Wholeness and Feeling in Structure-Enhancing Transformations

Christopher Alexander formulated this principle as follows: In any living process, or any process of design or making, the way forward, the next step which is most structure-enhancing, is that step which most intensifies the feeling of the emerging whole. "Feeling" in this case has nothing to do with the maker expressing his/her feelings into the work. Producing a building which has feeling is something different. In this case it is not important whether the architect's feeling goes toward the building. What matters is that the building --the room, the canyon, the painting, the ornament, the garden--as they are created, send profound feeling back towards us. The feeling comes from the object back to the maker after it is made, does not go from the maker to the maker while he/she is making it.