Marcus Sly - Furniture Making and Design

In his extraordinary and important book 'The Timeless Way of Building', Christopher Alexander talks of 'the quality without a name'. He is referring to that quality that is sometimes found in a place or thing which can by touched on (although never precisely defined) by words like alive, whole, undivided and eternal.

If we are at all sensitive we may notice this quality in those environments that support and enrich us.  Places where it feels good to be in a deep sense.  We know it when we see it, but we can't reduce it to a formula. Alexander writes:

... it is easy to understand why people believe so firmly that there is no single, solid basis for the difference between good building and bad. It happens because the single central quality which makes the difference cannot be named.

This quality without a name may be found on the sort of street that encourages a feeling of community, and where we wish to linger, chat and 'be' - those happy places where commerce and conviviality cheerfully coexist.  It is to be found in those houses in which we tend to feel safe, comfortable, human and fully alive.  It exists in a well made table; one that encourages togetherness, companionship and laughter - or solitude and contemplation - among those who sit round it.

The 'quality without a name' is absent in a shopping mall that is designed only with a view to utility and the maximisation of profit.  It is nowhere to be found in a house where comfort has become a fetish at the expense of soul needs.  It is not present in a table that is intended to display status or wealth - and hence to intimidate.

If we are sensitive to this quality without a name, appreciate its importance, and are interested in making things or places in which it can be present, then we are faced with a frustrating problem.  How can we work in a concrete way with something which is by its nature tacit, which cannot be pinned down precisely by thought? We may notice the sort of things and patterns which tend to be associated with it, yet find that they may all be present in our work without that quality also being present. How then are we to approach it?

There is a clue to be found in Hinduism. In Advaita Vedanta, Brahman, or God, is often described as 'Neti Neti', which translates as 'not this, not this'.  How can you approach the divine, it is asked, when it is utterly beyond the limits of thought?  One can only say what it is not.  This is a profound insight, and also a supremely practical one.

If we are aware of the absence of the 'quality without a name', we can use this to guide us in our work. Through a process of rejecting everything which is not it, saying no ruthlessly over and over again, there is just a chance that, if we are lucky, when all that it is not has been stripped away, there it will be - luminous, shining through.