[abecedarius]

I've read a bit of Christopher Alexander, and at least by his view the profession of architecture was in a fallen state conducive to soulless work. I don't know myself, except I've been to Barcelona which must've been doing something different.

[theoh]

I'm pretty sure Alexander would see the same problems in most Barcelona architecture as he does in other cities. The design in Barcelona is very good by the standards of European cities (and exceptional relative to a lot of places) but the paradigm for architectural practice is still, broadly speaking, the modernist one. Alexander wants to go back to preindustrial vernacular building practices.