Contextualism: Fab or Fad

When discussing retroactive manifestos and how architect’s use what exists as a form of knowledge and a basis for architectural design, I started thinking about architecture in the context of how you design for different regions, programs, and sites. The importance of context in design is paramount, as context should inform our design decisions, but it’s not always that simple. On the flip side, some argue architecture without context spurs growth and can set new styles, trends, and languages. 

Something that was brought up in class that challenges designing for context was how we design for ugly places. It’s easy to generalize architecture as dynamic and pleasing, but at the end of the day there is a lot of “ugly” architecture. It is not always easy to design for the context of where the project lies. It also begs the question of how do you allow architecture to evolve without disrupting its contextual relationship with the site it lies on? Is contextualism just a visual aspect or does it go beyond what the eye can see? Can we design in a way that "fits in" while creating a new language?