A Pattern Language Should Be Either Treat- CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER’S a Pattern Ed Like a Bible Or Tossed in the Trash

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This article appeared in Harvard Design Magazine, Winter/Spring 2002, Number 16. To order this issue or a subscription, visit the HDM homepage at .

Reviewed by William S. Saunders nology of architecture, and a prominent critic has claimed to me that no other A Pattern architecture book is as grounded in such Language abundant and acute seeing of the built world. Typically, Alexander is, for those by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and who attend to him at all, either enrap- Murray Silverstein, with Max Jacobson, Ingrid turing or repellent. I want to argue that Fiksdahl-King, and Shlomo Angel both extremes are unreasonable and un- New York: Oxford University Press, 1977 warranted, that there is no reason why A Pattern Language should be either treat- CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER’S A Pattern ed like a Bible or tossed in the trash. Language—I take the perhaps unfair lib- Alexander has developed a rigid, erty of ascribing authorship essentially messianic position, a belief that, if his to him—could very well be the most ideas were followed by all, the world read architectural treatise of all time, yet would be saved. He is deaf to other ways in the architecture schools I know, it is of thinking about architecture (by his as if this book did not exist. This guide own admission1). Add to this the fact to designing environments to encourage that he believes that the best architec- Bookand enable certain qualities of personal ture is not art (but a means of support- and social life has been the best-selling ing and enabling “aliveness”) and is theoretical work in architecture for at produced by ordinary people trying to least ten years, but has never been cited make a good life, and you get a hint of in any article submitted to Harvard De- why his ideas are celebrated more by sign Magazine and has never been do-it-yourselfers and building contrac- brought it up in conversations with me tors than by architects. Then too, Reviewsat Harvard Design School. Architects Alexander is seen as reactionary, as who were students here in the early wanting to practice “timeless” ways of 1980s tell me that no one read it then, building, and as assuming that new ideas and no courses assigned it (although an are almost never going to be as good as alumna of the architecture program at ideas that have evolved over centuries of the University of Pennsylvania in the vernacular building. And perhaps most same period tells me that it was on important, the goals of his design pre- almost every student’s desk; and it con- scriptions—comfort, ease, legibility, so- tinues to be a major, although contro- ciability, pleasure, mental health, versial, force at the University of peacefulness, opportunities for both California, Berkeley). Three highly re- solitude and participation in family and spected scholars of architectural history community life—can easily be seen as and theory have told me they have never bourgeois, encouraging complacency, read the book; based on other evidence, passivity, and parochialism. (In essence, they assume that Alexander is anti-intel- this is Peter Eisenman’s criticism in his lectual, naive, soft-headed, conservative, famous conversation with Alexander at and uninterested in architecture as art. Harvard Design School.2) On the other hand, a prominent So Alexander has a lot going against philosopher/critic tells me the book is him; he has little “cultural capital,” par- “seminal” for its grasp of the phenome- ticularly in architecture schools in which

HARVARD DESIGN MAGAZINE 1 Book Reviews A Pattern Language

newness, art, and complexity are valued, offers rules? Should it be shelved among places are meant to invite free loitering” and belief in timeless and universal hu- the ______for Dummies books and (494). He is—in part—a wild anarchist. man needs is considered naive. Nothing seen as symptomatic of Americans’ de- But A Pattern Language is over- seems more incompatible with the aca- pendence on experts, our need, even whelmingly authoritarian: a typical sen- demic study of architecture than with matters so delicate as intimate rela- tence is “Buildings must always be built Alexander’s idea that, at their best, tionships, to rely on “how to” rules? Do on those parts of the land which are in buildings “are easy to understand, with- so many buy it just because it is the the worst condition, not the best” (509). out conscious attention” (482).3 most thorough “manual” out there? Its ambitions are totalitarian, to pre- So how should scholars, architects, “How to” rules. A Pattern Language is scribe patterns at all scales in one and critics of architecture respond to nothing but rules, often presented as monolithic system. Following its dicta at the fact that Alexander’s ideas are excep- commands, and given minimal support scales larger than the individual house tionally influential among Americans and elaboration. Two hundred and fifty- would require top-down control (“Give who are thinking about the design of three rules. And if there is one thing that every neighborhood at least one corner their environments? Popularity is of has been firmly established by the last grocery” [442]). Yet the life it imagines course no measure of quality, but the century of intellectual endeavor, it is that resulting from its thoroughly planned book’s huge popularity should at least there can be no rules. Not only is reality world is one of total individual freedom make it important to students of archi- seen as too indeterminate, changing, and and maximum choice: “A setting that is full of chairs, all slightly different, im- Alexander’s goal is always to give people what they prefer, if mediately creates an atmosphere which supports rich experience; a setting given a choice. The point here is that Alexander presumes to which contain chairs that are all alike

