To dører - to tidsaldre - to kosmologier

The Alexandrian method of design begins by dreaming: “imagine the most wonderful place in the world to be in so as to accomplish this function or task.” This is, after all, the basic criterion for extracting a design pattern from numerous observations. If a created structure actually succeeds in this goal, then naturally whoever experiences it will cry tears from the intensity of the positive emotion. - Nikos A. Salingaros (merk at Salingaros lenker til stabburet på Grythengen for hans modell om organisert kompleksitet)

Det blir stadig klarere for meg at årsaken til stabburets skjønnhet og pumpehusets heslighet har rot i to fundamentalt forskjellige kosmologier, hvor jeg i dag er av de siste som bekjenner meg til mine forfedres kosmologi.

Achieving coherence comes down to applying one of Alexander’s 15 fundamental properties: “Not-separateness.”

Evolve and shape what you’re making so that it is connected to everything else it can possibly connect to. But this idea underlines the basic incompatibility with current architectural culture, where each design shouts “look at me.” This is the opposite of life, where something blends in perfectly well with the world. The desire to be separate sabotages the creation of life.

All of this leads us to recognize, and actively seek an intimate relationship between our own selves and the universe. While this notion is the basis of traditional religions, it has no place in our time. Alexander describes the experience of creating life, or enjoying life already created, as a connection between ourselves and the universe. This goes far beyond coherence among all the components of something created—because our own self is incorporated inside the field of coherence as well. In making life, we are included in what we make.

Living architecture (today as in historical times) can be created only within a conception of matter that is not mechanical. Alexander offers an astonishing hypothesis: that we can use living architecture to influence physics. Discoveries from architecture—how to generate living structure through materials—could revise our cosmology to reveal a richer and more correct physical reality.

Physics describes nature as a fascinating combination of inert components. Its basic rules are mechanical (i.e. dead). Moving one step away from this traditional limitation involves considering the property of wholeness as a structure, not merely a condition. There exists already a precedent in quantum mechanics, in which the wholeness of a configuration determines the behavior of elementary particles. Space thus contains a global configurational structure that is not mechanical. In The Phenomenon of Life: The Nature of Order Volume 1, Alexander refers to my model of organized complexity as a step towards establishing this structure.

Alexander cites biologist George Wald, who suggested that preconditions for life are already present in the matrix of the universe and are not only an end-product of an improbable sequence of chemical events. This would also mean that consciousness is somehow defined by itself, and not as an emergent phenomenon of the animal neural system. Our model of the universe requires additional features not contained in physics, and these define wholeness through the 15 properties. The relative value of space is measured by the intensity of the 15 properties in each point. Space changes qualitatively through intensification.

Of immediate and profound relevance to architecture is the unity of ornament and function. Ornament connects us viscerally to a structure or surface, helping to establish an inclusive overall wholeness. This effect is just as important as our connection to this place, object, or space through using it. Therefore, there is no distinction in living structure between ornament and function. Creating art and life is essential to our spiritual development. We have something like a religious obligation to create life whenever we make something. - Nikos A. Salingaros (merk at Salingaros lenker til stabburet på Grythengen for hans modell om organisert kompleksitet)

- The Legacy of Christopher Alexander and A New Conception of the Universe

Grunnen til den likegyldigheten og det sinnet jeg har blitt møtt med i min kamp mot pumpehuset, skyldes nettopp denne frontalkollisjonen mellom cartesiansk og alexandrinsk kosmologi. Det faktum at Gud åpenbares i materien, og at vi som skapende mennesker har en plikt til å hylle Gud ned til minste detalj, gjør simpelthen det moderne mennesket aldeles rasende, eller totalt avvisende.

We have something like a religious obligation to create life whenever we make something. - Nikos A. Salingaros

Dessverre fornekter disse menneskene det universet vi lever i og meningen med sine liv på jorden. I motsetning til for mine forfedre, for hvem enhver skapende handling var en bønnehandling.

The builders of Kronborgsætergrenda, especially those building from about the year 1870-1940, lived and worked with an unshakable belief in God. As one looks at the works that came from their hands, God is everywhere: in the "stabbur" at Grythengen, in the shoe of shoemaker M.J. Dahl, in the paintings hanging at the walls of their "bedehus", in the life and death of the Apostel of the Totenåsen Hills, living in his small "våningshus" at the farm of Holmstadengen. For them, every wooden plank was a gift to that unshakable belief in God they shared. It is the belief, the unshakable nature of the belief, its authenticity, and above all its solidity, which made it work effectively for them. We, in our time, need an authentic belief, a certainty, connected with the ultimate reaches of space and time -- which does the same for us. - Christopher Alexander, The Luminous Ground, page 42

Denne stabbursdøra fra 1920, laget av min oldefar, er intet mindre enn en gave til hans Gud og Skaper!

