To Seek The Timeless Way We Must

In Short, No Pattern Is An Isolated Entity. Each Pattern Can Exist In The World Only To The Extent That Is Supported By Other Patterns: The Larger Patterns In Which It Is Embedded, The Patterns Of The Same Size That Surround It, And The Smaller Patterns Which Are Embedded In It.

It Is A Common Experience That Attempts To Solve Just One Piece Of A Problem First, Then Others, And So On, Lead To Endless Involutions. You No Sooner Solve One Aspect Of A Thing, Than Another Point Is Out Of Point. And When You Correct That One, Something Else Goes Wrong. You Go Round And Round In Circles, Unable To Produce A Form That Is Thoroughly Right.

But In Practice Master Plans Fail - Because They Create Totalitarian Order, Not Organic Order. They Are Too Rigid; They Cannot Easily Adapt To The Natural And Unpredictable Changes That Inevitably Arise In The Life Of A Community.

It Is Not Possible To Make Great Buildings, Or Great Towns, Beautiful Places, Places Where You Feel Yourself, Places Where You Feel Alive, Except By Following This Way. And, As You Will See, This Way Will Lead Anyone Who Looks For It To Buildings Which Are Themselves As Ancient In Their Form, As The Trees And Hills, And As Our Faces Are.

We Are Searching For Some Kind Of Harmony Between Two Intangibles: A Form Which We Have Not Yet Designed And A Context Which We Cannot Properly Describe.