Early in his career as an architect Christopher Alexander began to notice that certain buildings, plazas, and parks had a transcendent quality. They were more interesting to look at, and felt better to be a part of, than many other buildings. There was a vibrancy and presence to this structures that set them apart. But he couldn’t precisely describe what it was that made these buildings different, so he called this essence the “Quality Without A Name.”
The Nature of Order is a four-part essay, the result of three decades of research and study, describing more precisely what QWAN is, and how individuals can incorporate it into their work. Alexander reveals geometric and artistic principles that can reliably be applied to architecture in order to give it a sense of “life” and “presence.”
In order to fully understand how these simple principles can have such a dramatic and universal effect, Alexander argues that we need to re-think our understanding of the physical word. In particular we need to break down the distinctions between subjectivity and objectivity that are the cornerstones of the Cartesian mechanistic way of viewing the world.
In this respect The Nature of Order is a treatise on philosophy as well as a series about architecture. Alexander ends up pointing in the same general direction as thinkers ranging from Paul Tillich (the ground of being), Ernest Schrödinger (one-mind theory of consciousness), Mircea Eliade (axis Mundi), and Robert Pirsig (Dyamic Quality vs static quality).
There is a deep, underlying reality, a “luminous ground”, that we can all sense in our guts, but can’t fully quantify or articulate. But when we create something, following the patterns and structures of nature, we open a window and can experience this reality more directly.
In Book One, The Phenomenon of Life Alexander lays out the argument for a living structure, or a set of architectural relationships, that have a quality of “life” or being “alive.” This is related to the idea of centers and how these centers contribute to wholeness. He lays out 15 structure-preserving transformations that can be applied to a center to reinforce its wholeness. This strengthening produces the quality of life.
In Book Two, The Process of Creating Life he goes into more depth about the structure-preserving transformations and how these can be used to intensify centers. He lays out a process for using these transformations in a practical way during the building process.
The essence, in all cases of unfolding, is common sense. You want to make a house. At each moment, you ask yourself, What is the most important thing I have to do next, which will have the best effect on the life of the house? Then you do it.
Christopher Alexander, The Nature of Order, Book Two, page 130
In Book Three, a Vision of a Living World Alexander devotes most of the material to showing examples in real world architecture and explaining how his theories work to create a sense of life.
In Book Four, The Luminous Ground he elevates the theories to a near-mystical plane, arguing that the intensification of centers confers a sense of life by connecting to an essence in the observer that he calls the Self or “I stuff.”
I assert that this domain exists as a real thing; that it is parallel to the material world, but that it is inherently incapable of having structure, because it is pure ‘one.’ But it is occasionally visible.…It becomes visible when the structure of a strong field of centers gently raises the lid, lifts the veil, and through the partial opening, we see, or sense, the glow of the Blazing One beyond.
Christopher Alexander, The Nature of Order, Book Four, page 150
