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To identify this quality in buildings and towns, we must begin by understanding that every place is given its character by certain patterns of events that keep happening there.
- What a town or building is, is governed, above all, by what is happening there. Most especially, by the events which frequently happen there.
- Our experiences in these spaces depend not just on the environment but the patterns of events we experience there.
- The patterns of events are not necessarily human events. They can come from nature too.
- Such is true for life as well, the character of a person is defined by the patterns of events that happen in their lives.
- The patterns of events are dependent on culture as well.
- This is illustrative of the fact that the world has a structure every pattern of events is anchored in space. Events must happen somewhere, in fact events are inseparable from space
- The list of elements which are typical in a culture tells us the way of life of the people there.
- Spaces do not necessarily bring about events, but cultural ideas and norms about these spaces.
- The life which happens in a town is not merely anchored in space, but is made up from the space itself.
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Every town is built out of patterns in space and nothing else. Patterns are the building blocks of buildings.
- On the geometric level, we see physical elements repeating endlessly in an almost endless variety of combinations. However, elements cannot be the building blocks of buildings because the same type of building can have different elements.
- Beyond its elements, patterns of relationships occur among the elements. A large part of the structure of a space consists of this pattern of relationships. Indeed, these patterns of relationships are essential to each element.
- In fact, the elements themselves are patterns of relationships. Each element is defined based on the pattern of relationships it has with its surroundings.
- Elements are labels for the patterns of relationships which do repeat.
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Space is also associated with patterns of events, but patterns in space and patterns in events do not cause each other. Patterns are a byproduct of culture.
- However, patterns in space sustain patterns of events. Events are sustained with appropriate spaces.
- Each pattern of relationships in space is congruent to some specific pattern of events. It is the precise nature of these patterns which allow the pattern of events to repeat.
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Most remarkably, each place is only composed of a few patterns
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The specific patterns out of which a building or town is made may be alive or dead.
- To the extent they are alive, they let our inner forces loose and set us free. They let man be their genuine self.
- When they are dead, they keep us locked in inner conflict. They keep us in a perpetual state of tension.
- A person’s state of harmony is formed by his surroundings.
- Patterns that are alive do not spark conflict within us because of conflicting desires. These patterns, instead, resolve our conflicts for ourselves.
- It is not enough for a pattern to be utilitarian. Good patterns are good because to some extent they reach the nameless quality..
- Patterns are alive if they are stable. They are consistent with how things ought to be and are repeatable.
- Destructive patterns, while they may be stable in the short-run, destroy their surroundings and themselves — making them unstable in the long run.
- Quality is not dependent on purpose but intrinsic stability It does not have to be maintained by force.
- A pattern lives when it allows its own internal forces to resolve themselves
- The more living patterns there are in a thing, the more it comes to life as an entirety, the more it has the nameless quality.
- If a thing has many dead patterns, the imbalance and tension within these dead patterns spread to other patterns which causes the whole to slowly die.
- Patterns that are alive are robust and interconnected. The individual configuration of any pattern requires other patterns to keep itself alive. The more alive patterns, the more beautiful the building.
- The quality without a name appears not when an isolated pattern lives, but when an entire system of patterns is stable and alive.
- Patterns that are alive follow the patterns observed in nature.
- It is patterns that repeat not the constituent parts.
- Patterns repeat at every scale.
- The apparent imperfections of a place which is alive are not imperfections. They follow from how a part is fitted to a particular position.