Understanding Architecture A Book by Robert McCarter & Juhani Pallasmaa www.phaidon.com We have turned our faces towards the futureFragments of timeA timeless spaceTheatre Epidaurus, Greece, 330 BCThe secret life of sculpture+17 More Fragments of time architecturehistorycities
Chopped and disfigured The details of a building cannot be made alive when they are made from modular parts If the builder wants to build the room from modular four-foot panels, he must change the size of the rooms, and change their shape, to fit his panels. In such a building system, it is impossible for a person to create a plan which reflects the larger subtleties of site or plan. Each plan will always be chopped and disfigured to make it fit the building details. To make the building live, its patterns must be generated on the site, so that each one takes its own shape according to its context. Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building What's suitable for each unique condition modularity