The Dialectics of Bagsværd Church

I'm intrigued by critical regionalism's ability to mediate between context and commodification - that architecture can only thrive at an equidistant position between pre-industrial symbol and post-industrial modernization. The force of economic and information globalization has sufficient momentum that an about-face correction is a lost hope. Instead, a series of deviations could gather exponential impetus, and in this way, critical regionalism could indeed represent the bridge to a new humanist architecture as Tzonis and Lefaivre suggest. As architects, we are taught to cultivate multiple scales, and I think critical regionalism adds another crucial layer in positing that a building can not only be read critically, but be designed to be read critically, and in some cases be the critical object itself. I think that Bagsværd Church, while highly effective, simultaneously represents the infancy of critical regionalism with its dialectical approach to facade and vault. The fault, however, is not the dimensionality of the building, but the illiteracy of the "reader." If critical regionalism presupposes the "reading" of architecture, that "buildings are objects with which to think," the onus of its success is as much (or more) on the consumer of architecture as it is on the creator.