Using Alexander's 15 properties to analyse an everyday cafe

[dnschwab]

Hello Demetrius and Friends,

Thanks for setting up this virtual community. I've been working with the 15 properties for the last couple of years, and I'm submitting a paper that I wrote that uses Alexander's 15 properties to analyze a cafe I go to quite often. My feeling is that the 15 properties can make an excellent analysis tool and design-tool, and that we could all benefit by developing those tools. I hope that through this virtual community, we can work together to develop those tools, and help one another to develop them to new levels through our mutual support. It would be great to see how others are using the 15 properties, or the Mirror of the Self, to produce and analyze spaces, and I hope that you'll share them on this site. Please also, share your responses to my paper! That would be great for me, as I'm living in Germany, and probably won't have the ability to meet you personally!

Thanks.

Daniel Schwab


Case Study Using Christopher Alexander’s Theory of Centers: Thaemer’s Café

Daniel Schwab
November 2008

Thaemer’s is an ordinary café on the Grossneumarkt in Hamburg Germany. There are many restaurants on the square; they come and go. But this one is always full, and full of life. What was interesting to me was that it had strong centres, exhibiting many of the properties outlined by Alexander. Perhaps this goes some way to explaining it’s long-term success.
The Café is composed entirely of very strong centres nested within one another. The following paragraphs describe the space in terms of Alexander’s 15 properties, but I think it’s also important to remember that the presence of the place was also felt. It is a place that feels good, that people keep returning to.
On the most mundane level, Thaemer’s has a pleasant atmosphere. It has beautiful simple lamps, tables, candles, chairs and walls. Food for the eye can be found even on the smallest scales: the lamps are ornamented with interlocking and alternating repeating patterns, and the wood has beautiful old exposed grain. At the same time they are nothing ostentatious. They are simple, solid pieces.
The centres also work together to form larger centre-patterns. The lamp, window and candle all echo one another by bringing in light, and they contrast the dark surfaces of the walls, ceiling and table. The walls and windows are subdivided to produce a hierarchy of scales; alternating repetition of panels and thick borders build up to large systems of centres.
Thaemer’s has a more complex geometry of centres also. The centres on the small scale interlock with centres on a large scale to form a rich fabric. For example, the tables are situated in nooks by windows. In the nooks, one feels at once held and connected to the dynamic world outside, where, through the window, at very close range, we see people walking and talking in the street. The entryway (itself a centre created by the symmetrical slanting of the walls and the character of the steps) forms an area that penetrates into the indoors of the restaurant. This creates deep interlock between the outdoor and indoor spaces. The outdoor space that penetrates inwards forms walled nooks on either side, in the indoor space, that are themselves centres through alternating repetition of the nooks and outdoor-penetrating space.
These are centres on a larger-than human scale, so that a person in the restaurant is inside a system of centres, not only looking in on them. The nooks are strengthened by the presence of a table in the middle, with a candle on it, a hanging light, chairs, window and walls. The diagram shows the relation of objects to form a series of centres that work together to surround the guest.
The nooks and lamps form a thick, womb-like border around the guests seated at the tables.
The system of centres creates a space that is simple, economic, and profound. The space supports life, nourishes and soothes by being exactly what it is, without being anything extra. It is simple. It is not fancy or ostentatious. The ceiling is painted a dull black; the tables are made from old planks. There is no square inch that is unused or negative space. The whole place is positive space. It is extremely economic. There are no unneeded frills. The bar is narrow, with a narrow lip to lean your elbow; the stools are simple, round polished stools. These are simple things, but hard to achieve in concert, and they make an enormous difference.
This is the restaurant on the square that survives changes of economic and political weather, that has business rain or shine, and is the important meeting place for the local community. Every part of the building mirrors the self in its simplicity, bringing people into contact with the space and one another. In such a space, we experience not separateness by being in perfect unison with ourselves in the environment.

[Demetrius González]

Thank you for posting this interesting article Daniel. It's really well done. I think these sorts of mini-investigations of existing places are invaluable for showing people what Alexander's work is about, and even more important, how places come 'alive' in ways we can often feel, but not articulate.

And I really appreciate this line:
I think it’s also important to remember that the presence of the place was also felt.
Because it's so hard for us to let go of our rational understanding, or rather, to balance that understanding with just simply feeling things.

Your description brought to mind a number of places that I feel have a similar quality of unpretentious beauty. Or rather I should say HAD a similar quality, as I find that they keep getting damaged in one way or another, usually by greedy developers who come a long, and see something working nicely, and try to expand it, or squeeze more profit out of it, and end up destroying the qualities that made it so special, and successful, in the first place. The 5th Street Public Market in Eugene, Oregon is such a place. Don't get me started ranting on how they've ruined that place!

I would like to post this cafe, and your analysis in the Gallery section, which I'm working on now. Do you perhaps have any more pictures, and larger versions. The ones you posted are very evocative. It would be great to have one that shows as much of the interior as possible, i.e. a wide angle one. And perhaps one from the street?

Cheers
DG