On the Paradoxical Nature of Frampton’s Critical Regionalism

Figure-ground plans of Le Corbusier’s project for Saint Die on the left and Parma on the right. Source: Rowe, Colin and Fred Koetter, Collage City. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 1978, 62–63.

Abstract

The seeds of postmodern architecture were sown in the early 1950s and 1960s when architects, theoreticians and teachers developed new design approaches and pedagogies related to the notion of context in order to heal the ill effects of orthodox modern architecture and planning. Critical Regionalism was suggested as an alternative to postmodern architecture in the 1980s, though it strongly aligns with its original premises on context. To unfold this relation, this paper provides a critical re-reading of Kenneth Frampton’s seminal text ‘Towards a Critical Regionalism’ in comparison to postmodern architecture’s early contextuality, which is discussed specifically through the works of its protagonists Colin Rowe and Robert Venturi.