critical regionalism

 

  • According to Frampton’s proposal, critical regionalism should adopt modern architecture, critically, for its universal progressive qualities but at the same time value should
    be placed on the geographical context of the building.

  • [8] Douglas Reichert Powell’s book Critical Regionalism: Connecting Politics and Culture in the American Landscape (2007) traces the trajectory of the term critical regionalism
    from its original use in architectural theory to its inclusion in literary, cultural, and political studies and proposes a methodology based on the intersection of those fields.

  • [citation needed] Criticism Although supportive of Critical Regionalism’s attempt to adapt design to local climate, site conditions, and locally-available materials, considering
    it an improvement in relation to the International Style of Modernism, architecture theorist Nikos Salingaros criticizes its anti-regional and anti-traditional tendencies derived from Critical Theory.

  • [1] Critical Regionalists thus hold that both modern and post-modern architecture are “deeply problematic”.

  • [2] Kenneth Frampton In “Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six points for an architecture of resistance”, Frampton recalls Paul Ricoeur’s “how to become modern and to return
    to sources; how to revive an old, dormant civilization and take part in universal civilization”.

  • It is a progressive approach to design that seeks to mediate between the global and the local languages of architecture.

  • The phrase “critical regionalism” was first presented in 1981, in ‘The Grid and the Pathway,’ an essay published in Architecture in Greece, by the architectural theorists
    Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre and, with a slightly different meaning, by the historian-theorist Kenneth Frampton.

  • [5] Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre According to Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre, critical regionalism need not directly draw from the context; rather elements can
    be stripped of context but used in unfamiliar ways.

  • universal civilization) versus the specially-designed, ‘uneconomic’, organic, reinforced concrete shell of the interior, signifying with its manipulation of light sacred space
    and ‘multiple cross-cultural references’, which Frampton sees no precedent for in Western culture, but rather in the Chinese pagoda roof (i.e.

  • In Singapore, WOHA has developed a unique architectural vocabulary based on an appreciation of the local climate and culture.

  • The stylings of critical regionalism seek to provide an architecture rooted in the modern tradition, but tied to geographical and cultural context.

  • One of which is of Western writers, like Curtis, whose definitions are not encompassing enough to analyse architectural styles especially in the last two centuries in the
    Islamic countries, like Iran.

  • Critical regionalism is an approach to architecture that strives to counter the placelessness and lack of identity of the International Style, but also rejects the whimsical
    individualism and ornamentation of Postmodern architecture.

 

Works Cited

[‘Pinto, Shiromi. “Minnette de Silva (1918-1998)”. Architectural Review. Retrieved 2019-12-23.
1. ^ Hal Foster, “Postmodernism: A Preface”, in “Anti-Aesthetic. Essays on Postmodern Culture.” Seattle: Bay Press, 1983. ISBN 0-941920-01-1
2. ^ Kenneth
Frampton, “Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six points for an architecture of resistance”, in “Anti-Aesthetic. Essays on Postmodern Culture.” Seattle: Bay Press, 1983. ISBN 0-941920-01-1
3. ^ Leach, Andrew; Sully, Nicole (2019). “Frampton’s forewords,
etc.: an introduction”. Oase (103: Critical Regionalism Revisited): 105–113.
4. ^ “The Theoretical Inapplicability of Regionalism to Analysing Architectural Aspects of Islamic Shrines in Iran in the Last Two Centuries” (PDF). The Collection of Articles
of the International Congress of Imam’s Descendants (Imamzadegan). Esfahan, Iran: The Charity Organisation. 4: 16–32. 2013.
5. ^ Giamarelos, Stylianos (2022). Resisting Postmodern Architecture: Critical Regionalism before Globalisation. London:
UCL Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800081338
6. ^ “Unified Architectural Theory: Chapter 6”. ArchDaily. 2014-07-26. Retrieved 2021-01-12.
7. ^ “Spivak on Regionalism”. Retrieved 2009-11-19.
2. Vincent B. Canizaro,” Architectural
Regionalism: Collected Writings on Place, Identity, Modernity, and Tradition,” (2007) Princeton Architectural Press.
3. Kenneth Frampton, “Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance”, in The Anti-Aesthetic. Essays
on Postmodern Culture (1983) edited by Hal Foster, Bay Press, Seattle.
4. Stylianos Giamarelos (2022). Resisting Postmodern Architecture: Critical Regionalism before Globalisation. London: UCL Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800081338
5. Alex
Tzonis and Liliane Lefaivre, “The grid and the pathway. An introduction to the work of Dimitris and Suzana Antonakakis”, Architecture in Greece (1981) 15, Athens.
6. Judith Butler and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Who Sings the Nation-State?: Language,
Politics, Belonging” (2007), Seagull Books.
7. Douglas Powell, Critical Regionalism: Connecting Politics and Culture in the American Landscape (2007), University of North Carolina Press.
8. Thorsten Botz-Bornstein, “Is Critical Regionalist Philosophy
Possible? Some Meta-Philosophical Considerations” in Comparative and Continental Philosophy (2010) 2:1.
9. Thorsten Botz-Bornstein, Transcultural Architecture: Limits and Opportunities of Critical Regionalism (2015), Ashgate.
10. Tom Avermaete,
Veronique Patteeuw, Hans Teerds, Lea-Catherine Szacka (eds), Oase #103: Critical Regionalism Revisited, (2019), ISBN 9789462084865.
Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ahmed_xp/16862422576/’]