Critical Regionalism: Modernism's last show
From the readings in the semester so far, it seems to me that modernism or modernity in general in architecture grows through cycles. From the complete abandonment of the vernacular or the geometric rules set by the Greeks and Romans with Tafuri's "architecture is chaos" ideologies, to now a type of re-embracing of the local and the traditional in critical regionalism. (loosely speaking)Yet when critical regionalists describe the philosophy they explain it as "decontextualized" and describe their architecture as a reaction of the local, instead of a direct evolution of that local architecture itself.
I found Till's essay and more specifically his theory that everything in cities are either local or global interesting but concerning because to be so globalized that our architecture has lost all culture is tragic - and to know that culture is being replaced by technology is simply scary.
A bit alarmist I guess - but all this is to say I enjoy the theories and methods around approaching design through a critical regionalist's lens. Great Britain is a country that I've noticed have put into law some of these ideologies surrounding critical regionalism and localism - and not to echo one of my previous posts, but it's because Great Britain dove head first into post-functionalism and hurt themselves.
Architects like Alvaro Siza, who I love, seem to find a space in design where they cross-breed vernacular techniques or forms with a contemporary approach that produces a (modern?) architecture that sits so comfortably in historic contexts.
I particularly enjoyed Siza’s project as well. The project in particular is very humble and that can be hard to do in an architect’s position when there’s so much professional pressure on grandeur.
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