A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction

Oxford University Press (New York) 1977,
English text 1169 pp.

After a ten-year silence, Christopher Alexander and his colleagues at the Center for Environmental Strucure are now publishing a major statement in the form of three books 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. At the core of his 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 of 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.