The deep nature of patterns and pattern languages

A pattern language is a created thing. It is a work of poetry, a work of art. It is potentially as profound in its way as a building can be.

The intensive character of questioning people, to find their deep wishes and deep needs, might, mistakenly, be thought to be some kind of market research, or opinion survey. But the power of the pattern languages […] hinges on something very different which they contain: A geometrically constructive aspect of their emotion and their content.
A well-constructed, deeply constructed pattern language has the power, within it, to help people visualize geometric configurations that are whole. This arises, because, deep inside the elements of the pattern language there are references to, and hints of, the fifteen transformations. Thus, the agenda of the pattern language not only aims to record and objectify the positive things and relationships which are needed by a given culture, or a given population, or a given group of people. If it is any good, it also has, within it, a driving force which will make geometrical wholeness easily visible and more easily attainable. This arises because the fifteen properties are embedded, sometimes loosely, sometimes precisely, in the patterns.

So a pattern language, if it has been well-constructed, sublimates the inner desires and necessities which have connection to our feelings and dreams, transforms them into geometry, expresses them in a deep enough way to make art of them, casts them in such a way that they have the power to become living flesh in buildings.

#book/The Nature of Order/2 The process of creating life/13 Patterns#