Go BackA Foreshadowing of 21st Century Art – The Color and Geometry of very Early Turkish Carpets
1993The seventh volume of “The Center for Environmental Structure Series” on architecture published by Oxford University Press is a book about carpets. Alexander assembled what many believe to be one of the finest collections of early Turkish carpets in the world. More than half the carpets are unique examples—carpets with no known counterpart. In this richly illustrated volume—featuring six hundred illustrations, ninety-eight in full color—Alexander takes readers on an engaging tour of his beautiful collection.
“A Foreshadowing of 21st Century Art – The Color and Geometry of very Early Turkish Carpets” besides making an important contribution to the world of carpet scholarship, it contains the first coherent theory of structure of carpet designs, and contains much material that anticipates Alexander’s general theory of order and wholeness, which appears in “The Nature of Order.” Equally important, Alexander’s thoughtful meditations on these carpets will fascinate the many architects, artists, and planners who follow his work.
The book was exhibited at Locus Manifesto-exposition “Re-enchant the World: Architecture and the City facing society´s transitions”, together with others in Science Cabinet #1.
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Geometry and Fifteen Fundamental Properties
Christopher Alexander recognized the importance of the geometry of centers and for years he was looking for the common structural features among buildings, paintings, streets, carpets, doors, windows, etc. which have "life" and "wholeness". He identified fifteen structural features which ...
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Color and Inner Light: The Eleven Color Properties
Christopher Alexander postulated that centers and the field of centers they create are the building blocks from which wholeness is made. However, he further argued that geometry alone is not sufficient, and that color is the way wholeness comes to ...
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Wholeness as a Tangible and Objective Quality: The Mirror of the Self
In any process of design or making, the next step which is most structure-enhancing, is that step which most intensifies the feeling of the emerging whole. What ultimately matters in this process is that the work produced generates feeling in ...
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Timurid-Carpet pattern, painting
1990
Painting on photographic paper with red and yellow gouach; 20cm x 26cm, depicts a reconstruction of a 13th century carpet. Two illuminated negatives of the painting were exhibited in the De Young Memorial Museum "Ancient Color and Geometry: Very early ...
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Christopher Alexander's carpet collection, at its final state included about 80 carpets, most of them Turkish carpets, or carpets with a pronounced "Turkic" character
Christopher Alexander started collecting carpets because of his desire to learn from them. He felt that they had something to teach him. He was never interested in the classification of carpets, where they came from, or on their type. He ...
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Endless Knot Design Hispano-Moresque carpet
12th century Spanish carpet fragment, 62cm x250cm, South Spain; purchased in 1982 and sold on 7-Nov-2017, at Sotheby’s auction.
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"Ancient Color and Geometry: Anatolian Pile Carpets from the Christopher Alexander Collection" exhibition in M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco
10/11/1990 to
17/02/1991
The exhibition of the Christopher Alexander collection of 80 Turkish carpets in the de Young Memorial Museum was held during the 6th International Conference on Oriental Carpets. Alexander designed the exhibit in all its detailing personally with one thing in ...
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Locus Manifesto-exposition "Re-enchant the World: Architecture and the City facing Society´s Transitions"
21/05/2014 to
06/10/2014
The 40 architects already awarded the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture participated and exhibited their works. The exhibition was on international touring until 2016. Christopher Alexander’s participation included the extensive presentation of the Mexicali project in the “Saving the People’s Habitat” ...