know what people want. He can’t seem to imagine that some puts a subtle straight [sic] jacket on ex- blisher people might not share his values and might want lives that perience” (1159). Alexander never re- are, say, monastic, work-centered, or fast-paced. solves this central contradiction: the only model for a free, vital life he can imagine is his own. And he imparts it to tectural culture in general. A Pattern unknowable to make rules stick, but also us as if we should have no minds of our Language’s sales have increased steadily rules are seen as tyrannical, blocking own; he repeats its dicta and bangs them since it first appeared in 1974.4 When creative freedom. loudly by summarizing each in large, another architecture book might be sell- The authors of A Pattern Language bolded letters. ing more, this other book is almost al- claim not to be authoritative or authori- But no one has to obey his rules. ways a glossy coffee-table production tarian. “We have tried to write each so- They can be entertained as ideas, as pro- quite unlike A Pattern Language, with its lution in a way which imposes nothing posals—“what about this, or this, or Bible-like 1,171 thin-paper pages inter- on you” (xiii). “You can use this solution this?”—thought through open-mindedly, spersed with grainy black and white a million times over, without ever doing then accepted, modified, or discarded. A photographs and small, tossed-off line it the same way twice” (x). The book Pattern Language should not be taken so drawings. I have never gone to Ama- emphasizes the constant participation of literally by either its detractors or its dis- zon.com’s Architecture/Criticism cate- owners and users in the making of ciples. Approaching it with the intention gory without finding this book the buildings; insists that design be utterly of using whatever seems useful, one will number-one seller, and in Amazon’s all- site-specific and constantly modified find many good and some brilliant spe- of-Architecture category, I have always during the building process (essentially cific ideas and reminders, which need found it the first theoretical work to ap- designed as it is built); claims that all not be diminished because the ideas pear among bestsellers. Since 2000, a town and city planning should be from surrounding them are sometimes nutty, Pattern Language web site has been on the bottom up, done entirely by neigh- unfeasible, and/or naive. Given the line, offering several dozen pages, and, bors for their neighborhoods; and cele- book’s endless detail, such an approach is for a fee, entry into a computer pro- brates anarchic, spontaneous ways of bound to put A Pattern Language among gram that walks the user through the living in positively Dionysian tones: the few books about architecture that design of environments using Alexan- “Set aside some part of the town as a won’t and shouldn’t go away. der’s matrix of rules. I have been told by carnival—mad sideshows, tournaments, Both the intelligence and the foolish- one of the web site’s staff that its users acts, displays, competitions, dancing, ness of A Pattern Language are insepara- are, from most to fewest, laypeople de- music, street theater, clowns, transves- ble from its radical utopianism, its signing their own houses, then builders tites, freak events, which allow people to authors’ belief in and attempt to create and contractors, and (a distant third) ar- reveal their madness. . .” [300]). Alexan- an ideal world. Alexander is one of the chitects. Is A Pattern Language’s middle- der’s sense of good street life is similar last of the earnest and influential utopi-

brow popularity due to the fact that it to that of the Situationists: “Public ans; his goal is to “repair the world” of Harvard the President and Fellows © 2002 by College and The MIT Press. Not to be reproduced without the permission of the pu

