claim

active

claim:the-proposed-victoria-and-albert-museum-extension-intentionally-violates-most-characteristics-of-living-structure-and-does-not-contribute-life-to-the-environment-of-london

The proposed Victoria and Albert Museum extension intentionally violates most characteristics of living structure and does not contribute life to the environment of London

Applied test case demonstrating the wholeness criterion yields clear architectural judgments

Neighborhood — ranked by edge-count

Events (1)

event

Victoria and Albert Museum extension controversy, reported February 2, 1999
cites
Contemporary example used to demonstrate the wholeness criterion applied to a controversial architectural proposal

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.

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.hypothesis0.748
Prediction about the incompatibility of modern processes with life.
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.claim0.746
Alexander's explanation for the 'temperamental' nature of the principle: it can be overridden by human agency
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.claim0.739
Alexander's assertion that judgments about whether interventions preserve wholeness are structural and mathematical rather than subjective or romantic.
Buildings and objects with living structure enlarge our capacity for relatedness; those without deaden it, even in nature.claim0.731
Practical consequence for architecture and urbanism.
A building can have real life only when the building details have life and are adapted, in their fine structure, to the life of the building.claim0.728
Life at larger scales depends on life at the fine scale.
If a building is made by a process that allows fine adaptation through feedback, it will have life; if built from fixed drawings, it will not.hypothesis0.726
Predictive conditional summarizing the chapter's argument.
This process is harmful, and has a strong tendency to work against creation of living structure in building design.claim0.725
Buildings made with an eye to the past will most often fail to have living structure, because the process of historical reproduction somehow turns vivid, living structure sour.claim0.725
Argues that copying historical forms does not produce living structure.