Understanding development of Critical 1

Regionalism

Understanding Development of Critical Regionalism

Interpreting Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance

By Kenneth Frampton

The ultimate architectural paradox – How to revive ones roots of a dormant civilization while taking
part into the modern civilization? An onset of Modern Universalization has always seen nuances of
subtle destruction of traditional cultures. Many instances suggest culture has often been the
foundation for the philosophies interpreting lifestyle patterns, but it also establishes the harsh reality
where any society developed on the cost of cultural resources results in mediocrity. This basic
consumer culture in the developing nations along with a cultural essence retention can help
speeding the development process. Often modern civilizations which hit the reset after being de-
colonialized need an express growth of scientific, technical and political rationality, often require
abandonment of the whole cultural past.

1. Culture and Civilization

Industrialization and the burst of economic growth has established notions that technology has
limited urban forms. Factors like land speculation limit the design scope by either manipulating the
elements by the ease of production. Superficial masking of development by the theories of marketing
and maintenance of social control, where production and the so called high tech approach covers
up the harsh realities of this universal system.

Megalopolitan development of led to development of freestanding high rise, which has come into
its own development by the rising land value due to the setting of the serpentine freeway. A very
successful example is in the development of the downtown culture, which started off as a mixed up
settlements of the bourgeois residences and secondary and tertiary industrial work spaces. However
today such areas have developed distinctive cultural basis for the city life to flourish.

2. Avant-Garde Art Movement

Avant-Garde culture has assumed different roles as a progressive, liberative form which were
opposed by the bourgeois traditionalists. It played an instrument for the onset of the universal
propagation of neoclassicism. Comes along the 19th century, industrial process simplified the
neoclassic form which came up as a product of gothic revival and industrial evolution, which led to
development of the Arts and Craft Movements taking a negative approach towards utilitarianism
and labor centric ideations, furthermore leading to developing a contemplative thesis of art for the
sake of art where ideas and notions of hyper-reality were explored.

With the emergence of Purism, Neoplasticism and Constructivism, radical avant-garde theories
contributed greatly towards the whole modernization process. As a result of the immediate
aftermath of the World War 1, for the first time both monopoly and state capitalism were divorced
from the liberative drives of cultural modernization. As survival came into question, culture took a
backseat as the allure of capitalist development and political transformations came into picture.

History Of Architecture V by Ar. Nishita Kedia Saurabh Jain | 1721

Shivani Lunawat | 1728
Samarth Parikh | 1738
Arth Shah | 1757
Understanding development of Critical 2
Regionalism

If socialism and capitalism has to exist, the modern world cannot continue to entertain the prospect
of evolving a marginal, liberative, avant-gardist culture which would break with the history of
bourgeois repression. Today we look at socialism only as a means to preserve the living culture that
remains. Despite this art gravitated towards commodity and media centric. And thus this domination
towards mass media’s power increasing a thousand fold between the mid and late 1900s along with
the annihilation of the entire species due to the nuclear wars brought a still to avant-gardism as it
failed to implement on its initial utopian ambitions and was fell down by the internal rationality of the
world politics and capitalist ideas.

3. Critical Regionalism and World Culture

Architecture would only be sustained through the said arrière-garde approach where it would
consciously require to remove itself from the unreal impulse of returning to the architectonic forms
from the premodern past. It could involve the technology and had to have the capacity to cultivate
a resistant, identifiable cultural landmark while recoursing to universal techniques which diminish the
conservative policies of populism or sentimental regionalism, which bears the hallmark of ambiguity
and stood for all sorts of statements be it liberating or be it chauvinistic. Alex Tzonis and Liliane LeFaivre
also unabashedly state that no new architecture can emerge without a relation change between
an architect and the user. And thus critical regionalism bridges the humanistic approach that the
future must withheld.

Critical Regionalism mediates the impact of universal Civilization with elements derived from the
particular places which are a result of the critical self-consciousness the user observes with the
surrounding.

“A critical Perception of Reality and not a Sublimation of a

preconceived level of Gratification in behavioristic terms.”
The practice of critical regionalism can be administered as a cultural strategy for the universal
civilization, which is subjective of the impact and interaction to the space. The two steps would be to
deconstruct the notions of the world culture and open up to new ideas and interpretations for the
existing ideologies.

Jørn utzon’s Bagsvaerd Church ideates its religious nature through multiple cross cultural references
and secularizes the sacred form by precluding the usual set of semantic religious references. This
desacralization reconstituted a renewed basis for regional reaffirmation as well as developed a new
sense of collective spirituality.

4. The Resistance of the Place-Form

Except the cities which were laid before the 1900s, there is no distinctive definition for urban forms.
Urban design has little relation to the realities and the norms of the modern development as the urban
planning was very loosely considered. As infrastructure increased, the logistical projection of land use
pattern alteration occurred leading to an urgency for a non-physical, infrastructural plan.

History Of Architecture V by Ar. Nishita Kedia Saurabh Jain | 1721

Shivani Lunawat | 1728
Samarth Parikh | 1738
Arth Shah | 1757
Understanding development of Critical 3
Regionalism

Essence of the space exists on its nature of boundaries. And thus literally withstand the endless
processal flux of the Megalopolis.

The bounded Space form are also compares to the polis of the Greek which upon comparison are
found to be expressed in humanist scales. The political and physical presence of the polis was
represented differently and thus both factored in as the cantonal attributes of the urban Density.

Rationalizations of urban planners worked on the idealistic philosophies of communities without

propinquity and the non-place realm are nothing in the absence of a realm in the modern motopia.
Robert Venturi emphasizes the impotence of an urbanized populace which has paradoxically lost
the object of its urbanization, as they yearn to maintain an expressive density to resonate in an
architecture of resistance. The Urban Perimeter Block pattern is a great example to perceive the
diverse typologies it opens up to in terms of pseudo-public realms, one can’t even consider the
political implications of a potential discount of the place-form.

5. Culture versus Nature: Topography, Context, Climate, Light and Tectonic Form

Critical regionalism is extremely centric to its geographical location and its surrounding responses, on
the various patterns of how the building functions and interacts on both macro and micro level.

However the fundamental opposition between the universal civilization and autochthonous cultural
responses often contradict. As Mario Botta alluded the method of building the site, he states the
importance of the method as a capacity to embody the prehistory of the place in its built form.
Topography also applies to the urban fabric.

Fenestrations having an innate capacity to eradicate the placelessness of the built-form by making
modifications in the sizes, orientation and the exposure to the direct sunlight, which results in a
compounding of a relation between culture and nature.

The structural discourse of a design embodies its expressionist ideology between material, craftwork
and gravity. This presentation can be rather be poetic rather than just a representation of a façade.

6. The Visual versus the Tactile

The entire experience of a built form can only be embodied as a whole range of sensory perceptions
developed. The aroma of material, the presence of the masonry confining your body, the sound of
the steps on the staircase. This cannot be reduced to a mere information of cannot be replicated as
a mere simulacrum in the absence of the user. Critical regionalism endeavors to interpret the context
to maximize upon the tactility factor of a built form so one can visualize the physical present of the
built form in the plan-form as well as the urban fabric. Non tactile built masses are often lacking the
sense of nearness.

History Of Architecture V by Ar. Nishita Kedia Saurabh Jain | 1721

Shivani Lunawat | 1728
Samarth Parikh | 1738
Arth Shah | 1757