Critical regionalism is an architectural approach that counters placelessness in modern architecture by giving a sense of place and meaning through contextual forces. It values a building's response to its particular context, emphasizing topography, climate, and light over visual scenography. Critical regionalism adopts modern architecture for its progressive qualities but also values local responses. It differs from regionalism by consciously partaking in the universal rather than striving for direct correspondence with vernacular forms.

1. CRITICAL REGIONALISM

2. Critical regionalism
• An approach to architecture that strives to counter the
placelessness and lack of meaning in Modern Architecture
by using contextual forces to give a sense of place and
meaning.(In the 1980s a few architects and theorists were
disappointed with the direction that architecture was taking under the
influence of postmodernism. Rather than unveiling the historicity of
style in their designs, postmodern architects became another avant
garde that produced designs that mimicked classical style. )
• The term critical regionalism was first used by Alexander
Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre and later more famously and
pretentiously by Kenneth Frampton in "Towards a Critical
Regionalism: Six points of an architecture of resistance."

3. • According to Frampton, critical regionalism should
adopt modern architecture critically for its universal
progressive qualities but at the same time should value
responses particular to the context. Emphasis should be
on topography, climate, light, tectonic form rather
than scenography and the tactile sense rather than the
visual
• As put forth by Tzonis and Lefaivre, critical regionalism
need not directly draw from the context, rather
elements can be stripped of their context and used in
strange rather than familiar ways.
• Critical regionalism is different from regionalism which
tries to achieve a one-to-one correspondence with
vernacular architecture in a conscious way without
consciously partaking in the universal.

4. Säynatsalo Town Hall
According to Frampton, this building by Alvar
Aalto is a typical Critical Regionalist building.

5. • Critical regionalism is considered a particular form of
post-modern (not to be confused with postmodernism
as architectural style) response in developing countries.
• The following architects have used such an approach in
some of their works: Alvar Aalto, Jørn Utzon, Studio
Granda, Mario Botta, B.V.Doshi, Charles Correa, Alvaro
Siza, Rafael Moneo, Geoffrey Bawa, Raj Rewal, Tadao
Ando, Mack Scogin / Merrill Elam, Ken Yeang, William
S.W. Lim, Tay Kheng Soon, Juhani Pallasmaa, and Tan
Hock Beng.

6. • mediate the impact of universal civilization
with elements derived indirectly from the
peculiarities of a particular space.
• preference to how the architect deals with the
irregularities of the physical landscape rather
than how he or she employs local culture
• The architect should enter “a dialectical
relation with nature”, taking clues from the
topography and avoiding bulldozing in order to
flatten space.
• using top-lighting and exposing the elements of
construction, speaking more of the relationship
of the building to its space.

7. • Sometimes Regionalism goes back to just
Conservatism and resorts to blind use of
vernacular.
• But Critical Regionalism seeks architectural
traditions that are deeply rooted in the local
conditions.
• This results in a highly intelligent and
appropriate architecture.

8. • In its broadest sense, then, the Critical Regionalist
sensibility looks to the uniqueness of site and location
when deriving the formal aspects of any given project.
Its influence can be felt in the work of the Tichino
School in Switzerland, the sophisticated urban
insertions of many contemporary Spanish architects
(including Rafael Moneo), or the austere concrete forms
of the Japanese master Tadao Ando. All point to a
design method that is assuredly modern but relies on
the organic unity of local material, climatic, and
cultural characteristics to lend coherence to the
finished work. The result is an architecture suited to
light and touch.

9. • Through a studied and careful appreciation of
provincial traditions, regionalism in the post-
war years resulted in designs imbued with
sensitivity to the specifics of local climates and
materials, topographies and building methods.
The Southern California work of Richard Neutra
in the 1930s, for example, or the brilliant
projects designed by the Barcelona architect J.
A. Coderch, demonstrate a variety of ingenious
adaptations of local forms and methods to the
requirements of modern functionality. The
results are formally and conceptually divorced
from received notions of style, as in the case of
Coderch’s celebrated ISM apartment block
(1951), which presents a modern brick veneer
mediated by carefully realized interpolations of
traditional elements such as full-height wood
shutters and thin overhanging cornices.