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Christopher Alexander Biography

Christopher Alexander

Christopher Wolfgang Alexander (born 4 October 1936 in Vienna, Austria) is a widely influential architect and design theorist, and currently emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His theories about the nature of human-centered design have affected fields beyond architecture, including urban design, software, sociology and others. Alexander has designed and personally built over 100 buildings, both as an architect and a general contractor.

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Christopher Alexander Quotes

We must face the fact that we are on the brink of times when man may be able to magnify his intellectual and inventive capability, just as in the nineteenth century he used machines to magnify his physical capacity. Again, as then, our innocence is lost. And again, of course, the innocence, once lost, cannot be regained. The loss demands attention, not denial.

Capacity, Intellectual, Loss, Men, Physical

It is possible to make buildings by stringing together patterns, in a rather loose way. A building made like this, is an assembly of patterns. It is not dense. It is not profound. But it is also possible to put patterns together in such a way that many patterns overlap in the same physical space: the building is very dense; it has many meanings captured in a small space; and through this density, it becomes profound.

Assembly, Building, Patterns, Profound, Space, Together

People are deeply nourished by the process of creating wholeness.

Creating, Deeply, People, Process

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.

Beautiful, Buildings, Looks, Possible, Tree, Trees

There are geologists who can pick up a rock and say, 'Yes, there's oil under there. ' A geologist who has been studying those kinds of rocks for 10 or 20 years is able to make that pronouncement.

Oil, Pick, Rocks, Say, Studying, Years

Complexity is one of the great problems in environmental design.

Complexity, Design, Environmental, Problem, Problems

When you make something, cleaning it out of structural debris is one of the most vital things you do.

Cleaning, Debris, Make, Things, Vital

When they have a choice, people will always gravitate to those rooms which have light on two sides, and leave the rooms which are lit only from one side unused and empty.

Gravitate, Leave, Light, People, Rooms, Two Sides

In my life as an architect, I found that the single thing which inhibits young professionals, new students most severely, is their acceptance of standards that are too low.

Acceptance, Architect, Inhibits, Single, Students, Young

In an organic environment, every place is unique, and the different places also cooperate, with no parts left over, to create a global whole - a whole which can be identified by everyone who is part of it.

Cooperate, Different, Environment, Left, Place, Unique

All matter
space has some degree of "self" in it, and this self, or anyway some aspect of the personal, is something which infuses all matter
space and everything we know as matter but now think to be mechanical.

Aspect, Degree, Self, Space, Think, Thinking

Nowadays, the process of growth and development almost never seems to manage to create this subtle balance between the importance of the individual parts, and the coherence of the environment as a whole. One or the other always dominates.

Balance, Coherence, Development, Growth, Importance, Whole

Images in the 20th century had a unique power where image became divorced from reality, and often more important than reality. Buildings were judged more by the way they looked in magazines than by the satisfaction people felt when using them.

Buildings, Divorced, People, Reality, Unique

The more living patterns there are in a place - a room, a building, or a town - the more it comes to life as an entirety, the more it glows, the more it has that self-maintaining fire which is the quality without a name.

Entirety, Fire, Names, Patterns, Self

One begins to think with that new building block, rather than with littler pieces. And finally, the things which seem like elements dissolve, and leave a fabric of relationships behind, which is the stuff that actually repeats itself, and gives the structure to a building or a town.

Block, Dissolve, Giving, Like, Things, Thinking

Once you understand this way, you will be able to make your room alive; you will be able to design a house together with your family; a garden for your children; places where you can work; beautiful terraces where you can sit and dream.

Beautiful, Children, Dream, Sit, Terraces

In short, no pattern is an isolated entity. Each pattern can exist in the world only to the extent that is supported by other patterns: the larger patterns in which it is embedded, the patterns of the same size that surround it, and the smaller patterns which are embedded in it.

Exist, Pattern, Patterns, Size, Supported, World

High buildings have no genuine advantages, except in speculative gains for banks and land owners. They are not cheaper, they do not help create open space, they destroy the townscape, they destroy social life, they promote crime, they make life difficult for children, they are expensive to maintain, they wreck the open spaces near them, and they damage light and air and view.

Children, Help, Light, Promote, Space, Speculative

There is a myth, sometimes widespread, that a person need only do inner work. . . that a man is entirely responsible for his own problems; and that to cure himself, he need only change himself. . . . The fact is, a person is so formed by his surroundings, that his state of harmony depends entirely on his harmony with his surroundings.

Entirely, Happiness, Inner, Men, Needs, Responsible

The structure of life I have described in buildings - the structure which I believe to be objective - is deeply and inextricably connected with the human person, and with the innermost nature of human feeling.

Believe, Feelings, Life, Objective, Swag

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