Critical Regionalism
It is really interesting to think about critical regionalism and without even realizing it, we are already designing and thinking with the same ideas from critical regionalism. When we are given a site, the program and the constraints we begin the project by finding precedents, by researching everything we can about the specific place, talking to the client and the community to find out as much information as possible in order to design a project that responds to the surrounding conditions and the community.
"The pursuit of community in place which seems to be the main driving force of Critical Regionalism makes it one of the most intriguing movements in architecture..."
"The pursuit of community in place which seems to be the main driving force of Critical Regionalism makes it one of the most intriguing movements in architecture..."
It is interesting that it is completely natural for us to think from a place and its features. It only seems that this is only logical. I compare this with my conversations with the architects from other "generations" and even the best sometimes have another opinion.
ReplyDeleteThis also made me think about another thing - about a misunderstanding of the concept and confusing the concept and aesthetics. Some architects do this. They try to translate some aesthetics of critical regionalism (usually of some most famous examples) to another environment. That happens because of the misunderstanding of the concept of Critical Regionalism.
I have an example. My first supervisor at my first permanent job was from Porto, he grew up there, studied there and also in London and after some practice in Portugal, he came to work in Moscow. He was a huge fan of Alvaro Siza! In term of aesthetics, his design was always ideal: materials, geometry, visual connections, light, thoughtfulness. But after time I started to understand that he was only following the aesthetics but not the "spirit" of Siza. The logic of the project should be rooted in local features and habits of users. But he was always complaining that something was impossible to make in term of materials or the people were using it somehow wrongly)
I love the fact that critical regionalism is informed by the "region" of a project and the final outcome is unique because of the specific constraints! This is what architecture should be, to blend with context, history, conditions, etc. and be one with the people and the land.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think about critical regionalism and it as a movement it is actually somewhat interesting to me. Just by the way that I have been taught to design, it seems like that approach to designing is merely common sense. I find it interesting that this is not always the case and not always what people are thinking about when they begin to design. It makes me start to rethink some of my critical thoughts about some pieces of architecture which seem to not fit in to their context. Is it actually poor architecture or is it just from my regionalism perspective that I view it that way?
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