The Oregon Experiment (Center for Environmental Structure Series)

Alexander, Christopher; Silverstein, Murray; Angel, Shlomo; Ishikawa, Sara; Abrams, Denny

ISBN 10: 0195018249 / ISBN 13: 9780195018240

Published by Oxford University Press, 1975

About this Item

Oxford University Press, 1975. 1st printing of 1st edition (true first edition). No further printings listed, same date on copyright page and title page, and price of $12.50 on inner flap of dust jacket. Hardcover book with dust jacket in good- condition. Faint bowing to boards. Boards also have fingerprints on them. Edges of text block have foxing. Bottom outer corner has dime-sized water stain on boards and pages. Binding is tight and sturdy, text and illustrations unmarked. Dust jacket (designed by Sigrid Spaeth) has general sunning edges and spine have age-toning/light soil. From a personal collection. Ships same or next business day from Dinkytown in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Seller Inventory # 325605

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Oregon Experiment (Center for Environmental Structure Series)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication Date: 1975
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0195018249
• ISBN 13: 9780195018240
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Good-
• Dust Jacket Condition: Good- Dust Jacket
• Seller catalogs:
  • Architecture

About this title

Synopsis

After a ten-year silence, Christopher Alexander and his colleagues at the Center for Environmental Structure are not publishing a major statement in the form of three works which will, in their words, "lay the basis for an entirely new approach to architecture, building, and planning, which will, we hope, replace existing ideas and practices entirely." The three books are The Timeless Way of Building, A Pattern Language, and The Oregon Experiment.

At the core of these books is the idea that people should design for themselves their own houses, streets, and communities. This idea may be radical (it implies a radical transformation fo the architectural profession) but it comes simply from the observation that most of the wonderful places of the world were not made by architects but by the people.

This book is the master plan for the University of Oregon, and is now being implemented at that university; but it shows at the same time how any community the size of a university or small town might go about designing its own future environment-with all members of the community participating personally. It is a concrete example at the Center's theories in practice, showing in simple detail, with numerous illustrations, how to implement six guiding principles: organic order, participation, piecemeal growth, patterns, diagnosis, and coordination.

About the Author

Christopher Alexander is a builder, craftsman, general contractor, architect, painter, and teacher. He taught from 1963 to 2002 as Professor of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and is now Professor Emeritus. He has spent his life running construction projects, experimenting with new building methods and materials, and crafting carefully articulated buildings--all to advance the idea that people can build environments in which they will thrive.

Acting on his deeply-held conviction that, as a society, we must recover the means by which we can build and maintain healthy living environments, he has lived and worked in many cultures, and built buildings all over the world.

Making neighborhoods, building-complexes, building, balustrades, columns, ceilings, windows, tiles, ornaments, models and mockups, paintings, furniture, castings and carvings--all this has been his passion, and is the cornerstone from which his paradigm-changing principles have been derived.