Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
OUP USA (1978), Edition: Illustrated, 1216 pages
Description
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.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member colinsky
Quite simply, one of the most extraordinary books I've ever read. It's an 1100 page tome (dangerous to read in bed) laying out a kind of method for designing and building, well, virtually anything that has to do with the lived environment. The patterns described begin at the scope of how to
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organize populations in large metropolitan areas, pass through such topics as how to lay out roads, walkways, public squares, beerhalls and anything else one needs for living, and finally ends with discussion of a few matters as how to organize filtered light inside the interiors of houses, and how to make your own clay tiles for outdoor spaces. I bought this book, at considerable expense, because I hoped it might contain a nugget or two of wisdom I could relate to my own thinking on how to connect inside and outside spaces. I never intended to read the whole book, but found the pattern of the patterns, so to speak, to be utterly mesmerizing. Each principle is laid out in a consistent fashion, beginning with a premise or observation, leading through a mixed bag of 'evidence' that can range from scientific studies to intuition based on experience, and then a statement of principle. Some of the ideas can be incorporated quickly and easily into existing buildings with good effect (I've already made one or two small changes to simple things like the arrangement of furniture that have worked nicely) and others are much more radical and would be adopted by very few(don't waste space on bedrooms in houses -- have one common sleeping area with offset alcoves for some measure of privacy; don't bother constructing paved roads on residential streets -- just a pair of tracks for wheels along with lots of grass will do). There is enough material in this book to busy anyone who is interested in how the built environment influences our behaviour, social life, mood, economy, or really anything else for many years. I'll go back to this book a lot. Show Less
LibraryThing member DavidGerstel
I balk a little at the pretentiousness of the title. Why not just Patterns for Building? That is what the book is, a series of 253 patterns for building that in the view of the authors have proved their worth over the centuries. My doubt about the title aside, I join with countless other builders
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in admiring the book. I have read it and re-read A Pattern Language regularly for 20 years and it greatly informed the decisions I made in designing the house chronicled in my own book, Crafting the Considerate House. It is a profoundly humane work, rooted in anthropology, sociology, and progressive social thought as much as in a love for the sensory pleasures provided by well-wrought buildings. Illustrated with the simplest of pencil sketches and black and white photos, it is concerned not with producing art-trophy houses for the wealthy and privileged but with enriching everyday experiences for us all. Show Less
LibraryThing member mrtall
I have never read a book anything like A Pattern Language, and it is very unlikely I shall ever read its likes again.
It’s not often that one comes across a work so fresh, so singular, so perspective-shattering, so powerful in its ability to shape the very way one engages a significant facet of
It’s a very simple book to summarize. Alexander and his co-authors prepared a list of 253 elements of human living, ranging from the broadest geographical layout of an entire country, down to the positions of doors, windows and potted plants in individual rooms in a family home, and including almost every aspect of cities, neighborhoods and buildings in between. For each of these patterns, they isolate characteristics they believe are common across cultures and times, and which make that pattern comfortable, usable, and beautiful. Photographs and line drawing are included frequently for illustration.
There is very little other explanatory material in this book, other than occasional brief introductory sections. So reading A Pattern Language is a bit strange; since the patterns seem independent, reading about them on by one seems initially like working through a reference book. But I found that before too long a narrative of line and form and light and shape emerged; I found myself anticipating, almost intuitively, what upcoming patterns would look like, and it became easier and easier to progress through the book.
As I approached the book’s end, I could see the overall pattern behind Alexander’s vision coalescing and clarifying, telling a profound story about living a beautiful life, at least in terms of how and where one’s body resides.
This book is a potent antidote to the poison soulless modernist architecture has injected into the very bones of the industrialized world. I realize it’s now an aging work – it’s over 30 years old – but I hope as more and more people become aware of the vague but increasingly toxic effects of ugly buildings and the dis-ease of living in them, Alexander’s time in the sun will come.
One final note: A Pattern Language may appear to the casual observer to be a book about architecture, and that's true. But the scale of Alexander's project is far, far broader. Within the descriptions of the patterns are embedded repeated and often remarkable insights into how people really live, think and feel. Occasionally there's a bit of a Utopian tinge that reminds you Alexander couldn't wholly escape the 70s zeitgeist in which he's writing, but on the whole there is more good sense about human nature between these two covers than you will find in whole programs of study in anthropology or sociology in most contemporary universities.
Highly, highly recommended.
It’s not often that one comes across a work so fresh, so singular, so perspective-shattering, so powerful in its ability to shape the very way one engages a significant facet of
Show More
one’s world.It’s a very simple book to summarize. Alexander and his co-authors prepared a list of 253 elements of human living, ranging from the broadest geographical layout of an entire country, down to the positions of doors, windows and potted plants in individual rooms in a family home, and including almost every aspect of cities, neighborhoods and buildings in between. For each of these patterns, they isolate characteristics they believe are common across cultures and times, and which make that pattern comfortable, usable, and beautiful. Photographs and line drawing are included frequently for illustration.