2 HARVARD DESIGN MAGAZINE WINTER/SPRING 2002 Book Reviews A Pattern Language

(xiii). Although he combs exhaustively is neither debilitating poverty nor isolat- is their extremism—“No people . . . no through pre-modern places to find ex- ing wealth, only easy-going lower-mid- human group”—that seems not just amples of good design, he does so to dle to upper-middle class people. shrill but also nutty—as nutty as this better define an ideal future, what he be- Alexander’s life well lived—precisely be- preposterous sentence: “There is abun- lieves we should do to make a good life. cause it is so utopian—is disengaged, so dant evidence to show that high rise Patterns from the past are not the same pleasant and comfortable that the buildings make people crazy” (115). as styles from the past: he sees no reason world’s problems can fade from atten- Since the mid-’70s, the pendulum has why bay windows should look like tion.7 swung to the other side, from structural- Grandma’s, only that there should be bay Perhaps the most disturbing qualities ism to poststructuralism and the dogma windows for the experiences they enable. of Alexander’s thought are its absolutism that reality is a social construction, de- At the same time, however, the and essentialism. Alexander can be a termined and explained by the contin- Alexander of A Pattern Language is sententious preacher, moralizing casti- gencies of its time and place and based indifferent to the feasibility of his pro- gator, and foggy generalizer, particularly on no underlying constants or essences. posals. Since in his mind they unques- in A Timeless Way of Building (1979) and Yet were that true, Homer’s Odyessey tionably should be implemented, The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art would not have the power it does to whether they can be implemented with- of Building and the Nature of the Universe, make us weep, nor ancient Japanese gar- out a radical restructuring of contempo- Book One: The Phenomenon of Life dens their power to soothe. So while it is rary economic systems, governmental (2002).8 He has the answers. And the appropriate and indeed inevitable to re- rules, and deeply ingrained morés (most answers do not change, because he coil from Alexander’s absolutism, our can’t) is not something he considers. thinks that human nature and needs very rejection of absolutism should leave For example, his assertions that every don’t change: based in biological con- us flexible, open to both the idea that

family should own its home (393) and stants, human life is much the same any- some human needs (like many patterns blisher every store manager his or her store where and anytime. The Pattern of habitation) are pretty consistent over (433) are two of many patterns that im- Language web site speaks of “thinking time and distance. To repeat: we should ply the need for a massive government correctly about the nature of life.” be able to entertain and make use of intervention that would be intolerable Alexander’s environmental determinism whatever is useful in Alexander’s rules. to Americans. is disconcertingly simplistic: “I shall We don’t have to be as deadly serious Alexander’s starting point is his par- show that, in order to overcome the au- with him as he is with us. ticular ideal of a well-lived life. His life tonomy-withdrawal syndrome, a city’s Structuralism is only one aspect of A well lived is Californian/Mediter- housing must have twelve specific geo- Pattern Language’s fit to its time. As a ranean—slow, relaxed, sociable, pleas- metric characteristics. . . .”9; “If the utopian tract filled with faith in the ure-seeking, affectionate, spontaneous, building is placed right, the building natural goodness of humanity and set healthy, communal, cross-generational, and its gardens will be happy places full in rebellion against the anomie, regi- sensually gratifying, comfortable, and of activity and laughter” (514). How mentation, mechanization, and con- full of leisure time for mingling and for odd it now seems that even after the sumerism of mid-20th-century solitude. Assisi without the tourists. Fre- fractured, multiple perspectives of early America, the book falls in line with quent and unsuperficial social contact is modernism in the fine arts and litera- other books on architecture and urban- his primary value: “the whole meaning ture, structuralist ideas—like those of ism that broke from pseudo-Modernist of life shows itself only in the process of Claude Lévi-Strauss (Structural Anthro- dogma so prevalent in American archi- our intimate contacts.”5 And Alexander’s pology, 1963), Noam Chomsky (Syntactic tecture from the 1940s through the goal is always to give people what they Structures, 1957), Carl Jung (Collected 1960s. William H. Whyte was one of prefer, if given a choice. The point here Works, 1953)—were so strong in the the first to articulate values and con- is that Alexander presumes to know what ’50s and ’60s. Alexander is a structural- cerns—about spontaneous social life people want. He can’t seem to imagine ist, and has been since his first book. and the kinds of environments that fos- that some people might not share his Like all structuralists, he tries to identify ter it—that are now commonplace. In values and might want lives that are, say, fundamental realities beneath all the 1958, he published Open Spaces and Ur- monastic, work-centered, or fast-paced.6 sound and fury. “No people who turn ban Sprawl, and in 1964 Cluster Devel- Could we live Alexander’s ideal life? their back on death can be alive,” lec- opment. In the same period came Jane Not without a good income, accommo- tures Alexander (354); “Without com- Jacobs’ devastating assault on urban dating friends and family, and some munal eating, no human group can hold planning and redevelopment, The willingness to cut ourselves off from the together” (697); “These kinds of win- Death and Life of Great American Cities common world of telephones, long dows which create ‘places’ next to them (1961), again a book that celebrated work days, popular culture, environ- are not simply luxuries; they are neces- spontaneous and warm social life in mental and social problems, and so on. sary” (834). While we can understand small urban areas. In 1963, as a Har-

