A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series)

by Christopher Alexander (Author), Sara Ishikawa (Author), Murray Silverstein (Author),

213 customer reviews

in Architectural Criticism

ISBN-13: 978-0195019193

ISBN-10: 0195019199

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You can use this book to design a house for yourself with your family; you can use it to work with your neighbors to improve your town and neighborhood; you can use it to design an office, or a workshop, or a public building. And you can use it to guide you in the actual process of construction.

After a ten-year silence, Christopher Alexander and his colleagues at the Center for Environmental Structure are now publishing a major statement in the form of three books which will, in their words, "lay the basis for an entirely new approach to architecture, building and planning, which will we hope replace existing ideas and practices entirely." The three books are The Timeless Way of Building, The Oregon Experiment, and this book, A Pattern Language.

At the core of these books is the idea that people should design for themselves their own houses, streets, and communities. This idea may be radical (it implies a radical transformation of the architectural profession) but it comes simply from the observation that most of the wonderful places of the world were not made by architects but by the people.

At the core of the books, too, is the point that in designing their environments people always rely on certain "languages," which, like the languages we speak, allow them to articulate and communicate an infinite variety of designs within a forma system which gives them coherence. This book provides a language of this kind. It will enable a person to make a design for almost any kind of building, or any part of the built environment.

"Patterns," the units of this language, are answers to design problems (How high should a window sill be? How many stories should a building have? How much space in a neighborhood should be devoted to grass and trees?). More than 250 of the patterns in this pattern language are given: each consists of a problem statement, a discussion of the problem with an illustration, and a solution. As the authors say in their introduction, many of the patterns are archetypal, so deeply rooted in the nature of things that it seemly likely that they will be a part of human nature, and human action, as much in five hundred years as they are today.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The second of three books published by the Center for Environmental Structure to provide a "working alternative to our present ideas about architecture, building, and planning," A Pattern Language offers a practical language for building and planning based on natural considerations. The reader is given an overview of some 250 patterns that are the units of this language, each consisting of a design problem, discussion, illustration, and solution. By understanding recurrent design problems in our environment, readers can identify extant patterns in their own design projects and use these patterns to create a language of their own. Extraordinarily thorough, coherent, and accessible, this book has become a bible for homebuilders, contractors, and developers who care about creating healthy, high-level design.

Review

"A wise old owl of a book, one to curl up with in an inglenook on a rainy day.... Alexander may be the closest thing home design has to a Zen master."--The New York Times

"A classic. A must read!"--T. Colbert, University of Houston

"The design student's bible for relativistic environmental design."--Melinda La Garce, Southern Illinois University

"Brilliant....Here's how to design or redesign any space you're living or working in--from metropolis to room. Consider what you want to happen in the space, and then page through this book. Its radically conservative observations will spark, enhance, organize your best ideas, and a wondrous home, workplace, town will result."--San Francisco Chronicle

"The most important book in architecture and planning for many decades, a landmark whose clarity and humanity give hope that our private and public spaces can yet be made gracefully habitable."--The Next Whole Earth Catalog

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Product details

Series: Center for Environmental Structure Series (Book 2)
Hardcover: 1171 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press (1977)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0195019199
ISBN-13: 978-0195019193
Product Dimensions: 5.7 x 2 x 7.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 213 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,595 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1 in Books > Arts & Photography > Architecture > Criticism
- #2 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > Architecture
- #2 in Books > Engineering & Transportation > Engineering > Reference > Architecture

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JLJ

One of the Most Unique Books I've Ever Encountered

August 11, 2015

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This book is insightful and fun to read. It is also a book that is easy to pick up and read a bit, and put it
down and come back later to pick up where you left off, because it is broken into many very short chapters,
each of which contain a key idea. It's hard to describe this book, because it is so unique in its approach
to telling the reader "how things ought to be" concerning everything from civil planning and city layout,
to floor-plans, to architectural design, to furnishing. The author is very opinionated and does not shy away
from boldly telling you what is wrong with the physical constructs of our urban, suburban, and rural areas,
and how all of that should be properly done in his imagined ideal world.

In some ways, this book is like reading the professional diary of your crazy uncle who is constantly ranting
about what's wrong with the world, and how he thinks it should be set right. However, after reading it for
a while, you get the impression that the author is not really crazy, so much as he is a brilliant eccentric
whose experience and understanding is based on an extremely broad appreciation of how human beings choose
to craft their surroundings, and how we get it right, and how we get it wrong, and why.

Be forewarned... you are not going to agree with everything the author says.
I don't agree, for example, with his outlandish claim that living in a home that is more than four stories
about the ground will eventually make you crazy, because I have loved living on the top floor of my
high-rise condo for the past ten years. I also don't agree with his idea that all kitchen cabinets should
be open shelves with no doors, because the doors just get in the way, hide what is contained therein,
and are essential useless. I must admit, however, that I love reading the author's insights on things
with which I disagree with him, and I have to admit that even on such issues... he's got good points!
Many times I find myself saying "Almost, thou persuadest me."

