Christopher Alexander - Patterns in Architecture

Peter Petrash
7 HN recommenders · recommended in 9 months, 2016–2026
YouTube
135K views · 13 years ago · keynote · intermediate · evergreen

Christopher Alexander's 1996 talk on patterns in architecture, given to a software audience at an ACM event. He discusses his pattern work and his move toward more fundamental, intrinsic ideas about what makes a place feel alive.

HN people call it a prescient must-watch for software people, showing Alexander moving past patterns just as programmers were adopting them.

“I recommend it for those who have read his work, but never seen or heard the man in action.”
ArchitectureDesign philosophy & principles
#christopheralexander#patternlanguage#architecture#1996talk#softwarepatterns#livingstructure

19 comments from Hacker News

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@xLaszlo2022 · in “Christopher Alexander has died”
This video of him from 1996 is amazing with hindsight. A must watch: ▶ this video RIP Christopher Alexander
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k
@keithnz2026 · in “All 253 Patterns from Christopher Alexander's a Pattern Language Summarized”
worth checking this out from 1996 ▶ this video kind of ironic he was moving away from patterns to more fundamental concepts just as the software world was just discovering patterns. I think his shift to these more fundamental concepts is a much better way to think about design.
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@taink2024 · in “Christopher Alexander – Patterns in Architecture [video]”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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s
@simonebrunozzi2022 · in “Christopher Alexander – Patterns in Architecture”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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k
@keithnz2021 · in ““Design Patterns” Aren't (2002)”
this talk that christopher alexander did a number of years ago is quite interesting ▶ this video one of the interesting things is that he had really moved on from "patterns" and was looking for something more intrinisic or "atomic" about design. Which actually is a much better guide to designing software.
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p
@paloaltokid2019 · in “Japanese architects who treated buildings like living organisms”
For anyone interested, Christopher Alexander was a huge influence on Ward Cunningham and Kent Beck. You can draw a fairly straight line from Alexander's ideas to new stuff like wiki, Extreme Programming, design patterns, refactoring, etc. For a very prescient talk by Alexander in 1996 to a bunch of ACM folks, see this video: ▶ this video
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s
@simonebrunozzi2018 · in ““A pattern language” explained (2016)”
Just finished watching a great 1996 lecture by Christopher Alexander: ▶ this video I recommend it for those who have read his work, but never seen or heard the man in action.
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@roshanpisharody2018 · in “Christopher Alexander – Patterns in Architecture (1996) [video]”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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@lazydon2016 · in “Christopher Alexander – Patterns in Architecture (OOPSLA 1996)”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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@zenoprax2024 · in “The Timeless Way of Software [video]”
Christopher discusses this problem in architecture too. [~45 minutes in](▶ this video) he talks about how to change law, institutional norms, and so on to make it possible for living structures to emerge. I don't know what that would look like for software but in another talk he was bemused by the narrow-mindedness of programmers who only saw the value of A Pattern Language as a mechanical tool rather than as a way to create a more beautiful world.
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@ebcode2024 · in “Keynote Speech to the 1996 Oopsla Convention”
A video of this speech, without Jim Coplien's introduction, is on youtube: ▶ this video >> Please forgive me, I'm going to be very direct and blunt for a horrible second. It could be thought that the technical way in which you currently look at programming is almost as if you were willing to be "guns for hire." In other words, you are the technicians. You know how to make the programs work. "Tell us what to do daddy, and we'll do it." That is the worm in the apple. >> What I am proposing here is something a little bit different from that. It is a view of programming as the natural genetic infrastructure of a living world which you/we are capable of creating, managing, making available, and which could then have the result that a living structure in our towns, houses, work places, cities, becomes an attainable thing. That would be remarkable. It would turn the world around, and make living structure the norm once again, throughout society, and make the world worth living in again.
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@dorian2024 · in “A Pattern Language”
He literally says (at 39:48 ▶ this video) "And it's because [the patterns are] only really fragmentary perceptions of this deeper structure that I'm describing [i.e., centers, the 15 properties…], that they are ultimately unsatisfactory; I think they're not capable of delivering the goods." So maybe not an outright renunciation per se, but definitely a deprecation.
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