ATC Lecture: Christopher Alexander, Architect May 2, 2011

In his first West Coast public lecture in 10 years, entitled "The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth", Christopher Alexander will demonstrate that what he has been talking about for many years is feasible on a large scale. The methods for designing and building that are spelled out theoretically and practically applied in THE NATURE OF ORDER, TIMELESS WAY OF BUILDING, A PATTERN LANGUAGE, and other Center for Environmental Structure publications, are applied to the Eishin campus built near Tokyo, Japan from 1982 to 1985 - a project of 29 buildings on 20 acres of land.

For nearly 40 years Christopher Alexander has challenged the architectural establishment, sometimes uncomfortably, to pay more attention to the human beings at the center of design. To do so he has combined top-flight scientific training, award-winning architectural research, patient observation and testing throughout his building projects, and a radical but profoundly influential set of ideas that have extended far beyond the realm of architecture. Alexander is widely recognized as the father of the pattern language movement in computer science, which has led to important innovations such as Wiki, and new kinds of Object-Oriented Programming. He was elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1996 for his contributions to architecture, including his groundbreaking work on how the built environment affects the lives of people.

In 1963, Alexander became Professor of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and taught there continuously for 38 years, becoming Professor Emeritus in 2001. He also founded the Center for Environmental Structure, published hundreds of papers and several dozen books, and built more than 300 buildings around the world. In 2002 he moved back to England, where he now lives and works.

Official Website: http://atc.berkeley.edu