In the world Alexander imagines, there and generally agree with these adages, it vard Ph.D. student, Alexander was sec- of Harvard the President and Fellows © 2002 by College and The MIT Press. Not to be reproduced without the permission of the pu

3 HARVARD DESIGN MAGAZINE WINTER/SPRING 2002 Book Reviews A Pattern Language ondary author with Serge Chermayeff ’60s—people like Allen Ginsberg, Abra- to community-making utopianism is no of Community and Privacy, likewise an ham Maslow, Robert Bly, and Norman longer hippie communes but the sorely assault on Modernist urbanism. Here O. Brown—Alexander often acted as if compromised enclaves spawned by New too, community is rendered as the ulti- spontaneous feeling put careful thinking Urbanism.14 mate value in contrast to the alienation to shame. As he was fond of repeating, A major weakness in A Pattern Lan- and anonymity that Whyte had ex- the only way the quality of architecture guage’s utopianism is that many of its posed early on in The Organization could be measured is through positive rules are not based on hard critical Man (1953). A Heideggerian primi- or negative responsive feeling.10 His thinking or careful research but instead tivism, a Rousseauean belief in the undergraduate study of mathematics and on a New Age flower-child wishfulness, wisdom and vitality of the natural— computer science did not make him rig- one grounded in a Wordsworthian vernacular, untutored, and traditional orously scientific. And his constant ref- belief in a pure natural state only dis- building—surfaced in 1964 with the erences to his own and others’ empirical rupted and corrupted by civilization: publication of Bernard Rudofsky’s Ar- studies of people’s reactions to specific “People need contact with trees and chitecture without Architects and Gaston kinds of places in A Pattern Language plants and water. In some way, which is Bachelard’s Poetics of Space (quoted by don’t prove otherwise. His book is based hard to express, people are able to be Alexander in A Pattern Language). This on observation, but it is really observa- more whole in the presence of nature, primitivist strain runs deeply through tion without methodology, the sort fa- are able to go deeper into themselves, A Pattern Language. That same year miliar to us in Death and Life of Great and are somehow able to draw sustain- saw the publication of Alexander’s first American Cities.11 Certainly all the Cen- ing energy from the life of plants and solo book, developed from his Ph.D. ter’s “experiments” served as respectable tress and water” (806). Most of us dissertation, Notes on the Synthesis of ballast for Alexander’s assertions about would probably agree, and in that re-

