BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURETHEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (ARC61303/ARC2224)SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (MARCH 2016) [5 MARKS]

NAME: MEERA NAZREEN ID: 0309630LECTURER: MS IDA TUTORIAL TIME: 2-4SYNOPSIS NO: 4 READER TITLE: CRITICAL REGIONALISM 3&4

AUTHOR: KENNETH FRAMPTONKenneth Frampton’s Towards a Critical Regionalism, is his way to address the declination of the

traditional culture and how the current world has shifted society to civilization. The third chapter of

this book, Critical Regionalism and World Culture is actually his third point out of the six points listed.

Frampton pointed out in this chapter that critical regionalism should adopt the modern architecture

for its progressiveness. However, it should also include the surrounding or the context. The context

here meaning the typography, the local light, tectonic. In this chapter, too, he mentioned Tzonis and

Lefaivre said critical regionalism can be indirectly draw from the context. This means that we do not

have to adopt the whole surrounding but we can take bits of the elements from the context.The

urban form has become limited because of the training and practice of architecture in the today’s

world. We uses the iconic symbol of modern culture and the skyscrapers as what drives us in

designing. This is perhaps why he introduces the idea of mediating the impact of universal civilization

with elements derived from the context, as mentioned before. His theory is that, this critical

regionalism could capture back the lost sense of ‘place’ which is apparently degenerating. Arguably,

the move towards the universal, has provided architecture with its opportunity to produce and create

a new built landscape through redefining a ‘place’.

The fourth point from his book is The Resistance of the Place-Form. From this chapter, I think what

the author is trying to say is that a physical space of a region and the place where the

communication between people are different. We as the future architects should remember that

there is no limitation of physical space and the characteristic of place cannot consist of an

independent building. The Megalopolis is taking over the city. It replaces the place bound urban form

with technology. As in the city façade is replaced with things that are remotely associated to the

surrounding. This is where the sense of placelessness is being generated. A space might just be a

space and people will be too busy with their own things, their gadgets, etc, to even appreciate the

‘design’ of a space.

Based on my reading, I can conclude that these two points given is about creating a space where

people could communicate without boundaries. Also the architecture built or those which are going to

be build, should not be too far off the surrounding. Sure it could have its identity but it should not be

too ‘out of context’. It could be a landmark of its own with the surrounding elements included.

WORD COUNT: 334 DATE: 13TH JUNE 2016

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