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When I said this, I was mostly talking about Christopher Alexander. It seems the architecture community think his buildings ... aren't ... very ... good?

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Cedric Chin

@ejames_c

Jul 6, 2021

It is a pity that in many domains that we are interested in, the best practitioners are not the best theorists, and the best theorists are not the best practitioners.

Cedric Chin

@ejames_c

Jul 7, 2021

I was talking to an architect friend, and she was like "I've literally never heard of him."

Cedric Chin

@ejames_c

And then after Googling a bit, she said "ok he seems like a total theorist, not a real practitioner." Which, if you know anything about me, probably ranks in the top 🔥 possible.

3:26 AM · Jul 7, 2021Twitter Web App

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Haha what does this mean?

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I'm deeply suspicious of people who talk a lot of profound, insightful things, but then don't seem to do very much. (To be fair to Alexander, I think he's built a few beautiful things, and I don't think I have the taste/judgement necessary to evaluate him).

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I’ve received this same exact response. I’m working publicly through A Pattern Language (

@apatterntolearn

) now and find many of the ideas really interesting. I think you can pick and choose some that have immediate effect.