Form; soon thereafter, in 1965, came what people prefer.12 But ultimately, spect the statement is a truism. But blisher “The City is Not a Tree,” the bit of his Alexander’s yardstick was his own imagi- what is troubling is the attempt to get writing seemingly most respected in nation and affect, which were not al- away with inarticulateness and intellec- the academy, and in 1966 his long es- ways, as he thought, like everyone else’s. tual looseness: “in some way, which is say, “The City as a Mechanism for Sus- So in the early 21st century, how hard to express . . . somehow. . . .” We taining Human Contact.” We see in all should we respond to utopianism like see it here too: “We guess that people this that Alexander was working at full Alexander’s? Of the three basic possibili- who swim and dive often . . . may be throttle more than ten years before the ties—“We have an obligation to work closer to their dreams, more in contact publication of A Pattern Language, with for an ideal world always and under any with their unconscious, than people 1967 being the year of his full and firm establishment as a researcher (with others) trying to determine which envi- A major weakness in A Pattern Language’s utopianism is ronmental patterns further “being most that many of its rules are not based on hard critical thinking alive.” His Center for Environmental or careful research but instead on a New Age flower-child Structure, in Berkeley, was established wishfulness, one grounded in a Wordsworthian belief in a pure with money from the National Insti- natural state only disrupted and corrupted by civilization. tute of Mental Health (links of the Center’s work with mental health being fully appropriate), and in 1967 Alexan- circumstances”; “We have no choice but who swim rarely. Several studies have der’s A Pattern Manual pamphlet and to accept the world as it is—all else is in fact demonstrated that water has a “Pattern of Streets” article were pub- foolish dreaming”; and “Utopian ideals positive therapeutic effect; that it sets lished, seven years before A Pattern are what should direct our actions as we up growth experience” (324). This Language. In the May 1968 Ekistics work with given conditions to change starts with the feeble “we guess” and comes “The Environmental Pattern them”—the second is now prominent in runs for hollow “scientific” support to Language,” the text from the new Cen- high architectural culture. Its most often the equally evasive “several studies have ter’s brochure announcing the project heard voice is that of Rem Koolhaas, demonstrated.” This kind of loose- of identifying fundamental design who wants to be the most realistic of re- ness—an inadequacy of imaginative guidelines. A Pattern Language, then, alists, concerned not with what should rigor—lets through Alexander’s most was the result of a decade of work, with be but with what is—including the near dreamy specific pattern proposals: its direction and values established in impotence of architects to shape the naked bathing with family and friends; the ’60s, those years of the closest built environment—faced and accepted dancing in the streets; a separate living thing to a cultural revolution America unshirkingly.13 When the closest we quarters for teenagers; communal sleep- has known. have to a global religion is belief in un- ing (after the dinner party, the guests

Along with the neoromantics of the regulated capitalism, the closest we have retire to beds in their alcoves); sleeping of Harvard the President and Fellows © 2002 by College and The MIT Press. Not to be reproduced without the permission of the pu

