A View Of Alexander'S Thinking Of Architecture From A "Turn"

Christopher Alexander is an active architectural theorist, educationist and architect in the modern western architectural field. In the middle of 1960s', his architectural ideology underwent an important turn, so all of his theories can be divided into two phases.The dissertation discusses the connection and difference between his architectural thinking during these two phases, with an aim of having a whole cognition of Alexander's thinking.The dissertation has five chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the background to Alexander's architectural theories, including the brief introduction of C.Alexander, the background of western philosophy, and so on.Chapter 2 basically introduces his architectural theories, including his representative work "Notes on the Synthesis of Form" in the first phase and "The Timeless Way of Building", "The Nature of Order" in the second phase.Beginning with the design method, Chapter 3 discusses the development of Alexander's architectural theories, from "decompose-synthesize method" to pattern language. In the view of epistemology, Chapter 4 discusses the different ways used in the different phases. One is rationalism and the other is structuralism.Chapter 5 analyses the important transformation in C.Alexander's cosmism and discusses his weltanschauung in the later period, combined with aesthetics and practice.The dissertation has about 60,000 words and 20 illustrations.