Through this paper a comparative representation on the definition and background of the evolution of critical regionalism will be explored. Moreover through this essay, the arguments of how ‘Ando’s’ architectural approach is of a ‘critical regionalist’ manner will be examined significantly.
The definition of critical regionalism is a direct approach to architecture that strives to oppose ‘placelessness’ and the apparent lack of identity and character in modern architecture through the use of building's geographical context. The term ‘critical regionalism’ was first established as a concept in the 1980s through papers written by Tzonis, Lefaivre and Kenneth Frampton. Throughout Frampton’s writings he mentions and somewhat commemorates Tadao Ando as a critical regionalist and uses the specific advance as a theory to discuss Ando’s architecture (Frampton, 1983).
Regardless of this ‘label’, Tadao Ando has not used the term “critical Regionalism” in relation to his work, nor has he made any objection about the term being labelled to him. In addition, Frampton’s article “Towards a Critical Regionalism” fails to mention Ando and this provokes an array of questions about whether an appropriate term to describe the architecture of Ando is “critical regionalist” (Frampton, 1983). Furthermore an alternative label, “concrete regionalist” was devised and formulated by Catherine Slessor, currently an editor of the Architectural Review (Slessor, 2000). This expression “concrete regionalist” illustrates Ando’s somewhat poetic and insightful adaptation of concrete with reference to the context of the local area, therefore reducing the ‘critical’ characteristics of both Ando’s theoretical and practical approach towards architecture (2000, p....
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... critical history’ – Kenneth Frampton
‘Towards a Critical Regionalism’ - Kenneth Frampton
‘The Geometry of Human Space’ – Tadao Ando
‘Border Literary Histories, Globalization, and Critical Regionalism’ - José E. Limón
‘The edges of the earth: critical regionalism as an aesthetics of the singular’ - Warwick Mules
‘Tadao Ando: The Yale Studio and Current Works’ – Kenneth Frampton
‘Shaking the Foundations: Japanese Architects in Dialogue’ - Christophe Knabe and Joerg Rainer Noennig.
‘The Japanese New Wave’ - Kenneth Frampton
‘Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance’ - Kenneth Frampton
‘Concrete Regionalism’ - Catherine Slessor
‘Universal Civilization and National Cultures’ - Paul Ricoeur
‘The Grid and the Pathway’ - Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre
‘The South in Architecture’ - Lewis Mumford
By giving the biographies of architects Richard Neutra and Robert Alexander, Hines does nothing to remedy his aimless writing. He writes that Neutra had a variety of experience as an archi...
In literature, both regionalism and naturalism are derived from realism. Regionalism describes specific regional landscapes and reveals that area’s form of communication and customs. On the other hand, naturalism focuses more on society, the environment, spirits, and the concepts that are beyond what our brains are capable of comprehending; more or less, the facts. Although both make for a diverse set of literature work, they seem to interlink in ways. For instance, both regionalism and naturalism expose the reality of life and the struggles that humans face.
Culture gives identity to its origin and makes its origin unique. Culture means a group of people’s way of life and way of understanding the world, belief, and value; which is different from other groups’. Each country has different cultural activities and rituals. This is why every country or region has their own culture. Culture can be expressed by arts, including architecture. ‘An architecture capable of supporting our identity has to be situationally, culturally, and symbolically articulated. I am disturbed by the notion of regionalism because of its geographic and ethnological connotations and would rather speak of situational or culture-specific architecture’ (Pallasmaa 1988, p. 130). Is it necessary applying a country’s native style
This explains why for ‘many directors, commercial and industrial architecture are just a necessary shell for their business processes’ (Susanne-Knittel Ammerschuber (2006) pg10). They consider dimensions for example surfaces, floor levels and converted space to be the stand out feature of this corporate architecture. Through doing this, the architectural ethos is overlooked during design. The architectural potential is therefore limited as it tends to overlook the surrounding context; the urban environment, local identity as well as the surrounding landscape design. Instead it...
Shigeru Ban, an internationally recognized Japanese architect, stated that he was highly influenced by the humanity and regionalism approach of Alvar Aalto. He was at first interested in International style, but received huge impacts after visiting Alvar Aalto’s Paimio Tuberculosis Sanitorium, which had led him to the realization that the context and experiences within an architecture piece are very important to understand. As a result, Shigeru Ban architecture thoughts move from International style to regionalism and humanity approach.
Throughout history, architecture has been employed in the service of politics, as symbols of the state. Architecture is therefore shaped by the national traditions in the pursuit of projects of identity, modernity, power, and prestige. A building is not merely a walled structure, but a metaphor for national ideology as it embodies the civic life of the citizens that it houses, as well as the ideals of the nation within which it resides. This paper will explore three varying architectural periods and examine the interaction between nationalism and the building styles that developed either as a means to express it.
