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Prospects for a Critical Regionalism Kenneth Frampton Perspecta, Vol. 20. (1983), Pp. 147-162

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Prospects for a Critical Regionalism Kenneth Frampton Perspecta, Vol. 20. (1983), Pp. 147-162 Prospects for a Critical Regionalism Kenneth Frampton Perspecta, Vol. 20. (1983), pp. 147-162. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0079-0958%281983%2920%3C147%3APFACR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Q Perspecta is currently published by Yale School of Architecture. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/ysoa.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers, and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org Wed Dec 12 11:36:13 2007 Kenneth Frampton 147 Prospects for a Critical Regionalism Luis Barragan, Las Arboledas, 1961. Perspecta: The Yale ArchitecturalJoud Volume 20 0079-0958/83/20147-016S3.W/0 Q 1983 by Perspecta: The Yale Architectural Journal, Inc., and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Kenneth Frampton 148 The phenomenon of universalization, tural past which has been the raison d'etre while being an advancement of mankind, of a nation? . Whence the paradox: on at the same time constitutes a sort of sub- the one hand, it has to root itself in the tle destruction, not only of traditional cul- soil of its past, forge a national spirit, and tures, which might not be an irreparable unfurl this spiritual and cultural revindica- wrong, but also of what I shall call for the tion before the colonialist's personality. time being the creative nucleus of great But in order to take part in modern civi- civilizations and great cultures, that nu- lization, it is necessary at the same time cleus on the basis of which we interpret to take part in scientific, technical, and po- life, what I shall call in advance the ethical litical rationality, something which very and mythical nucleus of mankind. The often requires the pure and simple aban- conflict springs up from there. We have don of a whole cultural past. It is a fact: the feeling that this single world civiliza- every culture cannot sustain and absorb tion at the same time exerts a sort of attri- the shock of modern civilization. There is tion or wearing away at the expense of the paradox: how to become modern and the cultural resources which have made to return to sources; how to revive an old, the great civilizations of the past. This dormant civilization and take part in uni- threat is expressed, among other disturb- versal civilization. ing effects, by the spreading before our eyes of a mediocre civilization which is No one can say what will become of our the absurd counterpart of what I was just civilization when it has really met dif- calling elementary culture. Everywhere ferent civilizations by means other than throughout the world, one finds the same the shock of conquest and domination. bad movie, the same slot machines, the But we have to admit that this encounter same plastic or aluminum atrocities, the has not yet taken place at the level of an same twisting of language by propa- authentic dialogue. That is why we are in ganda, etc. It seems as if mankind, by ap- a kind of lull or interregnum in which we proaching en masse a basic consumer can no longer practice the dogmatism of culture, were also stopped en masse at a a single truth and in which we are not yet subcultural level. Thus we come to the capable of conquering the skepticism into crucial problem confronting nations just which we have stepped. We are in a tun- 1 rising from underdeve'opment' In order nel, at the twilight of dogmatism and the Paul Ricoeur, "Universal Civilization and National Cultures", History and Truth (Evanston, Illinois: to get on to the road toward moderniza- dawn of real dialogues. Northwestern University Press, 1961) pp. 276,283. tion, is it necessary to jettison the old cul- Paul Ricoeur The term critical regionalism is not in- The philosopher Paul Ricoeur has ad- tended to denote the vernacular, as this vanced the thesis that a hybrid "world was once spontaneously produced by the culture" will only come into being combined interaction of climate, culture, through a cross-fertilization between myth and craft, but rather to identify rooted culture on the one hand and uni- those recent regional "schools" whose versal civilization on the other. This para- aim has been to represent and serve, in a doxical proposition, that regional culture critical sense, the limited constituencies in must also be a form of world culture, is which they are grounded. Such a region- predicated on the notion that develop- alism depends, by definition, on a con- ment in se will, of necessity, transform the nection between the political conscious- basis of rooted culture. In his essay "Uni- ness of a society and the profession. versal Civilization and National Cultures" Among the pre-conditions for the emer- of 1961, Ricoeur implied that everything gence of critical regional expression is not will depend in the last analysis on the ca- only sufficient prosperity but also a pacity of regional culture to recreate a strong desire for realising an identity. One rooted tradition while appropriating for- of the mainsprings of regionalist culture eign influences at the level of both culture is an anti-centrist sentiment-an aspira- and civilization. Such a process of cross- tion for some kind of cultural, economic fertilization and reinterpretation is impure and political independence. by definition. This much is at once evi- Kenneth Frampton 149 dent, say, in the work of the Portugese only result in consumerist iconography architect Alvaro Siza y Viera. In Siza's ar- masquerading as culture. chitecture Aalto's collage approach to building form finds itself mediated by nor- It is my contention that Critical Regional- mative typologies drawn from the work of ism continues to flourish sporadically the Italian Neo-rationalists. within the cultural fissures that articulate in unexpected ways the continents of Eu- It is necessary to distinguish at the outset rope and America. These borderline between critical regionalism and the sim- manifestations may be characterized, plistic evocation of a sentimental or ironic after Abraham Moles, as the "interstices 3 vernacular. I am referring, of course, to of freed~m."~Their existence is proof that Abraham Moles, "The Three Cities", Directions in Art, that nostalgia for the vernacular which is the model of the hegemonic center sur- Theory and Aesthetics, ed. Anthony Hill (London: currently being conceived as an overdue rounded by dependent satellites is an in- Faber and Faber, Limited, 19681, p. 191. return to the ethos of a popular culture; adequate and demagogic description of for unless such a distinction is made one our cultural potential. will end by confusing the resistant capac- ity of Regionalism with the demagogic Exemplary of an explicitly anti-centrist re- tendencies of Populism. In contradistinc- gionalism was the Catalonian nationalist tion to Regionalism, the primary goal of revival which first emerged with the foun- Populism is to function as a communica- dation of the Group R in the early Fifties. 2 tive or instrumental sign.' Such a sign This group, led by J. M. Sostres and Oriol Jan Mukaiovskv, Structure, Sign and Function (New seeks to evoke not a critical perception of Bohigas, found itself caught from the be- Haven: Yale University Press, 19701, p. 228. Perhaps I reality, but rather the sublimation of a de- ginning in a complex cultural situation. am overstating the case. However, Mukarovsky writes: "The artistic sign, unlike the communicative sire for direct experience through the pro- On the one hand, it was obliged to revive sign, is not serving, that is, not an instrument." vision of information. Its tactical aim is to the Rationalist, anti-Fascist values and attain, as economically as possible, a pre- procedures of GATEPAC (the pre-war conceived level of gratification in behav- Spanish wing of C.I.A.M.); on the other, it ioristic terms. In this regard, the strong remained aware of the political responsi- affinities of Populism for the rhetorical bility to evoke a realistic regionalism; a techniques and imagery of advertising is regionalism which would be accessible to hardly accidental. the general populace. This double-headed program was first publicly announced by On the other hand, Critical Regionalism Bohigas in his essay, "Possibilities for a 4 is a dialectical expression. It self- Barcelona Ar~hitecture,"~published in 0. Bohigas. "Posibilidades de una arquitectura consciously seeks to deconstruct univer- 1951. The various impulses that went to Barcelona", Destino (Barcelona, 1951). See also sal modernism in terms of values and make up the heterogeneous form of Cata- 0. Bohigas. "Disenar para un publico o contra un publico", in Seix Barral, Contra una arquitectura images which are locally cultivated, while lonian Regionalism exemplify, in retro- adjetivida (Barcelona, 1969).
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