What is Regionalism?
In Catholicism, there is a concept called subsidiarity. Subsidiarity is the idea that what can be handled at the individual level should be handled by the individual, at the family level, by the family, community, community, etc etc. You get the idea. It is where the American founders got the idea for federalism.
I think the same concept should apply to architecture. And this does exist in some places. As much as I complain about Design Review Boards, Boards of Architectural Review, Technical Review Committees, etc etc, they do serve a purpose - to attempt to create a set of guidelines for what buildings should look like in a given town/city.
I don't really think Critical Regionalism works, precisely because it throws away the forms used in a region. Local forms ARE local architecture. When you throw those away, it doesn't matter how many architectural diagrams you use to prove how your building responds to local weather conditions, if it looks totally alien. While I completely agree that we cannot exclude the tactile from our designs, texture is primarily a visual tool. Indeed, a problem with modern architecture is not that it is too visual, but not visual enough. (It validates its appearance through the facsimile of rationality. Architects no longer know how to create beauty for two major reasons: they don't have beauty as a goal, and they don't know what beauty is.)
Buildings should look like they belong. They should adhere to a local tradition. To say that the only alternatives are pastiches of the past or contemporary architecture is a false dichotomy. Don't let academic architectural philosophy dictate the possibilities.
Don't do this.
How about something like this? This gordion knot is a mental block.
Lee I feel like I disagree with you alot, but I think you are onto something here. I don't like the idea of doing something different just merely to do it, there is no logic in that, just a starkitect mindset so to speak. Let's learn from the past, take what we like and implement it in a way that will benefit the culture now and in the future.
ReplyDeleteI mostly disagree with you Lee. My personal understanding of tradition versus culture would lead me to a different interpretation of architectural beauty and not interpreting "resistance of a place-form" as a rebuke of architectural style.
ReplyDeleteThe premise of critical regionalism we find from Paul Ricouer - how to become modern AND TO (also) return to sources. The way you describe beauty and form together sound like architectural style, which is tradition, not culture. Architectural styles change because they are inherently unsustainable and not progressive. I don't think critical regionalism argues against form but only in the way you personally define form.
I don't see anything wrong with the first image as it resides within a complex and globally influenced context and metropolitan cities are products of globalization. The second image and opinion I don't think is contentious.
The last image doesn't argue for, nor against a critical regionalism approach and is not a neutral between the previous two examples as it is just stylistic preference.
Lastly, arguing for and supporting a standard of beauty in architecture sounds like a modernist architect. I assume that your architectural stylistic preferences look different, but the argument is essentially the same as modernist era thinkers.