Christopher Wolfgang Alexander (born 4 October 1936 in Vienna, Austria) is a widely influential British-American architect and design theorist, and currently emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Reasoning that users are more sensitive to their needs than any architect could be, he produced and validated (in collaboration with his students Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein, Max Jacobson, Ingrid King, and Shlomo Angel) a "pattern language" to empower anyone to design and build at any scale. ==Personal life== As a young child Alexander emigrated in fall 1938 with his parents from Austria to England, when his parents were forced to flee the Nazi regime.
In 1954, he was awarded the top open scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge University in chemistry and physics, and went on to read mathematics.
He moved from England to the United States in 1958 to study at Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Sarah Susanka's "Not So Big House" movement adapts and popularizes Alexander's patterns and outlook. ===Computer science=== Alexander's Notes on the Synthesis of Form was said to be required reading for researchers in computer science throughout the 1960s.
It had an influence in the 1960s and 1970s on programming language design, modular programming, object-oriented programming, software engineering and other design methodologies.
He moved to Berkeley, California in 1963 to accept an appointment as Professor of Architecture, a position he would hold for almost 40 years.
It had an influence in the 1960s and 1970s on programming language design, modular programming, object-oriented programming, software engineering and other design methodologies.
His life's work or the best of his works is The Nature of Order on which he spent about 30 years, and the very first version of The Nature of Order was done in 1981, one year before a famous debate with Peter Eisenman at Harvard. Alexander is perhaps best known for his 1977 book A Pattern Language, a perennial seller some four decades after publication.
He had his idea of wholeness back to early 1980s when he finished his very first version of The Nature of Order.
His life's work or the best of his works is The Nature of Order on which he spent about 30 years, and the very first version of The Nature of Order was done in 1981, one year before a famous debate with Peter Eisenman at Harvard. Alexander is perhaps best known for his 1977 book A Pattern Language, a perennial seller some four decades after publication.
In 2002, after his retirement, Alexander moved to Arundel, England, where he continues to write, teach and build.
awarded (in absentia) the Vincent Scully Prize by the National Building Museum, 2009; awarded the lifetime achievement award by the Urban Design Group, 2011; winner of the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture, 2014.
awarded (in absentia) the Vincent Scully Prize by the National Building Museum, 2009; awarded the lifetime achievement award by the Urban Design Group, 2011; winner of the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture, 2014.
awarded (in absentia) the Vincent Scully Prize by the National Building Museum, 2009; awarded the lifetime achievement award by the Urban Design Group, 2011; winner of the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture, 2014.
However, Alexander is controversial among some mainstream architects and critics, in part because his work is often harshly critical of much of contemporary architectural theory and practice. Alexander is known for many books on the design and building process, including Notes on the Synthesis of Form, A City is Not a Tree (first published as a paper and re-published in book form in 2015), The Timeless Way of Building, A New Theory of Urban Design, and The Oregon Experiment.
He also initiated the process which led to the international Building Beauty post-graduate school for architecture, which launched in Sorrento, Italy for the 2017–18 academic year. ==Influence== ===Architecture=== Alexander's work has widely influenced architects; among those who acknowledge his influence are Sarah Susanka, Andres Duany, and Witold Rybczynski.
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