The Timeless Way of Building

by Christopher Alexander (Author)

178 ratings

in Architecture Study & Teaching

ISBN-13: 978-0195024029

ISBN-10: 0195024028

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The theory of architecture implicit in our world today, Christopher Alexander believes, is bankrupt. More and more people are aware that something is deeply wrong. Yet the power of present-day ideas is so great that many feel uncomfortable, even afraid, to say openly that they dislike what is
happening, because they are afraid to seem foolish, afraid perhaps that they will be laughed at.

Now, at last, there is a coherent theory which describes in modern terms an architecture as ancient as human society itself.

The Timeless Way of Building is the introductory volume in the Center for Environmental Structure series, Christopher Alexander presents in it a new theory of architecture, building, and planning which has at its core that age-old process by which the people of a society have always pulled the order
of their world from their own being.

Alexander writes, "There is one timeless way of building. It is thousands of years old, and the same today as it has always been. The great traditional buildings of the past, the villages and tents and temples in which man feels at home, have always been made by people who were very close to the
center of 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."

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Excellent text for architectural theory and design--a must for design students."--Brad Grant, California Polytechnic State University

About the Author

Christopher Alexander is a builder, craftsman, general contractor, architect, painter, and teacher. He taught from 1963 to 2002 as Professor of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and is now Professor Emeritus. He has spent his life running construction projects, experimenting
with new building methods and materials, and crafting carefully articulated buildings--all to advance the idea that people can build environments in which they will thrive.

Acting on his deeply-held conviction that, as a society, we must recover the means by which we can build and maintain healthy living environments, he has lived and worked in many cultures, and built buildings all over the world.

Making neighborhoods, building-complexes, building, balustrades, columns, ceilings, windows, tiles, ornaments, models and mockups, paintings, furniture, castings and carvings--all this has been his passion, and is the cornerstone from which his paradigm-changing principles have been derived.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press (January 1, 1979)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 552 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0195024028
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0195024029
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.53 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8 x 1.25 x 5.7 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #21,262 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1 in Architecture Study & Teaching (Books)
- #3 in Urban & Land Use Planning (Books)
- #3 in Architectural Criticism

Customer Reviews:
178 ratings

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5 star		81%
4 star		13%
3 star		3%
2 star		2%
1 star		1%

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Austin Haas

Recent editions have lousy printing.

Reviewed in the United States on November 3, 2018

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This is an excellent book. I love it. I've read it twice. I recently purchased a copy for a friend and was disappointed to discover that the printing (38) is substantially inferior to the printing I own (21). The paper is thinner, which means that the text from the opposite page bleeds, through. The photographs have less contrast. And worst of all, the printed text has a rougher, grainy texture. I'm guessing that this is the result of a cheaper process, maybe using a laser printer.

12 people found this helpful

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Dan Woodfin

This is the most significant book on architecture

Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2017

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This is the most significant book on architecture. Christopher Alexander has written a number of books. This is the theory text. It provides enough explained theory for a person to "practice" the "timeless way of building", vernacular architecture. I know it "works" from my experience as a practicing architect and as a professor of architecture. The companion book is "A Pattern Language." Without the theory the patterns in this book will be of extremely limited value.

9 people found this helpful

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Julie Tonning

Good Resource Book

Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 2020

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The authors have bitten off quite a mouthful in tackling the issue of marrying the sensitivity of humanity with the necessities of societal planning and architectural design. Some of their premises and notions about how societies should be structured and which psychological impulses should receive precedence when designing spaces for people may be a little biased, but I assure you that this book will change the way that you think about city-planning and design for the better. It opens up the conversation to bigger factors than just technical questions pertaining to how best can you fit a certain number of people into a particular area. It asks the question, and how best can we fit their souls into a particular area, not just their bodies? Worth your while.

4 people found this helpful

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ML Bilyeu

Hard to get through, but worth it

Reviewed in the United States on August 12, 2019

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I bought all three books in this series, and was hoping they would help me design our new house. The first book in the series was really hard to get through. I skipped over all the parts that didn't relate specifically to a house (i.e., anything related to designing towns), and almost gave up a few times. But after a few chapters I started to "get it" and could begin to understand the concept he was trying to convey, and suddenly I could see in the pictures included in the book exactly what he was talking about. It helped me get the mindset I needed to start on the next book on patterns.

4 people found this helpful

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Michael Hurd

Most profound book on building i know of

Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2018

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This trilogy is brilliant. It's the most important written work on the art, artistry, spirit and practical wisdom of designing spaces that I know of. A must-read (or better a must-consult) resource for anyone with anything to do with designing spaces that humans inhabit.

7 people found this helpful

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mickayla

Mostly common sense

Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2019

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An interesting view of how common sense can build a far better and more liveable home, addition or city. Written in the 70's it is still applicable today but sadly very few commercial building allotments would seem to have architects who have read or even applied the thoughts presented in this book, judging by the mass market homes and suburbs of today.

