Re-Reading Critical Regionalism 269

RE-READING CRITICAL REGIONALISM 269 Re-Reading Critical Regionalism KELLY CARLSON-REDDIG University of North Carolina at Charlotte “There is the paradox: how to become modern and to Critical Regionalism. The introductory “points” to return to sources; how to revive an old, dormant articulate the fundamental challenge of negotiat- civilization and take part in universal civilization.”1 ing global and local circumstances in architectural practice. The introductory points set a broad field I have been reading, and re-reading, Kenneth Framp- onto which a subsequent set of dialectical points are ton’s articles on Critical Regionalism since 1990, mapped. Each of the later points examines a pairing when I was first assigned The Anti-Aesthetic – Es- of dichotomous architectural practices; one practice says on Postmodern Culture as a new graduate stu- embodies the humane and place-specific traits of dent at Yale University. These articles are among a Critical Regionalist architecture, while the second by handful of most valued writings that have continued contrast illustrates its less critical, and less regional over time to engage, intrigue, at times to bemuse, counterpart. Experience and Information. Place and and always to prompt my further contemplation. Space. The Architectonic and the Scenographic. The In the ensuing twenty-one years, my appreciation Natural and the Artificial. The Tactile and the Visual. for Frampton’s bold proposition, the evolution of its The texts are adept in articulating the territory of clarity, and his nuanced argumentation, has never the discourse, proposing many of its relevant terms, waned. Despite its origin in reaction to very differ- and setting out a primary objective: ent architectural and intellectual circumstances, the veracity of its core substance remains undiminished, “The fundamental strategy of Critical Regionalism is and finds new resonance and meaning today. to mediate the impact of universal civilization with elements derived indirectly from the peculiarities of 4 As a practice, the roots of Critical Regionalism, dis- a particular place.” tinct from both vernacular and romantic regionalism, grew as tangents of late modernism. As a spe- I’ve long believed that the “project” of Critical Re- cific subject of architectural discourse, its genesis gionalism is unfinished. One wonders if the de- may be traced to the writings of Alexander Tzonis mise of Post-Modern domination in architectural and Liane Lefaivre, who first coined the term in discourse and practice diminished the pressure for 1981 in their seminal text, “The Grid and the Path- a resistant “arriere-garde” architecture, in which way”.2 Among the most provocative contributions case, the project may well have served its imme- toward the maturation of the discourse is surely the diate critical purpose. Yet the clarity and validity collection of essays constructed by Kenneth Framp- of its central tenets seem still to resonate with ton under several titles which included “Towards a great potential in current circumstances; they in- Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture vite further pondering and speculation regarding of Resistance” and “Ten Points on an Architecture of their future architectural possibilities. The goal of Regionalism: A Provisional Polemic”.3 this essay is not to track the evolution of Framp- ton’s arguments, or to position Frampton within the In the “Six Points” and “Ten Points” essays, Frampton larger historic discourse; nor is it to critique the presents both context and specific polemics related details of his argument, or debate the significance 270 LOCAL IDENTITIES GLOBAL CHALLENGES of his highly influential texts. Rather, it is to employ terially superficial work, and grieving the loss of Frampton’s provocative framework as a field for architecture’s true potential, Ada Louise Huxtable further musing, and as a sieve with which to filter lamented: the ideas of others. One might speculate that such extensions were anticipated in the original texts, “Sidelined, trivialized, reduced to a decorative art or a developer’s gimmick, characterized by a pas- which thoroughly lay the ideological groundwork, tiche of borrowed styles and shaky, subjective refer- but are more speculative regarding the detailed ences, it is increasingly detached from the problems terrain of the dialectics; they gesture to key dis- and processes through which contemporary life and tinctions, but the frame is generally left open to creative necessity are actively engaged. This is a dubious replacement for the rigorous and elegant further interpretation. synthesis of structure, art, utility, and symbolism that has always defined and enriched the building The scope of such a project is greater than the lim- art and made it central to any civilized society.”7 its of a single essay. Consequently, three of the six dialectic points (from the “10 Points” essay) are If, as Ada Louise Huxtable claims, “We are what chosen for further examination. The primary tenets we build…”8, the constructional disintegrity of so of the points are recounted, and re-contextualized many environments that we inhabit daily should in light of current circumstances. Additional con- give us nervous pause. For those inclined to exam- ceptual details, derived from the related architec- ine things with any measure of attention, the con- tural scholarship of others, is then appended to the tradiction between the appearance of objects and points for further contemplation. their indefinite materiality is disconcerting. POINT FOUR: INFORMATION/EXPERIENCE5 By comparison to scenographic building “information”, we may contrast the experience of the real “In general, we have begun to lose our capacity for in architecture. “Buildings of the past convey an- distinguishing between information and experience, other reality…”9 according to Rafael Moneo. In his not only in architecture but in everything else as well. Reality and irreality are deliberately confused interview on the subject entitled, “The Idea of Last- and fused together.”6 ing”, he further observes: “In the past, the act of construction itself was conveying—or implying— Frampton’s concern with the increasing substitu- the form and image of the building as one.”10 The tion of “information” for “experience” has three idea of authentic consistency between appearance, primary foci—the “irreality” of scenographic rep- form, purpose and materiality is among the dis- resentations as proxy for materially substantive tinguishing characteristics that draw our interest architecture, the substitution of mediating imag- toward regional or vernacular architecture today. ery for corporeal human experience, and the din By contrast to instances of superficial architectural of competing voices in the critical debates of the imagery, harmonious consinitas of substance and Post-Modern era. Together, these imply a certain image are recognized as a deep quality in archi- diminution in the range of our human experiences, tecture—neither superficial or exchangeable as a including a certain loss of contact or experience wrapper of symbolic information, but integral to with the physical, the real, and the essential in the the body of the building, and by potential exten- world. His precaution? Symbolic reference, critical sion, to its site, its purpose, its materiality. discourse, and media are not sufficient substitutes for actual experience; our being in the real world The condition of realness has special meaning for must be recovered. architects, as participants in its creation: Circumstances have evolved with the passing of “That is the pleasure of the building: to feel, some- how, in the process of making—even in the rough- thirty years, and the “noise” surrounding Post- est way of solving problems—that the entire con- Modern debates and discord has quieted consider- ception of the world is implicit. To experience and ably. But the Post Modern legacy of insubstantial understand a building is to realize the continuity construction, compounded by the bewildering de- it proposes between an idea of the world and the construction itself. It speaks of the builder’s under- volution of architectural symbols into nonsensical standing of the world—the way in which he wanted decoration, has not abated in the field of building to understand the world. This communication allows construction. Critiquing an expanding genre of ma- us to appreciate the values and judgments of those who caused it to be built.”11 RE-READING CRITICAL REGIONALISM 271 This quality, described by Moneo as both consisten- Critical Regional texts. Kennedy suggests that: cy and authenticity, and much earlier by Frank Lloyd Wright as “integrity”, must necessarily be present in “The predicament of materiality today creates fundamental changes in the way materials are per- Critical Regionalist architecture. The same charac- ceived, experienced and understood.”14 teristic was identified by Michael Benedikt simply as “realness” in his extended essay. For an Architecture Kennedy goes on to observe the following paradox: of Reality. A distillation of his musings reads: “Instead of replacing the physical world of materi- “First, real architecture is architecture especially als, the virtual world produces a renewed desire for ready—so to speak—for its direct esthetic experi- “realness” in materials. The desire for a new “mate- ence, an architecture that does not disappoint us by riality”, for tactility and texture in consumer culture, turning out in the light of that experience

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