Christopher Alexander’s Influence On Architects
I’ve been wondering what influence Christopher Alexander has had on the community of architects. His influence on software development is obvious to me as a software developer, but I’ve never seen his name mentioned outside the design patterns movement.
In a private email, Nikos Salingaros, who is a professor of mathematics, an architectural and urban theorist, and also a friend and colleague with Alexander, wrote:
Alexander is despised by the mainstream architectural community, precisely as Jane Jacobs is, because they showed that architects and urbanists became antiarchitects and antiurbanists after the second world war. Nevertheless, the New Urbanism and New Architecture movements have Jacobs and Alexander as their heroes. They are still in the minority, but rapidly gaining ground.
This confirmed my suspicions (about Jane Jacobs as well).