Delight’s Muse: on Christopher Alexander’s THE NATURE OF ORDER, by Jenny Quillien, Culicidae Architectural Press, Ames, Iowa, 2008, 171 pages, 220 color illustrations, ISBN 978-1-4303-1317-5.
$65.95

Ames, Iowa, February 14, 2008.

Delight’s Muse is a blessedly short, accessible, and thoughtfully illustrated summary of Christopher Alexander’s four volume work, The Nature of Order. It rescues readers from the massive effort required to navigate Alexander’s 2000-page labyrinth without map or compass.

Famous (and infamous) architect and author Christopher Alexander is an iconoclast both revered and despised. But in this overview of his recent and ever-so-ambitious magnum opus Jenny Quillien (a former colleague of Alexander) suggests that we eschew those conventional judgments and simply recognize that Alexander is ‘on to something’ novel, useful and important. Alexander aims not only to examine the how and why of true success in built environments, but pushes on to far-reaching discussions about order and process in the natural and man-made worlds, questioning the very character of beauty, wholeness, and spirituality.

Quillien’s synopsis and interpretative commentaries foreground what can be called Alexander’s ‘General Theory of Everything’ with the goal of promoting critical discussion and thoughtful implementation. She argues that we need not be wedded to the products of Alexander’s thought but can benefit greatly by courting its process. Winning an audience over to innovative ideas is a ‘high-stakes’ proposition for all parties. Listening sympathetically—the only way really to truly ‘hear’ what a new point of view is proposing—is to risk changing one’s mind. In turn, a new perspective, if openly engaged, will be transformed by those listening. On offer is a restructuring of the attending mind.

Delight’s Muse will interest not only fans of Alexander’s earlier books (the best known being A Pattern Language from 1977, and The Timeless Way of Building from 1979) but everyone willing to entertain a fresh and stimulating way to observe the world and the variety of things we place in it.

Jenny Quillien is a Research Associate with the Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She can be reached at jquillien@cybermesa.com or by phone at 1 505 983 7129.

Delight’s Muse is available for on-line purchase from Culicidae Architectural Press, from the on-demand printer Lulu.com, major bookstores, or Amazon.com.

The book is currently available through Lulu as a full color paperback or as a downloadable .pdf.

© 2008 9one8Design.com