Christopher Alexander on Pattern Language

Christopher Alexander made his first full-blown pattern language in 1967. After a long time, he realized that something was drastically wrong. Jenny Quillen talks about it here. The quotes below are from Christopher Alexander’s 1979 book The Timeless Way of Building.¹

…at the very moment when you first relax,…you will begin to see how limited your [pattern] language is.

…the only thing which matters is the reality of the situation…, and not your images of it…

…the reality of the situation is not only more important than your images, but also more important than the language…

— Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building, p. 540.

The [pattern] language…is fallible, and you cannot accept its patterns automatically, or hope that they will ever generate a living thing mechanically…

— Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building, p. 540–41.

If it is true that you cannot make a building live, even with the help of a pattern language, unless you are first egoless and free; and if it is also true that once you have reached this state of freedom, you will be able to make a living thing, no matter how you do it; it seems to follow then that the pattern language is useless.

The language only shows you what you yourself already know.

— Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building, p. 543–44.

…live so close to your heart that you no longer need a [pattern] language…

It is utterly ordinary. It is what is in you already. Your first, most primitive impulses are right, and will lead you to do the right thing, if you only let yourself.

There is no skill required. It is only a question of whether you will allow yourself to be ordinary, and to do what comes naturally to you, and what seems most sensible, to your heart, always to your heart, not to the images which false learning has coated on your mind.

— Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building, p. 547.

Notes:
1. Christopher Alexander introduces the concept of the “quality without a name” in The Timeless Way of Building. This quality cannot be made, just as a flower cannot be made. It’s a (morphological) process of unfolding in which the whole gives birth to the parts. Each step, or act, generates a larger and more complex whole. Millions of acts, together, generate the “quality without a name”. It has an ageless character which gives the “timeless way” its name.