2 people found this helpful

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Amir

inspirational

Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2013

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i'm a software designer/developer and was referred to this book by a colleague (a senior architect that i have a lot of respect for.) I finished reading a few months ago and the main impression that lingers is how much i loved the way alexander talked about the implicit goal we have when we're building things: to accomplish something "wonderful." that's my own verbiage, and by "wonderful" I mean something that endures, that humans want to interact with, and that achieves the goal you originally set out to design a solution for. in software, that's something maintainable that's easy to extend and understand and that is well thought out and well intended for the problem at hand.

if you're an aspiring software architect, you would do the community around you a big favor by perpetuating this book - the more of us that speak and understand the "pattern languages" that pervade this book (and his other related works), the more we can build and aspire to build really really awesome stuff.

30 people found this helpful

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Kris L. Holt

The Etymology of Software Architecture

Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2003

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I found this book so mesmerizing that I read it twice. During the first pass, I was surprised that the book was so philosophical and poetic in describing architecture. I expected something more technical. Later during the second pass, my goal was to find derivatives and analogies in software architecture. Based on what I found, I think every software architect would enjoy this book.
The writing style that I noticed in my first read of the book made me feel like I was reading an architecture bible. I hesitate to describe the book as religious, but the book's description "the power to make buildings beautiful lies in each of us already" and the description of the word "alive" giving architecture "the quality without a name" triggered an epiphany when recalling that the Bible says "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." and, "So God created man in his own image." This is why I'd say this book has a primal, sacred aspect, and this is why we like to build. Additionally, the book especially moved me so my mind's eye was opened to see "alive" patterns and to think about the morphology of architecture filling voids and generating towns.
On the second pass of reading, I was struck by this software architecture analogy in the table of contents: "16. Once we have understood how to discover individual patterns which are alive, we may then make a language for ourselves for any building task we face. The structure of the language is created by the network of connections among individual patterns: and the language lives, or not, as a totality, to the degree these patterns form a whole." Could this be the guidebook for designing enterprise software architecture?
Obviously this book was the inspiration for the philosophy and vocabulary for software architecture, and I thought some of the following excerpts were noteworthy paradigm shifts.
"The patterns are not just patterns of relationships, but patterns of relationships among other smaller patterns, which themselves have still other patterns hooking them together---and we see finally, that the world is entirely made of all these interhooking, interlocking nonmaterial patterns." This sounds like the difference between patterns of software architecture and object-oriented software design patterns.
"Each pattern is a three-part rule, which expresses a relation between a certain context, a problem, and a solution." Deja vu for software patterns.
"You may be afraid that the design won't work if you take just one pattern at a time...There is no reason to be timid...The order of the language will make sure that it is possible." Likewise in software architecture design, as one design pattern is considered at a time to see how it fits needs into the large picture of design. If this pattern is later deemed to be dead, it can be replaced by an "alive" design pattern.

"Next, several acts of building, each one done to repair and magnify the product of the previous acts, will slowly generate a larger and more complex whole than any single act can generate." This correlates to software refactoring.
"It is essential, therefore, that the builder build only from rough drawings: and that he carry out the detailed patterns from the drawings according to the processes given by the pattern language in his mind." When I read this, I thought about the metaphor to the software architect's vision and design. The software architect's design needs to be abstract enough to accommodate change easily, but yet simple enough so software programmers can understand it, finish the detailed component design and build the component to fit the architectural whole.

30 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Angus Jenkinson

A brilliant mind-moving essay on human fundamentals, and architecture by the way

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 30, 2014

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Christopher Alexander is one of the seminal thinkers in architecture, but his ideas are also relvant to software architecture, organisation design, customer experience and indeed science genrally. This is a highly challenging, brilliantly written, engaging explanation of his thinking. It stands with such classics as Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenaence as a book that could change your thinking on the nature of quality and the social process of design. I would say the book brings together aspects of Taoism, Whiteheadian physics, Drucker's concern for the customer, and his original thinking. He also confirms Stewart's introduction of value into systems thinking as an objective feature of the system. Entrancing

4 people found this helpful

Silvi Pilt

This book awakens the soul!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 14, 2020

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This is a very powerful book, helps me get back in touch with my internal senses of how to create things, to appreciate beauty; also made me buy two new chairs so I could sit by the window and just look outside, so I will have a bit more to do in my tiny apartment than just stare at the computer screen. A book which has actual practical use for real life, love it so much!

2 people found this helpful

Jeff Kazimir

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 18, 2014

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Perfect

One person found this helpful

D C LEWIS

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 12, 2015

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If all architects thought like Christopher Alexander, cities would be wonderful places to live in....

2 people found this helpful

Sriraam P.

Probably the best book ever written.

Reviewed in India on February 2, 2019

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It's a book about architecture. It describes a new way of looking at design. Breaking down the design problem and attempting to provide a procedure to solve it systematically.

It is a companion book to A Pattern Language and The Oregon Experiment.

The book is so beautifully written that I sometimes am moved to tears by the profoudness of the thoughts expressed. All architects mist read this book.

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