CRITICAL REGIONALISM

Critical Regionalism was based on Phenomenology

• Lack of sense of place in Modern architecture brought about Phenomenology

• Charles Moore’s ‘ Body, Memory and Architecture’ ,and works of

Critical regionalism

• An approach to architecture that strives to counter the placelessness and lack of meaning in Modern Architecture by using contextual forces to give a sense of place and meaning.

• It was based on Phenomenology• The term critical regionalism was first used by

Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre and later more famously and pretentiously by Kenneth Frampton in "Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six points of an architecture of resistance."

• Regionalism is an idea stuck to vernacular, and Modernism is about total newness

• Critical regionalism says,’do not copy vernacular as such, as the region/context does not exist anymore’. You are not denouncing regionalism, but being critical about it.

• Sometimes Regionalism goes back to just Conservatism and resorts to blind use of vernacular.

• But Critical Regionalism seeks architectural traditions that are deeply rooted in the local conditions.

• This results in a highly intelligent and appropriate architecture.

• In its broadest sense, then, the Critical Regionalist sensibility looks to the uniqueness of site and location -a design method that is assuredly modern but relies on the organic unity of local material, climatic, and cultural characteristics to lend coherence to the finished work. The result is an architecture suited to light and touch.

• Kenneth Frampton in his seminal writings on the topic of Critical Regionalism, Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance, describes modern culture and buildings as moving towards a state of civilization that is both universally conditioned and exhaustively optimized by technology.  He believes that urban form has become limited by universal building practices and methods which are driven to form by the iconic symbols of modern culture, the highway and the skyscraper.  Frampton’s answer to this dilemma is Critical Regionalism, which he describes as, “mediating the impact of universal civilization with elements derived indirectly from the peculiarities or a particular place.”  Frampton believes this move towards a critical regionalism can recapture a lost sense of “place” which has become an endangered species as globalization, mass commercialization and the internet moves the world towards homogeneity and the universal. 

• According to Frampton, critical regionalism should adopt modern architecture critically for its universal progressive qualities but at the same time should value responses particular to the context. Emphasis should be on topography, climate, light, tectonic form rather than scenography and the tactile sense rather than the visual

• As put forth by Tzonis and Lefaivre, critical regionalism need not directly draw from the context, rather elements can be stripped of their context and used in strange rather than familiar ways.

Säynatsalo Town Hall- Alvar Aalto

Visual vs Tactile….

• Mediate the impact of universal civilization with elements derived indirectly from the peculiarities of a particular space.

• Preference to how the architect deals with the irregularities of the physical landscape rather than how he or she employs local culture

• The architect should enter “a dialectical relation with nature”, taking clues from the topography and avoiding bulldozing in order to flatten space.

• Using top-lighting and exposing the elements of construction, speaking more of the relationship of the building to its space.

• “Fatehpur Sikri’s courtyards always fascinated me, and the gardens of Bangalore influenced me. If you pick up the gardens and put them in the courtyard, then the character changes. Instead of a courtyard that is dry and rigid, you make a green corridor, in which you can walk and be comfortable.Of course, when I talked to the clients, I did not talk about Fatehpur Sikri. I talked about Madurai temple. I said there are courtyards, there are open spaces, and there are corridors, which are the focal points. I said that we will create a contemporary institution as important as the temple, as a temple of learning.

• it had to be done with local materials, to have a local identity, and working with local craftsmen is cheaper, and local materials are long-lasting. That is how stone was used.

•  I preferred that the building disappeared, and that you feel that you are only in spaces. The whole idea began with that: do you really want dominant architecture? Or architecture that merges with the society and becomes a part of society. There is a dialogue between the building, the space, and the people. That is the point.”

B V Doshi on IIM Bangalore design

• “architecture can shape a lived and sensed intertwining of space and time; it can change the way we live: Phenomenology concerns the study of essence: architecture can elevate the experience of daily life through the various phenomena that emerge from specific sites, programs and architecture.”-

Steven Holl

A watercolored diagram of the Nelson-Atkins museum addition shows Holl’s concept as “the stone” and “the feather.” By defining the original  beaux-arts influence building as “the stone” and highlighting qualities such as, heaviness, directed movement, internal views, hermetic, and imperial, he then set up a series of contrasting qualities, such as lightness, open movement, outward views, meshing into landscape and indigenous. “His strategy has always been that of intertwining opposite condition.”

Bruder Klaus Field Chapel / Peter Zumthor

• ....a wigwam made of 112 tree trunks. Upon completion of the frame, layers of concrete were poured and rammed atop the existing surface, each around 50cm thick. When the concrete of all 24 layers had set, the wooden frame was set on fire, leaving behind a hollowed blackened cavity and charred walls.The unique roofing surface of the interior is balanced by a floor of frozen molten lead. Gaze is pulled up by way of obvious directionality, to the point where the roof is open to the sky and night stars. This controls the weather of the chapel, as ran and sunlight both penetrate the opening and create an ambience or experience very specific to the time of day and year.