METU Architecture Faculty , https://archives.saltresearch.org/handle/123456789/81124
In this report, I will reflect my understanding and comments from the text “Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Arhitecture of Resistance” by Kenneth Frampton (1983) after the lecture on “The Experience of Place”.
Frampton starts his discussion by presenting some significant points in the architectural history, which shaped our cities to date. These points were -not coincidentally- concomitant with socio-political parameter shifts in their times; world wars, socialism, capitalism, fascism, imperialism and post-colonialism. The avant-garde movements were nurtured and grown to provoke at those breaking points. Frampton briefly tells about those moments where Avant-garde rose and fall; and that reaction of it has always continued in close relationship with the state.
In the end of World Wars, the state recognized that positivist-universal-progression can not be perfectly realized; since the universal myth couldn’t be realized. Because the political, economic conditions and artistic endeavor would always hit the limit of smaller universes -states and nations- between the crises, wars and destruction. This part of the text brings some questions for me: after the technological advancement and political changes that created new influences between cultures -that is furthermore reset by the pandemic- how can universality and globalization be read after 1983? Today, some of the great powers that I mentioned -state, Kings, certain ideologies- have disappeared or lost their impact to others. The cities of India, Bangladesh, South Asia joined into a network -shared with America and Europe- of communication and technology with some hardware and software that are universal. What is being produced with those tools re-balances politics and economy between those countries and makes new identities. In fact, by this, the international relationships and limits between cultures and destructive forces of countries are not as harsh as in 1920, 1950 or 1983.
After the historical background, Frampton explains the points in modern and post-modern styles that could not respond to contemporary problems of art and architecture; politics and identity. From there, he introduces Critical Regionalism, carefully differing it from eclecticism, historicism or populism. Here he profoundly explains the “critical” quality of Critical Regionalism: How is it settled in the region? What it takes from the region/context? How it refines those qualities? What it takes from the universal understanding? How can the region depart from its root and join to universal?
In points 4 and 5, where Frampton explains the actors in the region, the word “cultivation” caught my attention. I, therefore, compared a critical-regionalist-creation to a plant. When the building -plant- is settled on the ground, it is nurtured by what is in that soil. It is cultivated into the essential material, geographical, climatic qualities of the land. On the other hand, the intangible information is the civilized culture and it has already been nurtured by the same influences. Building, thus, takes that natural and man-made qualities from the context. Like a plant, to ground there, it grows to see the sunlight, avoid the cold, extend to the water, use the available material there and respond to life practices of that region. Tectonic that makes it stand and endure is also specific to these conditions. These actors make the building a natural part of that land. Then, all those stimuli can be actually described rational -more rational than universal concrete apartments imposed by the global culture. Furthermore, these parameters occur in every part of the world and can set a universal approach. In the end, since the word didn't specifically took place in the text, I wonder if the pioneer architects of Critical Regionalism could estimate the impact of their environmental and social concerns, which became a significant study subject today in architecture as “sustainability".
After the historical background, Frampton explains the points in modern and post-modern styles that could not respond to contemporary problems of art and architecture; politics and identity. From there, he introduces Critical Regionalism, carefully differing it from eclecticism, historicism or populism. Here he profoundly explains the “critical” quality of Critical Regionalism: How is it settled in the region? What it takes from the region/context? How it refines those qualities? What it takes from the universal understanding? How can the region depart from its root and join to universal?
In points 4 and 5, where Frampton explains the actors in the region, the word “cultivation” caught my attention. I, therefore, compared a critical-regionalist-creation to a plant. When the building -plant- is settled on the ground, it is nurtured by what is in that soil. It is cultivated into the essential material, geographical, climatic qualities of the land. On the other hand, the intangible information is the civilized culture and it has already been nurtured by the same influences. Building, thus, takes that natural and man-made qualities from the context. Like a plant, to ground there, it grows to see the sunlight, avoid the cold, extend to the water, use the available material there and respond to life practices of that region. Tectonic that makes it stand and endure is also specific to these conditions. These actors make the building a natural part of that land. Then, all those stimuli can be actually described rational -more rational than universal concrete apartments imposed by the global culture. Furthermore, these parameters occur in every part of the world and can set a universal approach. In the end, since the word didn't specifically took place in the text, I wonder if the pioneer architects of Critical Regionalism could estimate the impact of their environmental and social concerns, which became a significant study subject today in architecture as “sustainability".
Traditional flower, 2020
The "universal concrete apartments" make me recall the Soviet blocks. With the prefabricated concrete units, cheap and easy installation, they were erected in the vast land of the Union. They were the true standard, if not universal, across many climates (from frozen lakes to deserts) and cultures.
Batumi Soviet blocks, 2019.
Another interesting point was where Frampton highlighted “the collective meaning” while examining Utzon’s Bagsvaerd Church. Here he links the vault form to collective spirituality and sacredness. He elaborates on the subject that some common feelings or auras do occur in some forms or spaces. Moreover, the way Utzon used this effect of form in a novel, secular, contemporary way adds a new layer to that collective meaning.
I think, similarly, it is essential to acknowledge some sensitive notions of cultures, whether it is a spatial quality or a form. Dome, alley, arch, cold, breeze, gloom, noise: these, as information, subconsciously evoke feelings that we must not neglect. This was also apparent in Louis Kahn’s form creations, where he compiled them as in a catalog, to respond to the archaic senses.
In the end, I understand that Critical Regionalism tries to make up the difference between the, unfortunately, failed -some- modern universal ideals and contemporary -and recurring- needs of people, cities, and the planet. And for this, he invites architecture to look in the nature and nature of human closely.