There is very little other explanatory material in this book, other than occasional brief introductory sections. So reading A Pattern Language is a bit strange; since the patterns seem independent, reading about them on by one seems initially like working through a reference book. But I found that before too long a narrative of line and form and light and shape emerged; I found myself anticipating, almost intuitively, what upcoming patterns would look like, and it became easier and easier to progress through the book.
As I approached the book’s end, I could see the overall pattern behind Alexander’s vision coalescing and clarifying, telling a profound story about living a beautiful life, at least in terms of how and where one’s body resides.
This book is a potent antidote to the poison soulless modernist architecture has injected into the very bones of the industrialized world. I realize it’s now an aging work – it’s over 30 years old – but I hope as more and more people become aware of the vague but increasingly toxic effects of ugly buildings and the dis-ease of living in them, Alexander’s time in the sun will come.
One final note: A Pattern Language may appear to the casual observer to be a book about architecture, and that's true. But the scale of Alexander's project is far, far broader. Within the descriptions of the patterns are embedded repeated and often remarkable insights into how people really live, think and feel. Occasionally there's a bit of a Utopian tinge that reminds you Alexander couldn't wholly escape the 70s zeitgeist in which he's writing, but on the whole there is more good sense about human nature between these two covers than you will find in whole programs of study in anthropology or sociology in most contemporary universities.
Highly, highly recommended.
Show Less
LibraryThing member willszal
Background and Overview
"A Pattern Language" is exactly as the title describes. The book is a language for describing and organizing patterns. It presents 253 patterns from large [on the scale of regions] down to small [details in a house]. All of them relate to architecture in some way or another.
I
Last year I saw the book sitting on my parents’ shelf, and asked if I might borrow it. As it’s almost a 1,200-page book and I take notes, it’s taken me a year to read.
Reception
In some ways I find the book too specific. In order to name something, we must strip it down to the bare essentials, something that can fit in a phrase. Inherently, there are aspects of something that get pushed out by this process. So although it seems like the authors had the best intentions in mind, their persistence in talking about all levels of patterns in architecture felt a little bit disrespectful and controlling some of the time.
I love patterns, but I don’t love objective guidelines. For example, the book claims that wood is an unecological building material, and that we should use lightweight concrete instead [pattern 207]. I don’t understand the logic in this, but regardless, the impacts are irreparable. Patters in later part of the book build on earlier patterns. So the one pattern to use concrete affects countless later patterns, locking in that method of building and only that method of building.
I think one way to judge the nuance and universality of this book would be to see what range of styles this book might support. It’s actually quite narrow, so I feel that in many cases, the book has settled on more surface-level patterns rather than defining the underlying dynamics.
On the other hand, many patterns aren’t this restrictive, and are rather, quite observant. Such as pattern 127, the Intimacy Gradient. This pattern outlines the dynamic that almost all multi-roomed residential or spiritual buildings have an intimacy gradient, ranging from almost public near the front and center, and quite private around the edges and toward the back. But it could be argued that this is so intuitive it need not be expressed.
So as to the style of architecture trumpeted by this book, it’s a mixed bag. But I think there’s promise in this pattern language thing. Unfortunately, I won’t know for sure until I read the two other books in this series, “A Timeless Way of Building,” and “The Oregon Experiment,” which give the pattern language context, and then put it to use with a real-world project.
Lastly, regardless of my opinions on the actual patterns described in the book, the book is a very impressive work. I wonder at the team dynamic and research that must have been put into it.
Overall, if you’re interested in architecture, I’d recommend this book. And I’d love to see a permaculture design using a pattern language sometime.
Original post
"A Pattern Language" is exactly as the title describes. The book is a language for describing and organizing patterns. It presents 253 patterns from large [on the scale of regions] down to small [details in a house]. All of them relate to architecture in some way or another.
I
Show More
first came across this book during my Permaculture Design Certificate with Julia and Charles Yelton at the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Ranch in 2010. It was presented not as a book on permaculture, but on the permaculture mindset. A permaculture design could be laid out using the approach of this book.Last year I saw the book sitting on my parents’ shelf, and asked if I might borrow it. As it’s almost a 1,200-page book and I take notes, it’s taken me a year to read.
Reception
In some ways I find the book too specific. In order to name something, we must strip it down to the bare essentials, something that can fit in a phrase. Inherently, there are aspects of something that get pushed out by this process. So although it seems like the authors had the best intentions in mind, their persistence in talking about all levels of patterns in architecture felt a little bit disrespectful and controlling some of the time.
