Text 5&6: Towards a Critical Regionalism

1. BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE
THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM
(ARC61303/ARC2224)
SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (MARCH 2017)
Name: ONG EUXUAN ID No.: 0319050
Lecturer: AR. PRINCE FAVIS ISIP Tutorial Time:
Reader/Text Title:
Towards A Critical Regionalism
Synopsis No: 6
Author: KENNETH FRAMPTON
In ‘Towards A Critical Regionalism’, author Kenneth Frampton explains that critical regionalism in
architecture stresses on the geographical context and value. In the excerpt, he highlights the importance
of the tactile resilience in the perception of an architecture. He implies that a user’s perception to
architectural context is the key to sociological success.
Frampton argues that clean slate in architecture strips the identity of a building bare. He implies that
over the years, modernization in architecture saw the elimination of the following cultivation and
archeological past of a building. The overtime transformation of a building is overlooked, losing a
region’s culture. Examples by Frampton would be turning a terrain into a flat ground, causing a
building to lose its topography, or avoid the natural lighting and illuminate the interior spaces with
artificial lighting, purging the identity of its initial site.
Frampton states that human bodies are able to detect perceptive feelings like a sound, a smell, or a
texture, or even light intensity and warmth of a place, helping the user register and associate an
experience to a space. Being upset and discouraged by the influence of post-modernism, Frampton
emphasizes on the experience milked from the context of a site to strengthen the regional identity of
a place. The author continues to say that critical regionalism sets off along with the visual experience
of a user by their perception. Nevertheless, perception, in this case, refers to the direct user
experience of the surrounding environments, and are typically restricted to just the sight of the user,
suppressing other senses such as smell and taste. In cases like these, the visuals are once again
blanketed across the reality of the context and identity.
In a nutshell, I agree with Frampton that the geological context is key to produce an architectural
identity. The natural elements are what connects the built element to form an architecture that creates
a poetic experience for users to perceive. I find the author’s perspective on reflecting connections to
contexts a social reality, and is relevant and crucial towards architecture today. In many cases, the tactile
resilience of a place overpowers the visuals and built from of an architecture, and I find it immensely
powerful, how a place is able to trigger a certain emotion in a person.
Word Count: 379 WORDS Mark Grade
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