MF'ers
Marco
> What makes a city, a culture, a society, a civilization alive?
> What makes a city, a culture, a society, a civilization dead?
The first two pages of the detailed table of contents to the 1979 book " The Timeless
Way to Live,"
by architect Christopher Alexander read:
The Timeless Way
A building or a town will only be alive to the extent that it is governed by the
timeless way.
1. It is a process which brings order out of nothing but ourselves; it cannot be
attained, but it
will happen of its own accord, if we will only let it.
The Quality
To seek the timeless way we must first know the quality without a name.
2. There is a central quality which is the root criterion of life and spirt in a man,
a town, a
building, or a wilderness. This quality is objective and precise, but it cannot be
named.
3. The search which we make for this quality, in our own lives, is the central search
of any person,
and the crux of any individual person's story. It is the search for those moments and
situations
when we are most alive.
4. In order to define this quality in buildings and in towns, we must begin by
understanding that
every place is given its character by certain patterns of events that keep happening
there.
5. These patterns of events are alway interlocked with certain geometric patterns in
the space.
Indeed, as we shall see, each building and each town is ultimately made out of these
patterns in the
space and out of nothing else; they are the atoms and the molecules from which a
building or a town
is made.
6. The specific patterns out of which a building or a town is made may be alive or
dead. To the
extent they are alive, they let our inner forces loose, and set us free; but when they
are dead,
they keep us locked in inner conflict.
7. The more living patterns are there are in a place-a room, a building, or a town,-
the more it
comes to life as an entirety, the more it glows, the more it has that self-maintaining
fire which is
quality without a name.
8. And when a building has this fire, then it becomes a part of nature. Like ocean
waves, or blades
of grass, it parts are governed by the endless play of repetition and variety created
in fact that
all things pass. This is the quality itself.
When I first read this, after ZaMM and Lila, my first thoughts were either Pirsig and
Alexander
worked together or plagiarized one another. Finding no evidence of either, it seemed
to me to give
greater credence to both. I could, as others here could, go through a point by point
comparison, pro
and con, but would merely suggest that if you want to further investigate a positive
scenario ,with
Zen roots, for understanding and building "Friendly Giants" you will not find a
better source. OK,
maybe Pirsig !
Thanks for the "straight" lines, Marco.
3WD
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
