Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to provide a thematic overview of the theory of Critical Regionalism as a theory of ‘In-Between’. I explain how Kenneth Frampton’s project of Critical Regionalism combines the two traditions of phenomenology and critical thinking to establish a constructive dialogue between Habermas’s unfinished project of Modernity and Heidegger’s insistence on being as becoming.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Although Frampton never employs phenomenology in a classical way, his architectural thought is permeated by themes and concerns that are essentially phenomenological, thus making a constructive, though indirect, contribution to the phenomenological discourse in architecture. I have highlighted Frampton’s contribution to the phenomenological discourse in Shirazi (2013).
- 2.
It needs to be mentioned that Frampton’s interest in developing a postmodern critical culture does not mean he is in favour of postmodernist architecture. As will be elaborated later in this chapter, Frampton criticizes postmodernism for its superficial historicism and populism.
- 3.
The term Critical Regionalism was first coined in 1981 by Tzonis and Lefaivre in 1981 but later developed by Kenneth Frampton who endowed it with its distinctive character. For these authors’ interpretation of Critical Regionalism see: (Lefaivre and Tzonis 1985, 1990, 2003; Tzonis and Lefaivre 1991).
- 4.
- 5.
The idea of the Public Sphere (Öffentlichkeit in German) has been theorized by Habermas in his book The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere—An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (German edition 1962, English Translation 1989). For Habermas events and occasions become public when, in contrast to exclusive affairs, they are available for all. Related to the notion of the ‘common world’ as suggested by Arendt (1998), the public sphere is a realm of our social life, open to all, in which something approaching public opinion can be formed.
- 6.
A term of Greek origin, tectonic is derived from tecton and signifies a carpenter or builder, and this stems from the Sanskrit taksan, referring to the craft of carpentry and the use of an axe. Moreover, the Latin term architectus is derived from the Greek archi (a person of authority) and tekton (a craftsman or builder). The term ‘tectonic’ appeared in English for the first time in a glossary in 1656 meaning ‘belonging to building’. This term appeared in the middle of the nineteenth century in a modern sense with Karl Bötticher’s The Tectonic of the Hellenes and Gottfried Semper’s The Four Elements of Architecture.
- 7.
Kimbell Art Museum accommodates the art collection of the Kimbell Art Foundation. The main building, designed by Louis Kahn, manifests his individual and significant architectural thinking on space, memory, structure and tradition. Recently Renzo Piano, the Italian architect, who had once worked in Kahn’s office, designed an extension to the museum that was respectfully in the spirit of Kahn’s building.
- 8.
Semper distinguished between two separate material procedures in built form: tectonics of the frame (roofwork) and stereotomics of compressive mass (earthwork). While the former addresses members of varying lengths conjoined to encompass a spatial field, the latter is constructed through the piling up of identical units (the term stereotomics deriving from the Greek term for solid, stereos and for cutting, -tomia)” (Frampton 2002b: 95). This distinction has some ontological implications:‘[f]ramework tends towards the aerial and the dematerialization of mass, whereas the mass form is telluric, embedding itself ever deeper into the earth. The one tends towards light and the other towards dark. These gravitational opposites, the immateriality of the frame and the materiality of the mass, may be said to symbolize the two cosmological opposites to which they aspire: the sky and the earth. Despite our highly secularized techno-scientific age, these polarities still largely constitute the experiential limits of our lives’ (ibid.).
- 9.
Completed in 1976, this church is located on the northern outskirts of Copenhagen.
- 10.
After seeing a model of a Caribbean hut in the Great Exhibition of 1851, Semper proposed ‘four elements’ as an anthropological construct comprising: (1) a hearth, as the symbolic, public nexus of the work, (2) an earthwork (podium), (3) a framework (structure) and a roof considered together and (4) an enclosing membrane (wall) or the woven infill framework. He also attributed certain crafts to every element: metallurgy and ceramics to the hearth, masonry to the earthwork, carpentry to the structural frame, and textiles to the art of enclosure, side walls and roof.
- 11.
Juhani Pallasmaa provides a detailed and thoughtful discussion on the production of vision-oriented architecture through the course of history, with a focus on its philosophical origin. See Pallasmaa (1996).
