PANNCENTRALEN : Form Follows Process & The Nature Of Order

Abstract: It seems clear to me that humanity currently stands at a major crossroad where “the old truths have lost their validity and new ones are yet to emerge”, to quote late sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. It seems also clear that these “new truths” has to be formulated quickly if we do not want to end up on the wrong fork of the road... During recent years, these two insights has driven my desire to understand where we are now, how we ended up here and how we might move forward. Whereas I began in the field of architecture, my curiosity has led me to look into a wide array of subjects ranging from economy to thermodynamics and sociology in order to comprehend the bigger picture. In this thesis however, I have limited myself to the architectural realm again and I have done so through a close reading of a figure I found along the way: Christopher Wolfgang Alexander. During the course of the project, I have read his four-volume, magnum opus “The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe ” (2003-2004) where he summarizes over thirtyfive years of scientific and architectural research and practice into a “grand unified theory of architecture”. His views on many issues (social to scientific) align a lot with with mine so the goal of this project has been to let his theoretical framework guide my own creative process in order to be able to evaluate the result – does his work present some “new truths” to help us move forward or is it just another blind alley?