To be fair, I actually do agree with the author's views regarding the vast majority of his observations,
as they are all just good common-sense approaches, and I must admit they often leave me thinking
"Yes, that's such a beautifully simple truth... why don't we always build it that way, or do it that way?"

This book gives you the benefit of the sage wisdom of an author who is genuinely worth reading
and considering. Even though this book is decades-old, most of its observations are timeless.
It's so hard to classify the book. Is it a Western approach to Feng Shui ... without all the questionable
Eastern Spiritualism, and more of practical philosophy on how to best craft your environment?
Or is it better described as foundational reading for everyone from a City Planner, to an Architect,
to anyone building a house, to anyone one looking to make their home a more pleasant place?

However you choose to classify it... this book is a unique, delightful treatise on how things should
ideally be in order for human beings to be more comfortable, productive, and happy in their surroundings.

24 people found this helpful

Comment

March 1, 2014

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Bought this as a gift for a friend. Since its original publication, I have purchased numerous copies as gifts and to have in multiple locations for reference. Written in a series of short 1-2 page chapters, the book goes through an array of critical "place making" criteria based on human behavior. As an architect/urban designer, it is one of my top 5 reference books when thinking through an new project. Although not a book intended to be read cover to cover, some of his other publications are written in a way to show how these "place making" elements can be combined to create a livable human habitat.

11 people found this helpful

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Bat-Radish

A note on Christopher Alexander's context

December 22, 2017

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Other reviews correctly address this book's wholesomeness and holistic approach to building good cities and buildings and other structural frames for full, good human lives in a healthy world. Alexander does have a few particular crotchets, however, which have a surprisingly deep effect on the structure of the language he lays out here. Watch for these, and be reminded (as Alexander also reminds you) that patterns are the product of the people who made them, and may disappear or change for different groups.

1. Swimming. He is intensely focused on swimming as a major factor in civic planning and personal recreation. It's a considerable contortion at multiple points.

2. Dancing, especially in the streets. Alexander was a great fan of the Peckham Clinic which focused on (guess what) swimming and dancing as exercise and recreation. It shows.

3. Many of his patterns make an uncomfortably dated misstep when they pertain to women--and another, subtler one when dealing with work concerns and issues of children while not mentioning women directly. Women working outside the home is not a gutiding concern or a base assumption for him; a base assumption IS that women prefer and want to care for children. It's a very important shaping concern for many other parts of life, so this blind spot, characteristic of its time and place and socioeconomic environment, is very significant.

4. Disabled people, other than mildly infirm and otherwise hale elderly people, do not exist. Another blind spot.

Bear these crotchets in mind as you consider these patterns, and how to find even better patterns for a wonderful world.

6 people found this helpful

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Prison Librarian

Worth its weight in molybdenum for those who value it

September 11, 2014

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Classic book from the 1970's written by a Berkley, CA and Oregon of University Professor. It is for serious architects or engineers who wish to be challenged by values in the way things are built. This man is the Archimedes of city planning. It is a dense read but will fire you up with dreams of a better way to plan humans enjoying each other, living together in balance with resources. It is over 1,000 valuable pages of hope for city planners or individual architects. It is a priceless AND timeless book, worthy to be preserved for 1,000's of years like Archimedes gifts to us. Also, see his more reader friendly "The Timeless Way of Building" only 550 pages long.

5 people found this helpful

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Buildable

Absolutely fantastic.

May 5, 2014

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

A must-read for anyone considering a remodel or busing a house or even re-landscaping. I am a huge fan if this book. It's broken up into individual concrete ideas, yet forms a holistic overview of why certain spaces work so well and others just feel unpleasant. It's not bogged down in opaque architectural theory, is always concise, and each "pattern" is a gem.

8 people found this helpful

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Most recent customer reviews

Patrick

For anybody at all interested anything to do with people ...

For anybody at all interested anything to do with people living in and around each other. Everytime I pick it up I learn something!

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Justyna

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Dan Woodfin

This is the companion handbook to use with the theory text "The Timeless Way of Building."

This is the companion handbook to use with the theory text "The Timeless Way of Building." This book will be of very limited value when used without the theory which...Read more

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life-changing. If you're considering designing or asking someone to design space for you, it's a timeless must-have.

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Patterns in architecture, and patterns in design. One ...

Patterns in architecture, and patterns in design. One of the first books to address this topic. Important read for design people.

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Nick Yukich

My favorite all-time book

This is my bible. I call it "American Feng-Shui." I gifted this copy to a renovator, and he has already used some of the patterns to change his designs to those that will...Read more

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dubs

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Great copy of a great book!

Published 11 months ago

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