The Nature of Order Book One : The Phenomenon of Life

Submitted by admin on Fri, 02/16/2018 - 13:40
Authors
Alexander, Christopher.
Publisher
The Center for Environmental Structure
Year Published
2002
Copies
1
Call Number
NA2500 .A447 2002
ISBN Number
0-9726529-1-4
Description
What is happening when a place in the world has life? And what is happening when it does not? In Book 1 of this four-volume work, Alexander describes a scientific view of the world in which all space-matter has perceptible degrees of life, and sets this understanding of living structure as an intellectual basis for a new architecture.

He identifies fifteen geometric properties which tend to accompany the presence of life in nature, and also in the buildings and cities we make. These properties are seen over and over in nature, and in cities and streets of the past, but have all but disappeared in the deadly developments and buildings of the last one hundred years.

The book shows that living structure depends on features which make a close connection with the human self, and that only living structure has the capacity to support human well-being.
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