References
Arendt H (1998) The human condition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Frampton K (1982a) Avant-garde and continuity. Architectural Des 52:20–27
Frampton K (1982b) Place, production and architecture: towards a critical theory of building. Architectural Des 52:28–45
Frampton K (1982c) The Isms of contemporary architecture. Architectural Des 52:61–82
Frampton K (1982d) The resistance of architecture, an anthological postscript. Architectural Des 52:85
Frampton K (1983) Prospects for a critical regionalism. Perspecta 20:147–162
Frampton K (1988) Place-form and cultural identity. In: Thackara J (ed) Design after modernism, beyond the object. Thames and Hudson, New York, pp 51–66
Frampton K (1989) Some reflections on postmodernism and architecture. In: Appignanesi L (ed) Postmodernism. Free Association Books, London, pp 75–87
Frampton K (1991) Critical regionalism revisited. In: Amourgis S (ed) Critical Regionalism, The Pomona Meeting Proceedings. California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, pp 34–39
Frampton K (1992) Modern architecture, a critical history. Thames and Hudson, London
Frampton K (1995) Studies in tectonic culture: the poetics of construction in nineteenth and twentieth century architecture. MIT Press, Cambridge
Frampton K (1996a) Universalism and/or regionalism. Untimely reflections on the future of the new. Domus 782:6–8
Frampton K (1996b) On reading heidegger. In: Nesbitt K (ed) Theorizing a new agenda for architecture: an anthology of architectural theory 1965–1995. Princeton Architectural Press, New York, pp 442–446
Frampton K (1998) Technology. Place and Architecture, Rizzoli, New York
Frampton K (2002a) Towards a critical regionalism: six points for an architecture of resistance. In: Frampton K (ed) Labour, work and architecture. Phaidon Press, London, pp 77–89
Frampton K (2002b) Rappel a l’Ordre: The Case for the Tectonic. In: Frampton K (ed) Labour, Work and Architectur. Phaidon Press, London, pp 91–103
Frampton K (2002c) Corporeal experience in the architecture of Tadao Ando. In: Dodds G, Tavernor R (eds) Body and building. MIT Press, Cambridge, pp 303–317
Frampton K (2003) A conversation with Kenneth Frampton. October Mag 106:35–58
Habermas J (1989) The structural transformation of the public sphere: an inquiry into a category of Bourgeois society. MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts
Harris HH (2007) Regionalism and nationalism in architecture. In: Canizaro V (ed) Architectural regionalism, collected writings on place, identity, modernity and tradition. Princeton Architectural Press, New York, pp 57–64
Heidegger M (1971) Poetry, language, thought. Harper and Row, New York
Heidegger M (1993) Building dwelling thinking. In: Krell DF (ed) Basic writings: from being and time (1927) to The task of thinking (1964). Routledge, London, pp 347–363
Kelbaugh D (2007) Critical regionalism: an architecture of place. In: Larice M, Macdonald E (eds) The urban design reader. Routledge, New York, pp 184–193
Lefaivre L, Tzonis A (1985) The grid and the pathway: an introduction to the work of Dimitris and Suzana Antonakakis in the context of greek architectural culture. In: Frampton K (ed) Atelier 66. The architecture of Dimitris and Suzana Antonakakis, Rizzoli, New York, pp 14–25
Lefaivre L, Tzonis A (1990) Why critical regionalism today? A+U 236:23–33
Lefaivre L, Tzonis A (2003) Critical regionalism. Architecture and Identity in a Globalized World, Prestel, Munich and Berlin
Pallasmaa J (1988) Tradition and modernity: the feasibility of regional architecture in post-modern society’. Architectural Rec 176(6):26–34
Pallasmaa J (1996) The eyes of the skin. Architecture and the Senses, Academy Editions, London
Shirazi M R (2007) On space and language. Wolkenkuckucksheim, Int J Architectural Theor 12(1)
Shirazi MR (2013) Critical Regionalism, Raum, and Tactility; Kenneth Frampton’s contribution to phenomenological discourse in architecture. Environ Architectural Phenomenology 24(3):8–13
Shirazi MR (2014) Towards an articulated phenomenological interpretation of architecture: phenomenal phenomenology. Routledge, London
Tzonis A, Lefaivre L (1991) Critical regionalism. In: Amourgis S (ed) Critical regionalism, The Pomona Meeting Proceedings. California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, pp 3–23
Webber MM (1968) Explorations into urban structure. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, pp 79–153
Woolsey DK (1991) Critical regionalism: a theory of process. In: Amourgis S (ed) Critical regionalism, The Pomona meeting proceedings. California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, pp 322–330
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Shirazi, M.R. (2018). The Theory of ‘In-Between’. In: Contemporary Architecture and Urbanism in Iran. The Urban Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72185-9_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72185-9_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-72184-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-72185-9
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)