Architect Christopher Alexander has died
British-American architect and theorist of Austrian origin Christopher Alexander passed away on March 17, 2022. After a long illness, he left this world at the age of 85 in his home in Sussex, England. This was reported by his long-time colleague Michael Mehaffy.
Christopher Wolfgang Alexander was born in Vienna in 1936. He was raised in England, where he obtained a bachelor's degree in architecture and a master's degree in mathematics from Trinity College, Cambridge. He then moved to the USA, where he earned a PhD in architecture at Harvard. In 1967, he founded the Center for Environmental Structure (CES) in Berkeley, California, where he also served as a professor at the local university until his retirement in 2002.
He received many awards, including the Gold Medal for Research from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 1972. In 2006, he was awarded the Athens Medal as one of the most influential figures in the New Urbanism movement. His method of theoretical generalization far surpassed the fields of architecture and urbanism, and he paradoxically became more well-known among programmers than as an architect, despite having designed and built over two hundred buildings on five continents. His book A Pattern Language (1977, with a collective of authors), written in the form of hypertext links, for example, inspired the founder of the first Wiki platform, Ward Cunningham.
One of Alexander's most famous architectural projects is the Eishin Campus (1985-87) near Tokyo, which was built gradually according to his method and philosophy, designed with teachers and students, often with 1:1 scale models. The organic way of building through gradual transformation and adaptation to dynamic contexts, however, fundamentally contradicts modern "turnkey" design and construction methods. His lifelong struggle for the desired quality of the environment is captured in his last book The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth (2012).
“There is a single timeless way of building. It is thousands of years old and is as true today as it always has been,” Alexander wrote in his book The Timeless Way of Building (1979). An exhaustive report on finding such a way of building is presented in his life work The Nature of Order, subtitled On the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe (2002–2005). The first volume titled The Phenomenon of Life was translated into Czech in 2020 in collaboration with Brno publishers Books & Pipes and VUTIUM, with a preface by Martin Horáček.
Alexander's lifelong striving for a more humane architecture, which not only serves practical functions but also stimulates the intellect and provides a home for the human soul, inspires further generations of architects, often prompting a change in life perspective first and only then towards design and construction itself. Alexander's legacy is also carried on by his wife, Maggie Moore Alexander, through the architecture school Building Beauty, which she leads with his other colleagues in Sorrento, Italy.
More about his work HERE.
Christopher Wolfgang Alexander was born in Vienna in 1936. He was raised in England, where he obtained a bachelor's degree in architecture and a master's degree in mathematics from Trinity College, Cambridge. He then moved to the USA, where he earned a PhD in architecture at Harvard. In 1967, he founded the Center for Environmental Structure (CES) in Berkeley, California, where he also served as a professor at the local university until his retirement in 2002.
He received many awards, including the Gold Medal for Research from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 1972. In 2006, he was awarded the Athens Medal as one of the most influential figures in the New Urbanism movement. His method of theoretical generalization far surpassed the fields of architecture and urbanism, and he paradoxically became more well-known among programmers than as an architect, despite having designed and built over two hundred buildings on five continents. His book A Pattern Language (1977, with a collective of authors), written in the form of hypertext links, for example, inspired the founder of the first Wiki platform, Ward Cunningham.
One of Alexander's most famous architectural projects is the Eishin Campus (1985-87) near Tokyo, which was built gradually according to his method and philosophy, designed with teachers and students, often with 1:1 scale models. The organic way of building through gradual transformation and adaptation to dynamic contexts, however, fundamentally contradicts modern "turnkey" design and construction methods. His lifelong struggle for the desired quality of the environment is captured in his last book The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth (2012).
“There is a single timeless way of building. It is thousands of years old and is as true today as it always has been,” Alexander wrote in his book The Timeless Way of Building (1979). An exhaustive report on finding such a way of building is presented in his life work The Nature of Order, subtitled On the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe (2002–2005). The first volume titled The Phenomenon of Life was translated into Czech in 2020 in collaboration with Brno publishers Books & Pipes and VUTIUM, with a preface by Martin Horáček.
Alexander's lifelong striving for a more humane architecture, which not only serves practical functions but also stimulates the intellect and provides a home for the human soul, inspires further generations of architects, often prompting a change in life perspective first and only then towards design and construction itself. Alexander's legacy is also carried on by his wife, Maggie Moore Alexander, through the architecture school Building Beauty, which she leads with his other colleagues in Sorrento, Italy.
More about his work HERE.
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30.03.22 05:33
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