Rating  - a patatern language
This is an amazing book for anyone interested in building, remodeling or buying a home. It points out basic tenents of architecture that go across cultural lines. It is easy to read and retain.
Rating  - A must-read for the custom home builder.
I knew nothing about this book before the purchase other than it was something I might want to read in preparation for building a house.
Originally published in 1977 by the Center For Environmental Structure, Berkeley, Calif, A Pattern Language is #2 in a series of 3 and reviewed as a working document for a new theory of architecture, building and planning.
It definitely is that and so much more. In fact, the total tonnage of information contained in this book would stop a team of oxen in it's tracks.
As a practical purchase, this book definitely fills the bill. At half the cost at publication, you can't go wrong.
Rating - A Pattern Language
A must read for anyone designing their own house. I talks about the functional relationships in a house rather than the construction itself. Every community or home architect should read this book.
Rating - you'll have fun with this one
my cousin built her thick walled adobe home in northern colorado using the ideas in this book. they work. the home is a delight to be in; cozy and warm and strong and earthy at the same time. the book is a very idealistic view of the world as it now stands; it's inspired by the basic drives in all of us for community and privacy and deals admirably with the trade-off. it's not just about spaces we live in and how to make them nurturing and compelling. it's also about how to create communities that entice rather than alienate. we all know strip malls are appalling at a very fundamental level. this book explains why and offers valid alternatives. unfortunately, builders and developers don't get it or make more money their way so to see healthy, working examples of a pattern language you have a much easier time finding examples in old europe (mediterrnaean villages in particular).
Rating - "One of the great books of the century".
Alexander tried to show that architecture connects people to their surroundings in an infinite number of ways, most of which are subconscious. For this reason, it was important to discover what works; what feels pleasant; what is psychologically nourishing; what attracts rather than repels. These solutions, found in much of vernacular architecture, were abstracted and synthesized into the "Pattern Language" about 20 years ago.
Unfortunately, although he did not say it then, it was obvious that contemporary architecture was pursuing design goals that are almost the opposite of what was discovered in the pattern language. For this reason, anyone could immediately see that Alexander's findings invalidated most of what practicing architects were doing at that time. The Pattern Language was identified as a serious threat to the architectural community. It was consequently suppressed. Attacking it in public would only give it more publicity, so it was carefully and off-handedly dismissed as irrelevant in architecture schools, professional conferences and publications.
Now, 20 years later, computer scientists have discovered that the connections underlying the Pattern Language are indeed universal, as Alexander had originally claimed. His work has achieved the highest esteem in computer science. Alexander himself has spent the last twenty years in providing scientific support for his findings, in a way that silences all criticism. He will publish this in the forthcoming four-volume work entitled "The Nature of Order". His new results draw support from complexity theory, fractals, neural networks, and many other disciplines on the cutting edge of science.
After the publication of this new work, our civilization has to seriously question why it has ignored the Pattern Language for so long, and to face the blame for the damage that it has done to our cities, neighborhoods, buildings, and psyche by doing so.
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