Regionalism in University Buildings: Tectonics, Form and Criticality

Abstract

This chapter charts significant episodes of the evolution of critical regionalism in the form of university buildings, low rise and fragmented forms that the tectonics, details and constructional expression, rather than the iconic. The selected case studies based on the typology of university buildings are used as a framework on which to discuss and demonstrate the role and agility of the ‘tectonic’ approach as the medium to express a critical, yet more rooted approach to regional identity. Although often credited for their physical masterplan layout designs and initiatives, university buildings are often looked upon as regional and national archetypes which contain nuances of regional and global imagery in order to achieve national and universal scholastic identity. From the Brutalist language of the 1960s, through the tectonic richness of the Malay archetypes in the 1980s, and into the era of tropicalising an industrial aesthetic of the 1990s, these cases highlights the transformation made through an architectonic approach that grounds modern forms into variants of regional and national complexes.