The architect Christopher Alexander, who has died aged 85, saw buildings and cities as living frameworks for human beings. Through designing, building, teaching and writing, he sought “to provide a complete working alternative to our present ideas about architecture, building and planning”.
Like many critics of postwar reconstruction, he saw much that was destructive of community and incapable of elevating the human spirit, and set about a systematic approach to making buildings in which people could feel at home. He wanted to identify the order that lies behind beauty and meaning in the built world, and then learn, as an architect and builder, how to make it. I knew him as a teacher, colleague and mentor.
Continue reading...