Unselfconscious design in textiles

Anatolian kelim 

Alexander uses the example of a textile process to further illustrate his point (pp.51-53).  My illustration is of a beautiful kelim woven rug, but the same principle holds.  Slovakian peasants used yarns dipped in natural dyes to weave their famous shawls.  For centuries the traditional processes and patterns were governed by rules, "making minor changes whenever something seemed to need improvement" (p. 54).  In the nineteenth century the weavers had access to the new chemical dyes. They now had far greater choice but no longer the constraints and processes which had been part of the craft, and the weaving lost its quality.
Its strength had been in the traditions so closely bonded to a lifestyle.  The quality came from that tradition, not from the creative energy of the individual, and from the innate ability of most of us to recognise bad design (and make alterations).