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Civic Center & Town Hall for Mountain View
1986Invited design competition entry. One of five invited entries and winner of first round selection process.
The project with 100,000 square feet of total area of construction included: a) the new City Hall building 65,000 sq.ft.; b) Community Theater with a 550 to 600-seat main stage, and a 150 to 200-seat experimental theater, in total 37,000 sq.ft.; c) on-site, below-grade parking structure for 210 to 240 parking spaces; d) grand central plaza fronting the street, providing amenities such as awnings, artcafes, seating and landscaping.
Contents
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Civic Center and Town Hall for Mountain View: Expressing great interest for participating in the design competition for the new City Hall of the Mountain View Civic Center. Includes a brief company vitae illustrating its focus on building better living environments for the people and their communities. Letter is in its draft form
10/12/1985
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The Mountain View Civic Center Competition Design: Request to be considered for the concrete bid for the new Mountain View Civic Center project Christopher Alexander may work on
30/09/1986
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Civic Center and Town Hall for Mountain View: Congratulating Christopher Alexander on being selected as a finalist in the design competition. Also, offering personal support and insights on the local community
08/07/1986
SEE ALL Correspondence
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Civic Center & Town Hall for Mountain View: Sketches
01/01/1986
An early, rough idea of a building facade for the Mountain View Civic Center.
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Civic Center & Town Hall for Mountain View: Sketches
01/01/1986
One sketch of the initial idea for the building composition and character .
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Civic Center & Town Hall for Mountain View: Presentation Drawings - Set of selected drawings submitted as boards for the competition entry
01/01/1986
Set of five drawings submitted among others for the competition entry to convey the overall character and feeling of the building complex. The 1st drawing includes the Site Plan, highlighting the main centers of the project, together with perspectives and ...
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Civic Center and Town Hall for Mountain View: Preliminary Cost Estimate
09/09/1986
30-page study includes: 1) An introductory letter indicating the content’s compliance with the competition conditions and specifications, calculated in accordance to the instructions provided by Christopher Alexander. It is a detailed take-off and estimate reflecting the drawings provided, with all ...
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Civic Center and Town Hall for Mountain View: Mountain View Civic Center Design Competition Program
01/05/1986
Detailed 73-page document providing the design program specifics for the competition participants. It includes three parts, titled Background, Statement of the Problem, Competition Rules and Regulations, as well as two Appendices and five Attachments.
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Civic Center and Town Hall for Mountain View: Mountain View Civic Center Design Competition Attachment B
24/06/1986
Attachment B – Agreement to Terms and Conditions of Competition, dated but not signed.
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Civic Center and Town Hall for Mountain View: Agenda - City Council of the City of Mountain View
09/10/1986
Notification for the new meeting location on 9-Oct-1986 for the city council, and listing the six topics that were addressed in that meeting.
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Civic Center and Town Hall for Mountain View: A Crisis of Value - The choice of our New Civic Center
01/09/1986
2-page document urging the people of Mountain View and members of the council who are going to decide on the winning design between the five finalists, to apply correct criteria as they are explained.
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Civic Center and Town Hall for Mountain View: Notes by Christopher Alexander
20/09/1986
One page with handwritten notes, points for discussion.
SEE ALL Records
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Civic Center & Town Hall for Mountain View: Photographs of project model
01/09/1986
Five views of the project model, prepared for the invited competition; three from the entrance side along the street and two from the park side. The model portrays clearly the presence of centers in the volumetric arrangement of buildings, throughout ...
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Civic Center & Town Hall for Mountain View: Photographs of project model
01/09/1986
Views of paper model of the theater interior, prepared during the design process while designing the theater.
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Civic Center & Town Hall for Mountain View: Photographs of drawings
01/09/1986
The three floor plans of the whole building, plus another one which highlights the distribution and sizes of courtyards, gardens and other open spaces in the project .
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References
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The Unfolding of Public Space and Gardens as Positive Space
Outdoor space is positive when it is shaped just as a room is shaped. It has a contained character, it is bounded by walls, fences, natural vegetation, enclosure of some kind. It looks into other positive spaces, some larger, some ...
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The Sequence of Unfolding - Generative Codes for the Design Process
In architecture, as in other things, the "right" sequence is of vital importance. It is a generative sequence of progressive differentiations, which allow space to unfold in the right order. Each differentiation acts on the product of the previous ...
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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 ...
SEE ALL Scientific Research
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The Nature of Order - An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe.
Book Two - The Process of Creating Life
2002
“The Process of Creating Life”, the second volume of “The Nature of Order” series presents a dynamic theory of living structure. It begins with an analysis of transformations, which occur in nature, and the distinction between structure-preserving transformations, responsible for ...
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The Nature of Order - An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe.
Book Four - The Luminous Ground
2004
“The Luminous Ground” is the fourth and last volume of “The Nature of Order” series. In this volume, Alexander attempts to show the cosmological underpinning of the nature of order. The book has two goals. First, to show that the ...
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The Nature of Order - An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe.
Book Three - A Vision of a Living World
2005
“A Vision of a Living World”, the third volume of “The Nature of Order” series, presents, for the first time, a full spectrum of Alexander’s and CES built and unbuilt works. The book describes hundreds of buildings, plans, neighborhoods, drawings, ...
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Chapter 8. Step-by-Step Adaptation, 5 / Feedback
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Chapter 4. Ten Thousand Beings, 15 / A New Vision of Building: Making Living Structure in our Brutal World
Chapter 4. Ten Thousand Beings, 16 / The Life of the Environment
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Chapter 4. Large Public Buildings, 4 / Mountain View Civic Center: Differentiation of a Large Building as a Jewel, Made by Successive Transformations of the Space where it Exists
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The Mountain View Civic Center Competition Design: Notification that material on Mountain View competition arrived and will be reviewed with other editors; indication that the material regarding the committee's procedures was read and sounds peculiar.
15/04/1987
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Civic Center and Town Hall for Mountain View: Expressing joy that a story on the Mountain View competition will be written. Also, provides information regarding the unusual process followed on the selection of the competition winner, and urges the reporter to further investigate why the numerous letters and telegrams received in favor of Christopher Alexander's design proposal were never mentioned at the council meeting.
16/04/1987
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Civic Center and Town Hall for Mountain View: Notifying that the competition information sent was received, but regretfully the article is not going to be published
14/12/1987
SEE ALL Correspondence
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"View of Mountain View Civic Center" painting: Photographs
01/01/1986
Four views of the watercolor painting, showing the main courtyard of the Civic Center, submitted with the design competition entry package; one of them is a close-up view.
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"View of Mountain View Civic Center" painting: Photographs
01/01/1986
Early study on a board, a colored collage painting of the main plaza .
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"View of Mountain View Civic Center" painting: Photographs
01/01/1986
The watercolor painting of the main plaza in a cropped view.
SEE ALL Photographs