cover image The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe Book One: The Phenomenon of Life

The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe Book One: The Phenomenon of Life

Christopher Alexander. Oxford University Press, USA, $75 (480pp) ISBN 978-0-19-510639-8

In The Nature of Order: Book One, the Phenomenon of Life, architectural theorist Christopher Alexander (The Timeless Way of Building) ponders why 20th-century buildings so often seem inhospitable. The problem seemingly stems from the mechanistic worldview of architects, who ignore fundamental but elusive properties like the ""order"" and ""life"" of a building. Alexander works to define such terms using copious illustrations and showing that people almost always agree on which buildings have more life to them. This first in a four-volume series on architecture's role in the universe builds on Alexander's pioneering and now classic study, A Pattern Language, and should be showing up on syllabi around the world. (June) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.