4 HARVARD DESIGN MAGAZINE WINTER/SPRING 2002 Book Reviews A Pattern Language in outdoor public spaces; high schools scribes “fingers” of farmland at least one like that of a New England farmhouse run by students; open universities with- mile wide “even at the center of the me- added onto several times over centuries, out official teachers. These proposals tropolis,” subsequent drawings of urban the beauty of a rambling, anarchic jum- reflect the naive trust in human good- centers show no such fingers, which ble, totalitarian Gesamptkunstwerk be ness that has led many a commune to would interfere with other patterns. damned. dissolve in acids of interpersonal con- Fragmentation and hodgepodge I have been contending that A Pattern flict. Alexander is out of touch, in such would be the results of following the Language cannot and should not be cases, with what makes at least the “or- book’s proposals for town design in par- treated as a Bible. Now I want argue dinary” people I know comfortable. But ticular. All town residents must have easy that not only can it provide a great deal he wants to represent collective urges walking access to impossibly many things of pleasure, but also that it deserves the and values that are beyond any wishes (take a deep breath): the countryside, attention and respect of sophisticated he alone might have (to create an “ego- agriculture, a town hall, a high place, a designers and architectural theorists. less architecture”). sacred place, a neighborhood commons, Such readers will be familiar with many In other cases, the dreaminess stems a health center, residences for old people, (certainly not all) of the good ideas in A not from a Pollyannaish view of human bike paths, gravesites, diverse small Pattern Language; maximizing southern nature but from an extreme indifference stores, natural bodies of water, small exposure and letting in daylight from at to realism, to imagining what is even re- squares, carnivals, playgrounds, street least two sides are not exactly new ideas. motely possible: shared swimming pools theater and games, animal pens, outdoor But the strengths of the book are to flesh on every block; farm animals near all cafés, clusters of eating places, a mix of out the social and experiential reasons for houses; “an endless local texture of household types, travelers’ inns, special- such designs so that they are less likely to small pools, ponds, reservoirs, and ized and corner grocery stories, beer be neglected. Showing in a photograph streams in every neighborhood” (323); halls, schools, dance halls, birthing cen- how light from one side for a person fur- blisher no (“isolating”) private offices; deliber- ters, workplaces, nodes of activity that ther from that window creates situations ately irregular construction without pre- gather and serve diverse subcultures, in which a face looking away from the cise right angles and truly flat planes; swimming pools, sports facilities, clusters window is obscured in shadow provides a and so on. These and most other pat- of night entertainment spots, bus stops strong incentive to follow the “light from terns stem from Alexander’s judgment that are small centers of public life, food two sides” pattern. The book can be use- that we are most fully alive when we are stands, places for public sleeping, and so ful to experienced architects because it closest to nature and to others, in touch on! Try drawing that in plan. provides reminders, a kind of checklist of with elemental realities—our bodies, The method is additive, not interde- things one wants to be sure not to neg- water, sunlight, etc. One may not agree. pendent, as the authors claim. The lect (or at least consider). (These com- But there are too many powerful whole created is not greater than the monplaces are often forgotten: I recently thinkers in this tradition (among sum of its parts, and in fact is less, since stayed in a new upscale house in which dozens, Thoreau, Tolstoy, and D.H. the parts crowd and conflict with each all ten rooms had light from only one Lawrence) to dismiss it out of hand, and other. The same would be true for a side—even big rooms felt constricting.) I Alexander occasionally expresses this el- house designed following the book’s also want to argue that people well edu- ementalism strikingly well: “But man prescriptions: with so much emphasis cated in architectural matters should be has a great need for mad, subconscious placed on discrete elements, stand back grateful that A Pattern Language is influ- processes to come into play, without un- to work out how the parts can be made encing many people uneducated in archi- leashing them to such an extent that to form a pleasing whole is neglected. tecture—builders, developers, and they become socially destructive. There (Alexander’s combative collaborator In- homeowners—to design houses with is, in short, a need for socially sanc- grid King points out how he goes on to more thought and care than they other- tioned activities which are the social, realize in later work that something wise would. outward equivalents of dreaming” (299). more than the aggregation of patterns is Some of the book’s valuable ideas not Alexander and his co-authors assert necessary for a satisfying architecture: often or elsewhere articulated include: that A Pattern Language is a recipe book order and unity—the subject of his most make row houses wide and shallow to that can be used in toto, going from recent book, The Meaning of Order.)15 increase their interior daylighting; create start to finish. But the rules, although But I would argue that following A “a loop which passes through all the meant to fit together like pieces in a Pattern Language’s rules (not Alexander’s major rooms, public and common, puzzle, would, if all followed, produce architecture) would produce a certain [establishing] an enormous feeling of impossible conditions, ridiculous over- kind of beauty, precisely the beauty of generosity” (630); in small buildings laps, chaos, jumble. They cannot be insouciant love of parts, of each crafted string out rooms horizontally or vertical- adopted all at once—following some detail, of the incongruous, the unexpect- ly to increase the privacy of each; create rules prevents following other rules. ed nooks and crannies, each with its conspicuous and gradual transitions at

For instance, although Pattern 3 pre- own delightful role and effect—a beauty building entrances to increase the “feel- of Harvard the President and Fellows © 2002 by College and The MIT Press. Not to be reproduced without the permission of the pu