We have been told that our society has grown wealthier over these last 200 years, yet our building record tells a different story. The record we read here is of a civilization entering a dark age. Instead of the settling of a continent as manifested in our nation’s first 200 years of building, begun in 1607, the last 200 years, in Wendell Berry’s memorable phrase, reflect the “unsettling of America.” The record along the rail line speaks of a people who no longer build for the future. And surely, underlying the barbarity of all dark ages is life lived without much attention to the future, much less any hope for it. For barbarians, like animals, only the present moment matters. - Milton Wilfred Grenfell

Det nyeste tilskuddet til tunet på Grythengen, pumpehuset fra teknisk etat i Østre Toten, etter Wendell Berrys kosmologi et barbarisk hus.

Dette pumpehuset står nå imot stabburet på Grythengen, men skrått ifht. stabburet og de andre bygningene, slik at tunfølelsen degraderes. Dette er et brudd med en tusenårig tradisjon!

Denne åndssløvheten av vår tid representeres best ved den ufattelig stygge døra, ei ståldør som allerede har mottatt sine bolker.

 Teknisk etat burde vært meget ydmyke for at de fikk lov til å plassere pumpehuset i dette historiske miljøet, og derfor gjort alt i sin makt for å styrke kvalitetene til stedet. Den beste måten de kunne gjort dette på var ved å la pumpehuset utformes som et mini-stabbur, med ei tilsvarende dør som i stabburet.

Slik ville pumpehuset blitt et ekko av stabburet og fullbyrdet den tolvte transformasjonene for helhet i universet.

"When echoes are present, the various smaller elements and centers, from which the larger centers are made, are all members of the same family; they contain echoes of one another; there are deep internal similarities between them which tie them together to form a single unity." - Christopher Alexander, p. 218, Book One, The Nature of Order

Denne videoen forklarer alt som det er. Som mennesker, og ikke minst som etater, har vi et ENORMT ansvar for å styrke skjønnhet, livskvalitet og identitet i våre omgivelser!

Teknokratene, entreprenørene, byråkratene, ingeniørene, arkitektene, de har alle feilet!

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Great architecture—even modest architecture that possesses intensely human qualities—is an emergent phenomenon. We perceive a wholeness coming from the coherence among numerous design and physical elements. Alexander and his collaborators have derived techniques for generating the design components necessary for life, and also the rules for putting them together. But the final coherence—or lack of it—is a surprise that cannot be predicted or “designed.”

Alexander comes back to our visceral response to such wholeness. Our body responds subconsciously but strongly to the degrees of wholeness in our environment. We need to distinguish this positive reaction from a very different intellectual excitement due to transgressive forms, which instead trigger our fight-or-flight instinct. Alexander uses the word “sadness” for a deeply human feeling. Sadness links to physical tears, which, however, can be triggered also by an intense experience of joy. This positive feeling must come from the geometry, not from our inner emotions of the moment.

The Alexandrian method of design begins by dreaming: “imagine the most wonderful place in the world to be in so as to accomplish this function or task.” This is, after all, the basic criterion for extracting a design pattern from numerous observations. If a created structure actually succeeds in this goal, then naturally whoever experiences it will cry tears from the intensity of the positive emotion.

Alexander is insistent that this intense feeling is not a psychological reaction—it’s an actual, physical quality of the environment. This makes it independent of the emotional state of whoever experiences it. To prove this, Alexander points to the healing effect felt by anyone who attempts to generate living structure. This is the intense emotional reward for whoever creates living art, artifacts, music, and buildings in the pre-industrial sense. The production of beauty produces a healing effect on the maker. Alexander discovered a direct relationship between the creation of life and beauty, and an intense feeling of personal nourishment. Turning this affect around gives a test: “the best criterion for judging if you are creating wholeness is that you yourself feel whole and healed.”

Creating life by creating artifacts or structures makes the creator vulnerable, however. It is such a personal act, which contradicts the social pressures of sophistication. Playing the game of producing images and trying to impress others precludes the production of life. Genuine creation does not try to impress others. But people today are frightened by real beauty. There is a deep incompatibility between industrial modernism, and being true to living structure. As a result of detachment, you are not allowed to be comfortable with your own self. Social norms that shape society into a mass consumer of industrial products block people’s inner emotional satisfaction.

It is impossible to explain how wholeness and life created in a painting, artifact, or architectural piece connect deeply to a person in the spiritual sense. This phenomenon has religious implications, and was indeed interpreted in this way by pre-industrial societies. Alexander also notes that the necessary state of mind for creating life is best explained in religious terms—being selfless and giving, “something that has life is made as a gift to God.” - Nikos A. Salingaros (merk at Salingaros lenker til stabburet på Grythengen for hans modell om organisert kompleksitet)