Re-interrogating critical regionalism

Critical regionalism has been critiqued as fragile as a theory and vague as a design approach, even by one of its founders, Kenneth Frampton.1 Through a contemporary reinterpretation, however, this article explores how critical regionalism can be further developed as a valid lens for a better understanding and design of regionalist architecture. Critical regionalism is re-interpreted and re-proposed here through three interrelated strategies that form the components of a new “lens”: defamiliarization, sense of place, and tectonics. This lens is then deployed to analyze a series of case studies, enlivened by new interviews with contemporary architects who are renowned for articulating regionalist architecture in relation to their design approaches. The interviews and case studies covered in this research reveal intriguing disparities between the essential notions of critical regionalism and broader regionalist ideas and assumptions in architecture. Our contention is that the reformulation of critical regionalism through the new lens explored here allows for a more systematic and accountable way of tackling these ongoing vagaries and dealing with the problematic of regional values in architectural culture.