The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth: A Struggle Between Two World-Systems PDF Book Download *FREE

The purpose of all architecture, writes Christopher Alexander, is to encourage and support life-giving activity, dreams, and playfulness. But in recent decades, while our buildings are technically better–more sturdy, more waterproof, more energy efficient– they have also became progressively more sterile, rarely providing the kind of environment in which people are emotionally nourished, genuinely happy, and deeply contented.

Using the example of his building of the Eishin Campus in Japan, Christopher Alexander and his collaborators reveal an ongoing dispute between two fundamentally different ways of shaping our world. One system places emphasis on subtleties, on finesse, on the structure of adaptation that makes each tiny part fit into the larger context. The other system is concerned with efficiency, with money, power and control, stressing the more gross aspects of size, speed, and profit. This second, “business-as-usual” system, Alexander argues, is incapable of creating the kind of environment that is able to genuinely support the emotional, whole-making side of human life. To confront this sterile system, the book presents a new architecture that we–both as a world-wide civilization, and as individual people and cultures–can create, using new processes that allow us to build places of human energy and beauty. The book outlines nine ways of working, each one fully dedicated to wholeness, and able to support day-to-day activities that will make planning, design and construction possible in an entirely new way, and in more humane ways.

An innovative thinker about building techniques and planning, Christopher Alexander has attracted a devoted following. Here he introduces a way of building that includes the best current practices, enriched by a range of new processes that support the houses, communities, and health of all who inhabit the Earth.

“Alexander, again, does what he does so well: in the process of adult argument, weave biology, theology, art appreciation, and geometry, plus cultural call outs from Jung to Fellini, into his tale.” – Architect’s Newspaper

Christopher Alexander’s series of groundbreaking books–including The Timeless Way of Building and A Pattern Language–have illuminated fundamental truths of traditional ways of building, revealing what gives life and beauty and true functionality to buildings and towns.

HansJoachim Neis is a Professor of Architecture at the University of Oregon in Portland, and the Director of the Portland Urban Architecture Research Laboratory.

Maggie Moore Alexander serves on the Center for Environmental Structure Board of Directors.

Preface: A New Architecture and a New Civilization

PART I: SOLVING THE PROBLEM OF ARCHITECTURE IN OUR TIME

1. The Campus of Eishin Gakuen

2. The Crucial Importance of Local Adaptation

3. System-A and System-B: A Necessary Confrontation

4. Inner Aspects of the Two Production Systems

5. The Wasteland in Our Hearts

6. Wholeness and the Whole

PART II: RUMBLINGS OF A COMING BATTLE

7. Hosoi’s Dream

8. Creating Life in the Environment

9. A Pattern Language for the Community

10. The Construction Budget

11. Flags: The Reality of the Land

12. Symmetry, Simplicity, and Grace

PART III: PITCHED BATTLE

13. Direct Management

14. Heavy Threats, Attempted Bribes, and Danger

15. Bulldozers, Teabushes, Architects, and Carpenters

16. The Ugly Claws of System B

17. The Healing Anvil

18. Remaining Battles in the Field

19. Appearance of a Genuine and Living Atmosphere

PART IV: GROUNDWORK FOR A CREATION-SYSTEM

20. Awakening Our Society’s Creation System

21. Large Scale Production

22. Enhancing and Extending Wholeness

23. Elements are Being Created at the Same Time that the Whole is Being Created

24. Following the Golden Glow

25. The Beauty of Daily Life

26. Recovery of Human Nature and Rebirth of Civilization

Index