- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Published
- 1977
- Shelf
- architecture: Reference
- ISBN
- 0195019199
Reference
A Pattern Language
Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa & Murray Silverstein
253 patterns for building places people like, from the scale of a region down to the height of a windowsill.
Why read it
Each pattern names a recurring problem, states the forces that cause it, and gives a solution you can act on. Light on two sides of every room. Six-foot balcony. Alcoves. They sound obvious written down and almost nothing built since 1977 obeys them. The book also quietly invented design patterns in software, which is a second life most architecture books do not get.
Why own it
It is a lookup table with a thousand pages, not a read. The cross-references at the end of each pattern take you through a building at whatever scale your problem lives on.
Who it is for
Anyone who designs space, and anyone who designs systems and wants to see where the word pattern came from.
Reading order
Book 4 of 5 in the architecture reading order. See all 5
Read nextS,M,L,XLRem Koolhaas & Bruce MauEnd with Koolhaas and Mau in 1995, whose essays on the modern city come in a book designed as part of the argument.Read before thisLearning from Las Vegas
Opens a search on AbeBooks, a network of independent and antiquarian sellers, which is where a good part of this shelf has to be found, because it is out of print.
Read next
Chosen because they argue with this one, not because a machine noticed they share a category.
