Summaries

The Israeli ‘Place’ in East Jerusalem by Alona Nitzan-Shiftan

This article focuses on the architectural practices that empowered the first Israeli-born generation; the generation entrusted with Israelizing Jerusalem after the 1967 War.  The Sabra were the first Israeli-born generation of architects in the late 1950s. They saw a homeland fundamentally different from that envisioned by the founders of Zionism-a Jewish nationalist movement which aims to create and support a Jewish national state in Palestine. Sabra’s goal was to create a sense of belonging between people, community, and place. They argued that modern architecture should stop searching for ‘what is different in our time’ and seek instead ‘what is always essentially the same’. The author tries to find an answer of the mechanisms that enabled Israelis to separate it from the culture that produced it, in order to reshape it into an Israeli architecture. To do so, Nitzan-Shiftan studies three strategies for Israelizing the Arab vernacular. These strategies are reading it as biblical architecture, as an uncontaminated primitive origin of architecture, or simply as typically Mediterranean.

Toward a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an architecture resistance by Kenneth Frampton

This article argues that critical regionalism should adopt modern architecture, critically, for its universal progressive qualities but also value should be placed on the geographical context of the building. Critical Regionalism is an approach to architecture that strives to counter the placelessness and lack of identity of the International Style but rejects the individualism and ornamentation of Postmodern architecture. In this article, Frampton proposes six points that define the principles and strategies of Critical Regionalism. These six points include culture and civilization, place and space, tectonic and scenographic, light and shadow, topography and landscape, and public and private. Critical Regionalism should resist the dominance of global culture, which tends to erase local diversity. It should also acknowledge the importance of place and space, emphasizing the tectonic and scenographic aspects of architecture. Light and shadow should be used to create mood, atmosphere, and character in architecture. It should respect the topography and landscape of the site, integrating the building with the natural elements of the landscape. Finally, it should address both public and private dimensions of architecture, creating spaces that foster community as well as protect privacy.

Global Modernism and the Postcolonial by Vikramaditya Prakash, Maristella Casciato, and Daniel E. Coslett

This article explores what a postcolonized and decolonized history of global modern architecture might begin to look like. It provides brief introductions to global history, historical conceptions of modernism, as well as postcolonial studies in terms of their relationship to the historiography of modern architecture. For several decades now, certainly since the 1980s, the task of unlinking the history of modern architecture from the precepts and pre- conditions of colonialist Eurocentrism has been an ongoing process, both in academia and in practice. Though inspired in part by such efforts, this article does not claim to present a unified or complete picture of what a global history of modernism might look like. Indeed, it interrogates the quest for a unified conception of that history. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Critical Response

I agree with Frampton’s point about critical regionalism. In Toward a Critical Regionalism article, Framton mentions that critical regionalism should adopt modern architecture for its universal qualities as well as the geographical context of the building. These buildings rely on specific knowledge of the climate, geology, geography, and typography of the region. What really makes this process thoughtful is the consideration of a context that is far more rooted in the site instead of the secondary context which has been generated through the established architecture of the region. The approach of critical regionalism does not limit itself to a particular set of criteria of design. However, it opens up to all segments of function and context. The diverse works of architect Alvar Aalto, reflect how he incorporated his approach of critical regionalism into designs of various caliber and functions. The Saynatsalo Town Hall designed by Aalto is the perfect example of modern forms, local materials like brick and wood, Finnish architecture and a humanistic approach while recognizing the cultural context of it’s the site. His other project Villa Mairea, though smaller in scale, exhibits his principles of administration of traditional as well as modern architecture through a process strongly backed by factors such as culture, geography and nature. For this reason, critical regionalism enables the design of structures rooted in context so deeply.

Application

Villa Mairea, a project designed by Alvar Aalto is a representation of the importance of critical regionalism. The plan of the Villa Mairea is a modified L-shape of the kind Aalto had used before. It is a layout which automatically created a semi-private enclosure to one side, and a more exclusive, formal edge to confront the public world on the other. This building is famous for its open-plan ground floor, in which living spaces flow together. It reflects how the process of critical regionalism also opens up several options of experimentation of materials, forms, spatial disposition and hence the creation of harmony relationship between the structure blending perfectly the indoors and outdoors. It seeks to address the limitations of universal and homogeneous modern architecture by focusing on local needs, influences, and aesthetics. This is crucial because it aims to create architecture that reflects the identity and culture of a place. It offers a conceptual framework for producing diverse types of architecture that respond to site conditions and local contexts, contributing to the development of a sense of place and belonging.

Take Aways:

• Modern architecture should cease searching for “what is different in our time” and seek “what is always essentially the same
• Critical Regionalism is an approach to architecture that strives to counter the placelessness
• Critical Regionalism aims to create architecture that reflects the identity and culture of a place