The most remarkable thing about traditional architecture, I think, is the way in which every particle of building, path, window, field, hedge, steps is just right. You know, that’s actually what’s so moving. You go into a village and that’s what overwhelms you, and that’s why actually it feels almost like nature. Now, I think all of us here probably aspire to a new way of building, where one can again have that sort of thing, because I suppose the most obvious aspect of most of 20th century architecture, is that that is completely and conspicuously lacking. It’s not true that everything is just right. It’s almost, perhaps exaggerating a bit, to say that everything is just wrong. So it’s a really extreme difference.

— Christopher Alexander, Lecture at the Institute of Architecture in London, 1995 (via)