Pattern Language

Christopher Alexander is Professor in the Graduate School and Emeritus Professor of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the father of the Pattern Language movement in computer science, and A Pattern Language, a seminal work that was perhaps the first complete book ever written in hypertext fashion. A Pattern Language was originally expected to enable every citizen to design and construct their own home. While that ambitious objective was not entirely realized, it did result in a liberation from empty architectural dogma. Armed with this book, a client can evolve and express his or her own desires for a building. An architect is no longer the absolute and sole source of design ideas and solutions. On a larger scale, mistakes in urban design and planning can be detected and corrected. I believe that this remarkable shift in power, which enables ordinary people to understand their environment - often better than the professionals - is responsible for the harsh suppression of this monumental work by certain short-sighted members of the architectural profession. christopher alexander