If modernism and postmodernism are arguably two most distinguishing movements that dominated the 20th century Western art, they are certainly most exceptional styles that dominated the global architecture during this period. While modernism sought to capture the images and sensibilities of the age, going beyond simple representation of the present and involving the artist’s critical examination of the principles of art itself, postmodernism developed as a reaction against modernist formalism, seen as elitist. “Far more encompassing and accepting than the more rigid boundaries of modernist practice, postmodernism has offered something for everyone by accommodating wide range of styles, subjects, and formats” (Kleiner 810).
Renzo stated in an interview, “Architecture is about exploring. Culturally, historically, psychologically, anthropologically, and topographically, every job is different.” Renzo is particularly well known for adapting designs to their location. He later went on to say “(architecture) should make a contribution to the contex. … you must employ a homeopathic process, ... you can easily destroy their (cities) subtle dynamics” (Archinect, 2006).
Tadao Ando is an architect of light, a master of space, and a builder for mankind. His work, realized primarily in precisely finished reinforced concrete, unifies building and nature to create a deep sense of sanctuary. Ando was born in Osaka, Japan in 1941. From the age of 10 to 17, he was employed as a carpenter, learning to work in wood in the Japanese tradition. His interest in architecture began when he obtained a book of Le Corbusier sketches when he was about 18. Ando is a self-taught architect. He apprenticed for brief periods with local designers and city planners, but primarily developed his skills by reading extensively, studying Japanese shrines, temples and tea houses, and making study
To understand if and how architecture has had an influence on the way people think and act in the past is an important aspect of questioning architecture’s influence today. Bentham’s Panopticon, and his ideas of surveillance, power, and discipline, have been examined and discussed by a wide variety of people including Foucault. Foucault’s main focus was on the exercise of power in its different forms and the control exercised through its architecture. An interesting view raised by Foucault in his study of the Panopticon is that liberation or oppression is not manifested in architecture by itself. This does not mean that they cannot be made part of it. ‘Positive effects’ could occur when the ‘liberating intentio...
The book as a description of modern architecture, its styles and influence succeeds but falls short as a prescriptive methodology. His work is still recalled for the need by modernists to categorize everything into neat little boxes, not necessarily for the sake of uniformity, but for sake of some ambiguity. The ambiguity may be the triumph of this book as post modern architecture era is supposed to create more questions than the answers.
Sometimes the best revolutions are those that are forgotten. At least in the short run. And so it is with Robert Venturi, a revolutionary and remarkable architect. While he may not be as celebrated as Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, or Louis Kahn, Venturi leaves behind a forceful intellectual legacy that is perhaps more durable than any building. By condemning the functionalism, simplicity, and orthodoxy of modernism in Contradiction and Complexity in Architecture (1966), he instigated an enduring architectural rebellion. This rebellion continues to run its course today. Notably, Venturi’s ideas sparked and profoundly influenced postmodernism, an international style whose buildings span from the beautiful to the gaudy and vulgar. Ultimately, Venturi’s alternative to modernism succeeded because he prized human experience and the interaction of individuals with architectural forms over a rigid, doctrinaire ideology.
However, architecture is not just the future, after all, buildings are intended to be viewed, traversed and lived by us, people. Despite this, many architects today rarely think deeply about human nature, disregarding their main subject matter in favour for efficiency and an architecture of spectacle. In this there seems to be a misconception that underlies much of architecture, that is, human’s relationship with the city, the building and nature. In much of today’s architecture, people are treated with as much concern much as we treat cars, purely mechanically. The post-modern search for the ‘new’ and ‘novel’ has come to disregard the profound affect design has on our lives, impacting our senses, shaping our psyche and disposition.
An important aspect of Critical Regionalism is that the occupants of the building should experience the local climatic conditions as well as the response to the nature of the landscape sensitively and thoughtfully. In my view, I think that each of these architects has achieved this aspect in whatever environment they worked with. In conclusion, I think that these international and regional architects have reached an interaction that contributes to the symbolic and iconic architecture that suggests new formal possibilities.
We no longer believe in the monumental, the heavy and static, and have enriched our sensibilities with a taste for lightness, transience, and practicality.” 9 The practices of futurism in architecture like using steel, concrete, and glass to express the modernism in the 20th century. However, by comparing today’s futurist architecture practices and conceptual representation, the form and structure become more and more complex due to human new innovation and technology. “The Plug-in City” in Figure 5, designed by Peter Cook in 1964, who is the member of Archigram. It is a digital drawing that proposes a suppositional city with a modular housing which shows a new generation. “Archigram’s radical suggestion to reveal infrastructural elements and reverse traditional building hierarchies,” 10 and they believe there is no limitation of the form and structure, but also the selection of materiality has different symbolic