History of Architecture VI: Contemporary
Arch-3202
Nafia Nawreen Ahmed
Lecturer, Department of Architecture, NUBTK

ARCHITECTURAL IDENTITY, REGIONALISM
AND CRITICAL REGIONALISM

What is Architectural Identity?

The connection between the identity of people and the form
and cultures of its dwelling and settlements- Identity
constituting element
• Family structure
• Ethnicity
• Religious
• Language
• History
• Culture
• Lifestyle etc.
What is Architectural Identity?

What is Architectural Identity?
Conventionally architectural identity as a physically defined construct; they often
privilege and rely on the designer’s concepts to define a building; and
articulate architectural history as a continuous narrative outlining the historical
improvement of built form across time.
These concepts of meaning, expressed by theorists such as Bourdieu (1977; 1993;
2002), Foucault (1989; 2009) and Barthes (1977), offer an alternative way of
understanding built form in terms of cultural, contextual and
historically specific relations. In doing so, these suggest that architectural
identity is culturally, historically malleable and transformative in
nature, as opposed to a trans-historical construct.

romanticized themes national symbol religious importance,
Architectural identity is influenced by specific social, cultural and
contextually informed ideas familiarized by individuals and their
particular encounters of the built environment.

Vernacular architecture is a modest style of building that is
specific to a region and period. While most architecture styles
follow strict design rules, Vernacular architecture is more flexible.
The design depends mostly on local builders and the materials they
can access at the time.
Vernacularism

Vernacularism to Globalism
Identity constituting elements- Tradition
Traditional continues to evoke contradictory
feelings.
The quality and value of
authenticity
Oppressive limitations of history
and precedent.

Globalization- Problemofidentity–searchforidentity
(ModernArchitecture,TafuriandDal,1976)
 T
oseekout featuresofidentification,toemergewithdistinct
regionalfeaturesfromthehomogenizingeffectsofthe
InternationalStyle (RegionalMovementinArchitecture)
 Transformingthe‘abstractwork’intothe‘concretework’usingand
moldingmoderntechniquesofbuildingintodistinct regional
patterns,givingregionalflavor tofunctionswhichtranscends
national orregional boundaries

Search for Identity?
Regionalism

National
What is identity?
Regionalism??
Search for an appropriate architecture FOR the region, we have
ignored the architecture OF the region. (Mumtaz, 1985, Regionalism in
Architecture)

What is Region?
For some, the term ‘region’ may denote no more than a geographical
reality, usually a cluster of states sharing a common space on the
globe. This kind of region may be a large continent, or a small group
of contiguous states.
regions could be seen as units or ‘zones’, based on groups, states or
territories, whose members display some identifiable patterns of
behavior.
Exploring regional domains: a comparative history of regionalism, LOUISE
FAWCETT(2004)

What is Regionalism?
Regionalism—which implies a policy whereby states and non-
state actors cooperate and coordinate strategy within a given region.
The aim of regionalism is to pursue and promote common goals in
one or more issue areas.

Regionalism –resource for Identity
Shelter has fundamentally global roots in the need for protection
against the elements and realization its form and content are in
response to a given place, climate and time.
The entire settlement, its structure, typology, iconography, the whole
range of vocabulary of build forms give birth to a shared language
for identity.

Man Vs Nature
Regional Traditions and Heritage
Response to Climate
Lessons from Local
Indigenous Materials – An appropriate resource
Regionalism –resource for Identity

Kenneth Frampton
Critical Regionalism ?

How to be modern and to continue the tradition…?
"reformed modernism"
“Nothing is invented, there is a past for
everything”

Six points towards Critical Regionalism
• Culture and civilization
• The rise and fall of Avant Garde
• Critical regionalism and world culture
• The resistance of the Place form
• Cultural versus Nature
• The Visual vs The Tactile

Critical regionalism is an approach to architecture that strives to counter the
placelessness and lack of identity of the International Style, but also rejects the
whimsical individualism and ornamentation of Postmodern architecture. The
stylings of critical regionalism seek to provide an architecture rooted in the
modern tradition, but tied to geographical and cultural context. Critical
regionalism is not simply regionalism in the sense of vernacular architecture. It
is a progressive approach to design that seeks to mediate between the global
and the local languages of architecture.
Critical Regionalism

Critical Regionalism
"How to be modern and to continue the tradition, how to
revive an old dormant civilization as part of universal
civilization."
In critical regionalism, architects and designers consciously
study and interpret historical and local building patterns,
and then re-interpret local aspects of making buildings.
Traditional forms and styles are consistently re-interpreted
with contemporary building techniques and technologies.

Consciously bounded architecture: Critical regionalism manifests
itself as a consciously bounded architecture. Most of the
contemporary buildings do not seem to have any binding to where
they are, only to a blindly borrowed image. This is a glimpse of what
is prevalent in other parts of the city as well.
Territorial orientation: It states that a building is not a freestanding
object but established a territory and is established in a territory.
Architecture as tectonic: It looks at architecture as a tectonic fact
rather than the reduction of built environment to a series of ill
assorted scenographic episodes. Like the imagery adopted for
these buildings which is then just pasted on to the urban fabric.

Optimizing building systems: It stresses on optimizing the use of building
systems like air conditioning and a tendency to treat all its openings as
delicate transitional zones to respond to specific conditions of climate and
light of a place. This factor is totally ignored insensitively. Consequently,
most of these buildings suffer inefficiency of resource management and
maintenance.
Emphasis on the Tactile: It stresses that the tactile is as important as the
visual.
Experiential qualities of space are irreplaceable: It claims that one can’t
replace experiential qualities of space within, with information. Sensitivity
towards local light, ambient sessions of heat, cold, humidity and air
movement are the tools of space making.
Reinterpreting vernacular elements: The most important feature is that
critical regionalism attempts to reinterpret vernacular elements in the making
of space within and space without. It endeavors to cultivate a contemporary
place oriented by culture without becoming too simplistic or direct about
formal references or levels of technology

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