Christopher Alexander

Christopher Alexander' view on what I call integral, living architecture:

"There is one timeless way of building. It is a thousand years old, and the same today as it has always been. The great traditional buildings of the past, the villages and tents and temples in which man feels at home, have always been made by people who are very close to the center of this way. And as you will see, this will lead anyone who looks for it to buildings which are themselves as ancient in their form as the trees and hills, and as our faces are.

There is a central quality which is the root criterion of life and spirit in a man, a town, a building, or a wilderness. This quality is objective and precise, but it cannot by named.

To the extent they are alive, they let our inner forces loose, and set us free; but when they are dead, they keep us locked in inner conflict. The more living patterns there are in a place... the more it comes to life as an integral entirety, as a whole, the more it glows, the more it has that self-maintaining fire which is the quality without a name."—Christopher Alexander

The Ministry of Integral Architecture's key focus is to unfold new buildings, neighbourhoods, villages, towns, cities and regions in this spirit, and help them become alive and vibrant and resonate with the new Aarde.

More on Christopher Alexander:

• http://www.pps.org/info/placemakingtools/placemakers/calexander