Why Monotonous Repetition is Unsatisfying

Abstract

Human beings prefer ordered complexity and not randomness in their environment, a result of our perceptual system evolving to interpret natural forms. We also recognize monotonously repeating forms as unnatural. Although widespread in today's built environment, such forms generate reactions ranging from boredom to unease. Christopher Alexander has introduced rules for generating forms adapted to natural geometries, which show structured variation with multiple symmetries in a hierarchy of scales. It turns out to be impossible to generate monotonously repeating forms by following those rules. As it is highly probable that traditional artifacts, buildings, and cities were created instinctively using a version of the same rules, this is the reason we never find monotonously repeating forms in traditional cultures.