A 20-minute excerpt from a new documentary on one of the most important and fascinating figures in the field of design in the last half century. The full 1 hour and 22 minute documentary is available at • Christopher Alexander ...
I wonder whether the fifteen principles aren't contained in the breath..? I'm a yogi and an aikido teacher. I initially consulted Alexander's books, especially the series on 'The Nature of Order' to see if I could embody the principles in my art. Some years later, it occurred to me that they were there already, etched within the body. Following Goethe, I feel we are leaves or flowers turned inside out. We primarily respond to 'air', much as fish respond to water. Thus, a building, to be beautiful, must be a flower. If you think of the serrated edges of a leaf, the ridges on a whales fins, the number of petals, the number of edges, we can ask: "What does a flower need..?" Our lungs are flowers, the epithelial cells, little pointed folia, breaking up the turbulence of the wind, the air we breathe... A building must breathe. But how..? Earth (ground), roots (foundation), a stem (columns, walls), shape (aero-adaptive shapes), openings (to the sun), closings (to contain the night), a center or several united to create (recreate itself), calm structure with points (to break up the air flow), tranquility (at its core), and the Void (to contemplate creation). The key is the ratio between in-breath and out-breath. Winter (the holding after the inhale) and (holding after exhale) summer. Spring (inhale), autumn (exhale). Multilayered roofs for ventilation in summer homes, pointy roofs; more points, thinner stems. The breath must move up, for holding after exhale. Flatter, wider roofs for winter homes, few, if any points, thicker walls. The breath needs to move down for holding, warming. The rest are mudras, depending on the mood you are expressing: Fingers outspread like a paper fan, cupping the sun, or holding a teacup in your lap in winter. Either way, the form follows the principle of convection. Termites know this, leaves, flowers, whales, fish scales. and feathers on wings....why don't we become the yogis of architecture..?
"one of the largest problems that is facing the earth just now, is really mentioned, and that is, the spread of ugliness. By the standards of the 21st century it sounds like quite a rather trivial and unimportant issue, but it's not. It's on the same scale as the alarm that was spread when people began to realise that the Brazilian rainforest was being destroyed. 9 out of 10 development projects that are being done now devastate the area where they are built. This is going on at a colossal speed, and no amount of planning and architecture in the current way of thinking is going to save it, in fact, if anything, the architects are contributing to it by making their particular contributions more and more fantastic so they can be on the cover of magazines. The real issue is something that I call adaptation, and that means the extent to which all the little bits, whether it be of a building or of a sidewalk or of a staircase or anything, can only be made right if it is done slowly, and with care, and by people who know the immediate vicinity. The number of actions that are needed to take care of a piece of the environment and get that kind of beautiful, subtle fine-tuning of the alignment of streets and the width of a road in a certain place and the preservation of a tree where it would otherwise be taken down, and so on. We urgently and desperately need to find a way of doing this which is consistent with our 21st century world".
