimally connected with each other (low coupling)
    

In other words, the issue of CouplingAndCohesion isn't just central to
software design - it is central to all design, if Alexander is to be believed.

