The Building Process Area of Emphasis: Its inception and establishment

1991

The Building Process Area of Emphasis

New area of study in the Architecture Department proposed by Christopher Alexander to the Faculty of the Department. The intellectual content of this area of study laid in the convergence of two streams of thought: a) the concept of wholeness, and b) that the production of wholeness can happen only as a building process.

Contents

Correspondence

An Open Letter written by Professor Spiro Kostoff and addressed to all graduate students, regarding a memorandum Christopher Alexander wrote on 23-Apr-1991, entitled "Intentional Narrowing of Focus or A Program of Diversity", which though addressed to the faculty, staff and administrators of the Department, was made accessible to the students. Professor Kostoff characterizes the memorandum to be a pernicious, libelous piece of fiction, and urges the students to be outraged 16/04/1991

Proposal for New Area of Emphasis

Sender:

Spiro Kostoff, University of California Berkeley, College of Environmental Design, Department of Architecture, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.

Recipient:

All Graduate Students, University of California Berkeley, College of Environmental Design, Department of Architecture, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.

Medium:

Letter
Re: Professor Kostoff's Open Letter; Christopher Alexander responds to the 26-Apr-1991 letter by addressing it to the students and explaining that Professor Kostoff has misrepresented the real issue of his 23-Apr-1991 memorandum, and that the real problem is that a group of professors within the Department have actively sought to prevent him from teaching the wide-ranging material which was then available in The Building Process Area of Emphasis 01/05/1991

Proposal for New Area of Emphasis

Sender:

Christopher Alexander, University of California Berkeley, College of Environmental Design, Department of Architecture, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.

Recipient:

Graduate Students in the Department of Architecture, University of California Berkeley, College of Environmental Design, Department of Architecture, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.

Medium:

Letter

Course Material

Fall 1991 Architecture: Environmental Design and Visual Studies Course Descriptions 01/09/1991

Proposal for New Area of Emphasis

Description of courses to be taught by Prof. Christopher Alexander for the Fall 1991 semester: Arch.160 The Nature of Order: Foundations of Architecture, Arch.201 Case Studies in Architectural Design, Arch.260a The Nature of Order, Arch.263a Building Construction, Elementary Construction Experience.