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08 · Postmodern & Contemporary

Critical Regionalism

c. 1980–present

Modern design rooted in place: local materials, climate response, and craft instead of global sameness.

Look for

Exposed concrete Deep eave overhang Courtyard
Säynätsalo Town Hall, Säynätsalo, Finland: an example of Critical Regionalism architecture
Säynätsalo Town Hall, Säynätsalo, Finland. Photo: Zache, CC BY 3.0
Bagsværd Church, Copenhagen, Denmark
Bagsværd Church Copenhagen, Denmark · Erik Christensen, CC BY-SA 3.0
Church of the Light, Ibaraki, Japan
Church of the Light Ibaraki, Japan · taken by Bergmann, CC BY-SA 3.0
Salk Institute, La Jolla, California
Salk Institute La Jolla, California · Codera23, CC BY-SA 4.0
Therme Vals, Vals, Switzerland
Therme Vals Vals, Switzerland · Gunnar Klack, CC BY-SA 4.0

what it is

Critical Regionalism is modern architecture designed for a particular place. Its architects use modern construction, often concrete, steel and glass, but shape it around the local climate, topography, light and building materials. Typical features are courtyards, walls and roofs placed to block or admit sun and wind, local brick, stone or timber, and attention to how surfaces feel to the touch as well as how they look.

Alvar Aalto's Säynätsalo Town Hall in Finland (designed 1949) is built of red brick with timber and copper around a raised courtyard. Jørn Utzon's Bagsværd Church near Copenhagen (1973-1976) has a plain prefabricated concrete exterior and a curving concrete ceiling inside. Tadao Ando's Church of the Light in Ibaraki, Osaka (1989), is a concrete box with a cross cut through the wall behind the altar. Glenn Murcutt's Magney House in New South Wales (1984) has a corrugated iron roof and was sited after study of the sun and wind. Unlike Postmodern buildings, these use no borrowed historical ornament.

how to spot one

Exposed concrete Concrete left uncovered as the finished surface, often marked by the wooden formwork (molds) it was poured into. It is the main material of Brutalist buildings of the 1950s to 1970s. Deep eave overhang Roof edges, called eaves, that extend well beyond the walls. They shade windows and keep rain off the walls on Prairie houses, Craftsman bungalows and Italianate buildings. Courtyard An open-air space enclosed by the walls of a building or group of buildings. It brings light and air to inner rooms in Roman, Islamic, Chinese and Spanish Colonial houses.

Also look for

Deep-set windowExposed structureFlat roof

history

Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre first used the term in 1981, in the essay "The Grid and the Pathway," published in the journal Architecture in Greece. The British historian Kenneth Frampton developed it in "Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance" (1983). Frampton argued that buildings should respond to topography, climate and light, and to tectonic form, meaning the way a building is put together, rather than to scenography. He used Utzon's Bagsværd Church as an example.

The term has since been applied to architects in many countries, including Álvaro Siza in Portugal, Mario Botta and Peter Zumthor in Switzerland, Geoffrey Bawa in Sri Lanka, Glenn Murcutt in Australia, Tadao Ando in Japan and Wang Shu in China. Several have won the Pritzker Prize: Siza in 1992, Ando in 1995, Murcutt in 2002, Zumthor in 2009 and Wang Shu in 2012. Earlier modernists who worked with brick, timber and local conditions, such as Aalto and Louis Kahn, are often cited as forerunners.

where to find it

Ando's Church of the Light in Osaka, Barragan's houses in Mexico City, and Alvar Aalto's Saynatsalo Town Hall in Finland.

architects

Tadao AndoAlvar AaltoLouis Kahn

easy to confuse with

Bosco Verticale, an example of Sustainable / Green Sustainable / Green Performance made visible: planted roofs and walls, sun-shading fins, solar panels, and exposed timber structure. Stahl House, an example of Mid-Century Modern Mid-Century Modern Post-and-beam houses with walls of glass, flat or butterfly roofs, and easy flow between indoors and out.