Subject: Christopher Alexander?

From: [email-masked] (Thomas Gerth)
Date: 31 Aug 1995 07:59:49 GMT

Hallo architects,

I am a software engeneer, but besides this I'm interested in art and
architecture too.
For a few years, in software technology, in particular the object-oriented
one, evolves a new research topic regarding "patterns" in software.
And it occured, that the architect Christopher Alexander, who published
a couple of books on patterns in city planning and architecture in the
late 70ies, had a great influence on the discussion among the software 
engeneers concerned with pattern research. Today, most researchers have
agreed on a notion of what a pattern is and a form of describing a pattern, 
both of which have their roots in the work of Alexander. 
I own one of his books of that time:
	Chr.Alexander: A Pattern Language. 
		       Oxford Universty Press, New York, 1977
Besides the pure interest in how he defines and describes a pattern I 
found it also very interesting to read his ideas about city planning and 
architecture. I like many of his ideas captured in a structured collection
of patterns called (by him) a Pattern Language.

Now I would like to know, which role (if any) does Alexander's work play 
among you architects? Has it any importance to you? If yes, how do you
employ his ideas? Is there currently a discussion about patterns in
city planning and architecture?

Very curious,
Thomas