Strong centers

One of the 15 fundamental properties.

Strong centers defines the way that a strong center requires a special field-like effect, created by other centers, as the primary source of its strength.

It is one thing to emphasize the presence of centers as elements of the wholeness […] and quite another to concentrate on the strength of these centers as a feature all the centers have in living structures […].

The various wholes which exist at different levels appear not merely as centers or “wholes” or “blobs”, but actually as strong centers.

In short, the entire design sets up a vector field so that every point has the property that from that point the center is in a certain direction: one direction is going to the center, and another is going out away from it. As a result, the whole visual field is oriented towards the center, and the field feels centered. Even when you put your hand over the middle, you can feel the center just by looking at the vectors set up by the layers all around it.

In many cases there is nevertheless one principal center, the center of the whole composition — the resting place, the middle, the most important place. In other cases which are equally breathtaking, there is no one center, but an undulating series of minor centers […]. But even in cases like these we see, at various points, things which we can identify as “centers”, forming and making other centers powerful and strong.

Many natural processes have centers of action. The action, or development, or force-field radiates outward from some system of centers. This is implicit in much of physics and biology. In physics, we have the fact that electric, magnetic, gravitational, and nuclear forces are carried by spatially symmetrical fields, thus most often creating centrally and bilaterally symmetrical structures.

Contemporary houses lack centers because modern families are emotionally confused

In contemporary buildings, it is often hard to create this hierarchy of centers, perhaps above all because — in practical terms — we don’t know what to put at the center. A typical house of a modern family. What is the center? […] What once were powerful centers — the fire, the marriage bed, the table — no longer have this power, because individually and as families we are not centered in ourselves. The emotional confusion of the present-day family reveals itself in the lack of power in these centers of the house.

Interplay with other properties

Centers often become more powerful when they are bounded by Boundaries themselves made of strong centers.

#book/The Nature of Order/1 The Phenomenon of Life/5 Fifteen fundamental properties#

#book/The Nature of Order/1 The Phenomenon of Life/6 The fifteen properties in nature#

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