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elfsChristopher Alexander's famous book, A Pattern Language, is an analysis and distillation of architecture throughout history, looking for the recurring, natural, and organic patterns of construction in housing and communal layouts that emerge from human activity. People like thick walls that imply the building is held up, sunny counters, waist-high shelves, built-in seating. People like having a tree in the front yard; it lets their monkey brains know there's a place to run if a lion shows up. Alexander's book has a touchy-feely, new-agey approach sometimes, but his basic merging of architecture and psychology is brilliantly spot-on.
It occurs to me that, somewhere in the world, there is an anti-Alexander who has studied the Gruen transfer, "that split second when the mall's intentionally confusing layout makes our eyes glaze and our jaws slacken. The moment when we forget what we came for and become impulse buyers," and pushed it to extremes. A Pattern Language for Retail is probably one of those evil books you can only get from obscure sources, because it describes the ways in which color, layout, and blaring music can be used to disorient the shopper, make him anxious, and tell him that the only way to alleviate the anxiety is to buy something.
It occurs to me that, somewhere in the world, there is an anti-Alexander who has studied the Gruen transfer, "that split second when the mall's intentionally confusing layout makes our eyes glaze and our jaws slacken. The moment when we forget what we came for and become impulse buyers," and pushed it to extremes. A Pattern Language for Retail is probably one of those evil books you can only get from obscure sources, because it describes the ways in which color, layout, and blaring music can be used to disorient the shopper, make him anxious, and tell him that the only way to alleviate the anxiety is to buy something.
