What makes Christopher Alexander’s vision of architecture timeless?

Today, many architects across the world are disillusioned with the institutional training and glamorous practices and have been searching for alternative ways of practicing this beautiful and ancient discipline. They are looking to make better sense through an engagement with social and ecological issues. Ancient societies, too, had devised diagrams and theories for their architecture to connect the phenomenal world with cosmology, using empirical knowledge of the forces of nature. The scientist in Alexander was serious in his pursuit to resolve this tough riddle of how to make architecture a living structure that echoes the deeper principles of the universe itself.

His shelter for the homeless, Julian Street Inn, California, is a study in how the interconnectedness of life plays out, with open courtyards and gardens that make for healing spaces (The Center for Environmental Structure)

Alexander studied mathematics at Cambridge, cognition at Harvard, transportation theory at MIT, and taught at Berkeley for about 40 years. His first important book Notes on the Synthesis of Form (Harvard University Press; 1964) made a huge impact in academia all over the world. It was a book on ‘the process of design’, with an emphasis on using “logical structures to represent design problems”. In the preface to the paperback edition in 1971, however, Alexander says, “…I have been held as one of the leading exponents of the so-called design methods. I am very sorry that this has happened, and want to state, publicly, that I reject the whole idea of design methods as a subject of study since I think it is absurd to separate the study of designing from the practice of design.”

Alexander’s writings continued to fascinate and inspire generations of architects, sociologists, anthropologists, musicians and software designers. His books are a testimony to his deep sense of observation and passion to unfold the truth of timeless beauty in architecture as he witnessed it. Some of his important books include The Timeless Way of Building (Oxford University Press, 1979), The Pattern Language (Oxford, 1979), and the magnum opus of four volumes of The Nature of Order (The Center for Environmental Structure, 1980).

This was a result of years of studying life in ordinary events and the interconnectedness between individuals, communities, and nature. He believed that with a deeper understanding of space, the relation between architecture and physical sciences would alter, and with it, the former would “play a revolutionary role in the way we see the world”. The post-industrial revolution architecture had significantly deviated from the much-valued trio of ethics, philosophy, and technique, and had become mechanistic. He called it “theoretically bankrupt”. Alexander’s views prompted heated debates and he had to face harsh opposition in practice as well as academia. His theories were considered “prescriptive”, which Alexander patiently denied.

If the scientist in Alexander was deeply concerned about the state of this planet, the artist in him wanted to make the world beautiful for living. He found beauty in the simple but knowledgeable way in which traditional communities built their habitat. He noticed that their deep design sense permeated through all forms of art and craft, from clothing, pottery, weaving carpets, ornaments, carpentry, and elegant construction processes, to conceiving public spaces. These he analysed as much to understand the geometric principles that were embedded in them, as to follow why they evoked a deeper feeling as experienced in organisms and ecological systems. He discussed his important “Wholeness and the Theory of Centers”, and derived his 15 fundamental properties from observations in nature and human-made design. Some of these properties include “void”, “echoes”, and “inner calm”, which appeared to be subjective or esoteric, but had to be witnessed by the user.

To test and connect the theory to practice, Alexander became a builder. He built his projects in different parts of the world. He made full-scale ‘mock-ups’ of elements to fine-tune their scale and beauty, not being satisfied with resolving them on the drawing board.

After obtaining his PhD from Harvard in 1961, Alexander spent seven months in India building a village school in Bavra, Gujarat, involving the villagers in the process of construction. He writes about his experience with the village folk: “I felt I must be useful and discussing with the villagers, we decided that a school would help the most.” This was the “start in his architecture” and the “first building I ever made and the first time I invented anything in construction. I had Rs 5,000 to build the school.” He worked closely with the village potter who was used to making the conical guna roof tile. He knew instinctively that one had to “invent ways of making”. This experience of the benefit of community participation in conceiving, designing, and building their houses and community spaces stayed with him forever. Alexander’s learning from India is evident in his writings. In a chapter in “Living Room of Society” (The Nature of Order, Book Three) he narrates how he was inspired by what happens in traditional societies, and in contrast to urban societies “the space that existed between buildings was like the living room of society… where people did things, got together, felt comfortable.” He witnessed the sense of belonging to one’s place brought dignity and joy to one’s living, which we had lost thanks to the automobile.

His close inspection of the phenomenon of nature made him think of resonating it in architecture. He would ask his students “Have you given your soul to the work?” And, devised a brilliant test which he called “The Mirror of the Self”. He observed, “When a place is lifeless, or unreal, there is almost always a mastermind behind it. It is so filled with the will of its maker that there is no room for its own nature”. He knew that there was a common language that appeared in the patterns which people followed repeatedly that shaped the character of a place.

In Book Four of The Nature of Order he says, he came closest to feeling “the nature of wholeness in the universe”. The neo-scientific view had demonstrated the fact of the non-dual interconnectedness of life. He called for a change in the way we perceive the world by becoming aware of the order of nature.

His close associates have started a teaching programme called Building Beauty in 2017, based on Alexander’s theories, at Sorrento, Italy, opening it up to architects and non-architects, from all over the world, to engage in conceiving and building their habitat with wholeness and beauty.

The writer is a Pune-based architect and educator. He is the Chair of Asian Advisory Board of Building Beauty