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book:the-sense-of-orderThe Sense of Order
Book by E.H. Gombrich cited for the textile pattern example.
Extracted from this book
Claims (11)
- And while this is going on—as in nature—the fifteen properties that give life to the emerging centers develop easily.Claim that the fifteen properties emerge naturally from unfolding.
- Any part of the world we build will have life if it is created by structure-preserving transformations, and will not have life if it is not created by structure-preserving transformations.The central thesis of the chapter.
- In order to make buildings by unfolding, it is necessary to pay attention to the wholeness in the world. This 'paying attention to the wholeness' is essentially synonymous with love of life.Connection between process, perception, and love.
- It is, then, this love of life which is embodied in the conception of a building, in its detail, in its execution - because the wholeness that people paid attention to really was the whole, really was all of life, and people were not ashamed or too frightened to respond to all of it in their actions as builders.Love as the driving force of living creation.
- It is, ultimately, the process, not the design, which gives life to a building.Emphasizes process over blueprint.
- The absence of life we recognize as a familiar problem of the past century comes about because the processes which create objects, artifacts, buildings, neighborhoods, agriculture, forests, towns, roads, bridges - nearly all fail to have the character of unfolding wholeness.Diagnosis of modern lifelessness.
- The modern world we build, because its construction is driven by our attitudes about money, production, design, building, and planning, breaks from smooth unfolding at almost every stage.Critique of contemporary building processes.
- The unfolding process allows—sustains—minute adaptation in every detail.The practical benefit of unfolding.
- This harmony results because of a state of mind in which the makers actually see the wholeness directly and accurately: that is, they see the system of centers that forms the wholeness.Cognitive basis of the traditional builder's ability.
- Under these conditions, what is done next always has a natural and comfortable relation to what existed before: it has a similar structure and never violates the previously existing structure.Characteristic of a structure-preserving process.
- What we get from such a process is a system of centers which is elaborated by other centers, in which each center is connected upward, downward, and sideways to myriad other centers, in which the centers bolster and intensify one another. What we get, then, is a particular kind of structure in which all the centers—gradually—take on this encrusted, dense, structured character of being made of other centers.Description of the resulting living structure.
Hypotheses (1)
- If we were nevertheless trying to get our buildings conceived, designed, and built by the social processes which currently exist - the buildings would still inevitably break life and could not have life.Prediction about the incompatibility of modern processes with life.
Neighborhood — ranked by edge-count
Chapters (1)
chapter
- The current paper, arguing that life in buildings arises from structure-preserving transformations, as exemplified in traditional societies.
Thinkers (1)
thinker
- E.H. GombrichauthoredAuthor of The Sense of Order, cited in the note about the textile pattern.