I love patterns, but I don’t love objective guidelines. For example, the book claims that wood is an unecological building material, and that we should use lightweight concrete instead [pattern 207]. I don’t understand the logic in this, but regardless, the impacts are irreparable. Patters in later part of the book build on earlier patterns. So the one pattern to use concrete affects countless later patterns, locking in that method of building and only that method of building.
I think one way to judge the nuance and universality of this book would be to see what range of styles this book might support. It’s actually quite narrow, so I feel that in many cases, the book has settled on more surface-level patterns rather than defining the underlying dynamics.
On the other hand, many patterns aren’t this restrictive, and are rather, quite observant. Such as pattern 127, the Intimacy Gradient. This pattern outlines the dynamic that almost all multi-roomed residential or spiritual buildings have an intimacy gradient, ranging from almost public near the front and center, and quite private around the edges and toward the back. But it could be argued that this is so intuitive it need not be expressed.
So as to the style of architecture trumpeted by this book, it’s a mixed bag. But I think there’s promise in this pattern language thing. Unfortunately, I won’t know for sure until I read the two other books in this series, “A Timeless Way of Building,” and “The Oregon Experiment,” which give the pattern language context, and then put it to use with a real-world project.
Lastly, regardless of my opinions on the actual patterns described in the book, the book is a very impressive work. I wonder at the team dynamic and research that must have been put into it.
Overall, if you’re interested in architecture, I’d recommend this book. And I’d love to see a permaculture design using a pattern language sometime.
Original post
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LibraryThing member Pattern-chaser
A design classic by one of the most gifted architects of our time. Much valued in the software patterns community.
LibraryThing member ghd-read
Other reviewers have used the word extrodinary for this book and I think that is fair. Having read it I can uderstand why it has had such an impact on architects and designers of all disciplines.
It is a hefty book to carry about - but a very easy book to read. Would recomend it to anyone who whats
It is a hefty book to carry about - but a very easy book to read. Would recomend it to anyone who whats
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to understand what 'design paterns' are. Show Less
LibraryThing member rosemarybrown
One of the most useful books I have ever owned. Wish it were required reading for all architects and developers as well as home buyers and town planners
LibraryThing member ex_ottoyuhr
There's something alarmingly Maoist about this book... but if you ignore its more despotic tendencies, you'll benefit a great deal. Its recommendations are (for the most part) (except when they contradict each other) worth implementing, and would be quite interesting to see in fictional societies
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as well as real-world ones. Show Less
LibraryThing member fsmichaels
Profound book - fantastic.
LibraryThing member JesseTheK
An excellent insightful taxonomy of building styles techniques and philosophies. Based on extensive research on vernacular architecture worldwide. 20th Century Books set in metal type that is very small and difficult to read. Would greatly benefit from a hyperlinked edition.
LibraryThing member jonerthon
You may enjoy this quite technical manual if you are an architect, planner, builder, or otherwise want our private buildings to be improved. Otherwise it is a long and highly detailed manifesto of what a more deliberate take on building could be, and I can't guarantee that laypeople would enjoy it.
When I first started graduate studies in urban planning, the challenges of daylighting, shadows, and sun glare felt easy to handle. Best practices were well laid out and it seemed like a straightforward set of challenges. Of course, I quickly learned that the context of every site changed these considerations, and it was important to proceed with caution to work through them. This is a book that gives mostly timeless advice on these fronts and it was helpful for that purpose.
The downsides are a handful of claims that border on superstitions, chiefly the supposed negative mental health aspects of living in high-rise buildings. I don't know how ubiquitous this thought was at the time of publication, but it stands out as an odd idea within more solid recommendations.
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When I first started graduate studies in urban planning, the challenges of daylighting, shadows, and sun glare felt easy to handle. Best practices were well laid out and it seemed like a straightforward set of challenges. Of course, I quickly learned that the context of every site changed these considerations, and it was important to proceed with caution to work through them. This is a book that gives mostly timeless advice on these fronts and it was helpful for that purpose.
The downsides are a handful of claims that border on superstitions, chiefly the supposed negative mental health aspects of living in high-rise buildings. I don't know how ubiquitous this thought was at the time of publication, but it stands out as an odd idea within more solid recommendations.
Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1977
Physical description
1216 p.; 7.9 inches
ISBN
0195019199 / 9780195019193
Local notes
I wish more architects read this book. while I don't agree with every point made here-- I like Dutch doors, and they seem to be overlooked; and I think open shelving is dangerous in earthquake zones-- the thoughtfulness and foresight in making buildings relatable and comfortable is remarkable. Printed by a small press, the numerous illustrations are not especially good, and the book is expensive.