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SIN_OF_FORM

                                                    April 19, 2014


There's a complex of issues
surrounding the invention of
the new, and the difficulties        My own take is that the real
of trying to work without            trouble is a matter of
tradition to fall back on.           fashion demanding something
                                     that seems new, thus
                                     obviating the possibility of
                                     gradual refinement through
                                     trial and error.
Different people see the
problem in at least slightly                            NOVELTY_AGAIN
different ways.

Christopher Alexander, writing
in the early 60s, sees rapid                "Notes on the Synthesis
cultural change as an independent           of Form" (1964).
force to be coped with:

    "In the past-- even after the intellectual upheaval
    of the Renaissance-- the individual designer would
    stand to *some* extent upon the shoulders of his
    predecessors.  And although he was expected to make
    more and more of his own decisions as traditions
    gradually dissolved, there was always still some
    body of tradition which made his decisions easier.
    Now the last shreds of tradition are being torn
    from him.  Since cultural pressures change so fast,
    any slow development of form becomes impossible.
    Bewildered, the form-maker stands alone."  p.4


Christopher Alexander notes the obvious difficulty
that conscious attempts at extreme re-invention often
run up to the cognitive limits of the designer:

    "But if we look at the lack of organization and
    lack of clarity of the forms around us, it is plain
    that their design has often taxed their designer's
    capacity well beyond the limit." p.5



The way it often seems (certainly the way
it seems now, 50 years later), is that
architects continually indulge themselves        It's possible that I'm unfair
in novelty for novelty's sake... they            to architects, and that
hardly seem like innocent victims of             there's a perverse social
fashion struggling to keep up.                   dynamic at work-- maybe you
                                                 need to knock-their-eyes out
                                                 with a crazy concept sketch
                                                 or you won't even get noticed
                                                 by the committee.



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