5 HARVARD DESIGN MAGAZINE WINTER/SPRING 2002 Book Reviews A Pattern Language ing of arrival”; use low ceilings to in- and ways they know, and whom they the intimacy of a private haven and our crease intimacy and high ceilings to in- trust. . . .” Anyone who has been in an participation with a public world” (665). crease formality. Nowhere have I read an organization filled with people whose “It is essential that each person feels articulation as convincing as Alexander’s values and interests are alien will know free to make connections or not, to of how one might create a “sacred the resulting painful feeling of nonbeing move or not, to talk or not, to change space”—with a connected series of and will recognize the truth of these the situation or not, according to his “nested precincts” that become progres- statements. Alexander quickly adds the judgment” (628). Alexander responds to sively more private and end in a sanctum caveat, “we certainly do not want to en- these needs by arguing for spaces of sanctorum (334). courage these subcultures to be tribal or gradations (e.g., from rooms for several Alexander’s best ideas about town closed. . . . It must be possible, there- people to rooms for one person) and making in A Pattern Language are found fore, for people to move easily from one combinations (e.g., porches participat- later in William H. Whyte’s The Social subculture to another, and for them to ing equally in the street and the home) Life of Small Urban Places (1980), in Alex choose whichever one is most to their between the extremes. Krieger’s book on Andres Duany and taste” (48), but even here he is provoca- Readers who dismiss A Pattern Lan- Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk’s Towns and tively out of tune with contemporary guage for its dogmatism and architectur- Town-Making Principles (1991), and in thinking that different subcultures al exclusivity are depriving themselves Peter Calthorpe’s The Next American should be made part of our everyday ex- of a chance to savor its bounty of de- Metropolis (1993): the promotion of perience. lightful details and insights; they are be- mixed use, pedestrian convenience and He is, on the other hand, in tune ing as rigid as they think Alexander is. zones, ample public transportation, non- with the cherishing of the everyday in And if only because A Pattern Language exclusive zoning, cluster development, the thinking of Henri Lefebvre, Michel is a perennial best-seller, architectural workplaces near and in homes, limited de Certeau, John Stilgoe, J.B. Jackson, curricula have some obligation to study blisher automobile access, small architectural Margaret Crawford, and others; this it as a cultural phenomenon. On the scale, “activity nodes,” town greens, kind of focus leads him to respect for other hand, if just three copies of A Pat- small public squares, street cafés, and so and interest in interior decoration, or- tern Language were selling each year, it on. But more than these books, A Pat- nament, and sensuously pleasing materi- would deserve, despite all its serious tern Language is imaginative, lively, als—soft, warm, “feminine” things often problems, to be treated as a “classic.” spontaneous, and abundant, overflowing banished in the machismo and minimal- with quickly sketched, informed intu- ism of neomodernism. And despite the Notes itions. Alexander keeps his eyes on the bourgeois tenor of many of his ideals, 1. “I have always begun from first principles, prize of particular daily experiences; this Alexander is antisuburban: on the priva- assuming nothing, and certainly not assuming gives the book a pervasive warmth and cy to community spectrum, his enthusi- that what passes for accepted wisdom in the humanity. (Several of the book’s photo- asm is strongest for the connectivity of profession is true or useful. This has, sadly, of- graphs are by Henri Cartier-Bresson, lively, mixed-use, in-town streets. ten brought me to a point of view which seems whose obvious affection for “ordinary” Another strength of A Pattern Lan- distant, or opposed—in language, thought, ter- people is much like Alexander’s; a friend guage is its breadth of focus and support- minology, and sympathy—from the other archi- has told me he thinks the book is worth ing reference. Since for Alexander, the tects of my own era. . . . I have been forced to its high price for its hundreds of photo- quality of architecture depends on the take an extreme position, simply to allow my graphs alone.) quality of life that it influences, his work thought to remain uncontaminated by what I Some of Alexander’s ideas are now naturally expands to include psychology, view as the profoundly dangerous elements in certainly politically incorrect: his en- anthropology, history, literature, sociolo- present day mainstream professional architec- couragement of separation of subcul- gy, and religion. It is an impressive labor ture.” A + U, August 1993, 4. tures (76), gated communities (89), and, of synthesis, even if it has been justly 2. “Discord over Harmony in Architecture: Pe- indirectly, sprawl (17). But his fierce in- criticized as using other sources (as well ter Eisenman and Christopher Alexander in dependence helps one see realities that as empirical studies) strictly to shore up Discussion,” Studio Works 7 (Cambridge: Har- political correctness has pushed out of thoughts he already has. vard Design School, 2001), 50-57. focus. “A person will only be able to One of Alexander’s main ideas seems 3. Numbers in parentheses in this essay refer to find his own self, and therefore to de- particularly important to me: people pages in A Pattern Language. velop a strong character, if he is in a sit- have opposite needs that should both be 4. Also according to www.patternlanguage.com. uation where he receives support for his satisfied in building design, needs for 5. “The City as a Mechanism for Sustaining idiosyncrasies from the people and val- being public and private, with others Human Contact,” in Environment for Man, ed. ues which surround him. . . . Self-actu- and alone, casual and formal, intimate William R. Ewald, Jr. (Bloomington: Indiana alization . . . can only happen, when and detached, sheltered and out in the University Press, 1967), 73. people are in familiar territory, among open (350, 610, 628, 831). “A good 6. J. P. Protzen articulated the narrowness of

