The ideas in that book helped create the notion of "design patterns" in software and engineering. The book provides hundreds of insights into the way people use their environment: marriage beds, child caves, dancing in the streets, staircases as stages, sleeping in public, spaces for self-governance...
Pattern Language is a more humanizing design philosophy than Bauhaus. It brings the emotional and sociological aspects of design together with technological complexity.
The concepts of vocabulary, syntax and grammar are applicable to programming language and API design, as well as visual design and architecture.
I am generally sympathetic with the aesthetic choices of this school. But it is necessary to note that Bauhaus's approach, as informed by socialist ideology of its core members, is dehumanizing at scale. And when 'it' -- it being the logical conclusion via Corbu et al -- was embraced (at scale), it resulted in the backlash that was Post-Modernism and the rest of it.
Finally, it needs to be pointed out that the 'problem' that informed the ideological 'solution' of Bauhaus maps far more sensibly to software methodology rather than software manifestation.
Not sure about the rest of the world, but in the southwest, LA to Phoenix, the modernism of Bauhaus has more sway in contemporary starchitecture than post-modernism.
Though, for interior design, I think that more humanizing post-modern styles tend to be far more pervasive, but as mentioned the buildings don't work super well - Bauhaus did manufacturability right.
The concept comes from the American Louis Sullivan, not the Bauhaus. His use of ornamentation and references to forms from the past (e.g. the skyscraper as a column with base, shaft, and capital) would have been rejected.
Sullivan and Wright are not to be mentioned (except in passing) given that they did not hail from Europe and do not share the political ideology behind Bauhaus and other related early 20th century movements in Europe.
While there's a trendiness to the superficial application of the Bauhaus/International/Swiss style in graphical layouts, there's a timeless value in removing the separation between engineering and design and fostering cultures that encourage cross-disciplinary communication.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_language
The ideas in that book helped create the notion of "design patterns" in software and engineering. The book provides hundreds of insights into the way people use their environment: marriage beds, child caves, dancing in the streets, staircases as stages, sleeping in public, spaces for self-governance...
Pattern Language is a more humanizing design philosophy than Bauhaus. It brings the emotional and sociological aspects of design together with technological complexity.
The concepts of vocabulary, syntax and grammar are applicable to programming language and API design, as well as visual design and architecture.