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claim:human-beings-can-violate-the-tendency-to-preserve-wholeness-either-by-acting-disrespectfully-toward-it-or-by-failing-to-perceive-it-accurately-which-explains-why-modern-buildings-often-lack-living-structure

Human beings can violate the tendency to preserve wholeness either by acting disrespectfully toward it or by failing to perceive it accurately, which explains why modern buildings often lack living structure.

Alexander's explanation for the 'temperamental' nature of the principle: it can be overridden by human agency

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Claims (1)

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The view that profound architectural form arises from sudden inspired vision is completely wrong and incompatible with how living structure is actually created through slow successive transformations.
supports
Alexander's architectural conclusion from his natural philosophy argument, issued as a definitive critique of modernist design ideology

Questions (1)

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Why does the principle that creates living structure sometimes break down at the macroscopic scale of modern building production?
answered_by
Alexander's puzzle about why a natural principle fails in human design contexts, requiring explanation

Related by similarity (8)

cosine ≥ 0.65 · no typed edge

Entities in the same semantic neighborhood but without a typed relation to this one — candidates for new edges or unrecognized duplicates.

In modern human society, building actions are not guaranteed to be wholeness preserving because they are governed by mental images and schemata.claim0.857
Central premise of the chapter.
In nature the principle of unfolding wholeness creates living structure nearly all the time. Human designers, who are not constrained by this unfolding, can violate the wholeness if they wish to, and can therefore create non-living structure as often as they choose.quote0.832
Encapsulates the distinction between natural and human-made order, central to Alexander's critique of contemporary architecture.
The existence of structure-destroying transformations as a social norm is linked to a breakdown in the perception of wholeness itself.claim0.831
Causal link between perception and destruction.
An injection of new structure into a place can either respect and enhance the existing wholeness or violate and destroy it; this is an objective structural fact, not merely aesthetic preference.claim0.820
Alexander's assertion that judgments about whether interventions preserve wholeness are structural and mathematical rather than subjective or romantic.
In traditional societies, building processes often preserved and extended wholeness by following natural processes closely.claim0.818
Historical claim about traditional versus modern building.
In order to make buildings by unfolding - hence by structure-preserving transformations - it is necessary, truly, to pay attention to the wholeness in the world. This 'paying attention to the wholeness' is essentially synonymous with love of life.quote0.818
Connection between process, attention, and love.
The profound wholeness of living structure, almost every time it has been done most profoundly, has been done in a mystical‑religious context.claim0.817
A sweeping historical observation that grounds the claim that mystical context is a near‑universal condition for the highest living structure.
After 1900, a variety of modern building processes came into use that are not structure-preserving—some accidentally structure-destroying, others actively promoting ugliness for profit.claim0.813
Historical shift.