people of their own kind, whose habits house supports both kinds of experience: Alexander’s definitions of appealing environ- of Harvard the President and Fellows © 2002 by College and The MIT Press. Not to be reproduced without the permission of the pu

6 HARVARD DESIGN MAGAZINE WINTER/SPRING 2002 Book Reviews A Pattern Language

ments shortly after the book first appeared: 13. Koolhaas and Alexander could not be fur- “But what kind of choices does this language ther apart in their responses to modernity. offer to those who do not appreciate ginger- Koolhaas accepts and even enjoys the anomie bread dollhouses? What kind of options does it and impersonality of big structures, whereas leave to those who find virtue in a common Alexander writes, “Any monolithic building is space that is large, generous, and unadorned; a denying the facts of its own social structure. . . . space with uninterrupted hard walls, level floors Monoliths induce a kind of feeling of free-float- and ceilings, no nooks, no crannies, no trim; ing anxiety in people” (470). that has a terrazo floor and a glass ceiling, the 14. During an intense encounter between orientation of which is not confused by light Koolhaas and Cornel West at the conference from two sides; and which has no window . . . on pragmatism and architecture at the New and no fireplace?” “The Poverty of The Pattern York Museum of Modern Art in November Language,” Design Methods and Theories, 2000, Koolhaas had no rejoinder to West’s as- September-December 1978, 191-192. sertion that nostalgia is not always bad, that re- 7. While Alexander’s models for healthy, bal- membering what was best about situations and anced life come mainly from environments and environments of the past is our way of defining morés of the European lower class, his propos- what we seek in the future. als for houses could only be afforded by the up- 15. “The geometrical coherence associate with per and upper-middle class: separate cottages the high-marks of the various cultures repre- for children and the elderly, alcoves and win- sented a kind of phenomenon that clearly lay dow seats, dressing rooms, greenhouses, a room outside the concept of pattern language. Build- of one’s own, a variety of ceiling heights, and so ings as different as the Parthenon, the Alham- blisher on. So much does his view that mental health bra, and Notre Dame . . . possessed an order of requires opportunities within families for the geometry that could not conceivably originate privacy of individuals and couples that he, ipso in ‘function.’” Ingrid King, “Christopher facto, dooms poor families to mental illness. Alexander and Contemporary Architecture,” A 8. Center for Environmental Structure + U, August 1993, 7. Series, v. 9. 9. “The City as a Mechanism for Sustaining Human Contact,” 61. William S. Saunders is Editor of Harvard 10. Patricia Leigh Brown, New York Times, No- Design Magazine and author of Modern vember 23, 2000, House & Home: “‘The purpose Architecture: Photographs of Ezra Stoller. of this room is to make you feel centered when you’re in here,’ he said. ‘It’s all gauged by feeling rather than theory.’” This is most fully articulated in Alexander’s A Timeless Way of Building. 11. “In our design experiments, where lay people have used these patterns to design their own houses, we have noticed a rather strong urge to give the bed a nook of its own” (869). This hardly qualifies as an experiment: after all, the patterns call for beds having nooks, and the “ex- perimenters” were with the “laypeople” as they designed and surely conveyed their biases. 12. One of Alexander’s basic assumptions has been criticized by J. P. Prozen: “I certainly ob- ject to the logic which would conclude that because everybody wants something we ought to have it, or, conversely, that because everybody hates something we ought to do away with it. History is witness to the fact that people can agree to do the stupidest and most horrendous things, and that they have been reinforced in that precisely because they all have been in

7 HARVARD DESIGN MAGAZINE WINTER/SPRING 2002