In 1962, an essay that crystallized Charles Moore's ideas was published in J. B. Jackson's Landscape journal. Moore wrote "Toward Making Places" with his Berkeley colleagues Donlyn Lyndon, Sim van der Ryn, and Patrick Quinn.

"Our magazines," Moore wrote, "are filled with handsome photographs of buildings. But, with all this, our environment grows messier and more chaotic, more out-of-touch with the natural world and more inimical to human life. The order of the existing natural world is destroyed but no order closer to human understanding is introduced to take its place."

Through the ensuing four decades, Moore's architecture, teaching, and writing always returned to the fundamental importance of places. Moore was among the very few of his generation to gently lead architecture back to a focus on place, away from the more canonical and theoretical methods under which he was educated. In turn, Moore took a whole generation of students and colleagues with him, who learned by his example of constant exploration, unceasing looking and listening.

The Charles Moore Foundation dedicates itself to Moore's extraordinary legacy, not by seeking to mimic or reproduce his work and ideas, but to foster good and well-designed places, the environment, cities, and communities.