The Timeless Way of Building
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The Timeless Way of Building is a 1979 book that ties life and architecture together, written by Christopher Alexander.
It has had a huge influence on creative thinking, especially in the areas of architecture and software design. It could be classified as one of what the Estonian researcher of the Orient Linnart Mäll calls the humanistic base texts.
In the book, Alexander introduces the concept of the "quality without a name", and argues that we should seek to include this nameless quality in our buildings. This quality is hard to pin down in words. Alexander uses the technique of surrounding it with existing concepts that reflect a part of the quality with no name but are not sufficient to define it individually.
One central concept in The Timeless Way of Building is that of creative unfolding. Alexander uses the extended metaphor of the growth of a human embryo, with illustrations, to take the reader through a creative complexification process. This starts with a single orientation and gradually unfolds into a fully featured, complex yet somehow naturally appropriate design. The starting point, in building, might be the location and orientation of the edifice; in the embryo metaphor, a single fertilised cell. The unfolding process, in building, involves the thoughtful addition of new features: the placement of the entrance and the choice of a roof, each of which will later become further resolved; in the embryo metaphor, it might involve the formation of the spine and the placement of the arms and legs. The process continues until it produces a completed building or a new born child.
This book popularised the concept of the pattern language.
The three books in the series are:
- The Timeless Way of Building (volume 1)
- A Pattern Language (volume 2)
- The Oregon Experiment (volume 3)
