Art and Architecture VI

Lecture 12
Critical regionalism
Critical regionalism is an approach to architecture that strives to counter the
placelessness and lack of identity of the International Style, but also rejects
the whimsical individualism and ornamentation of Postmodern
architecture. The stylings of critical regionalism seek to provide an architecture
rooted in the modern tradition, but tied to geographical and cultural context.
Critical regionalism is not simply regionalism in the sense of vernacular
architecture. It is a progressive approach to design that seeks to mediate
between the global and the local languages of architecture.

The phrase "critical regionalism" was first used by the architectural theorists
Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre and, with a slightly different meaning, by
the historian-theorist Kenneth Frampton.

According to Frampton, critical regionalism should adopt modern architecture

critically for its universal progressive qualities but at the same time should value
responses particular to the context. Emphasis should be on topography,
climate, light, tectonic form rather than scenography and the tactile sense
rather than the visual.

Reference: Ashik Vaskor Mannan, Wikipedia

Säynätsalo Town Hall, 1949
Geoffrey Bawa
Geoffrey Bawa (1919 –2003) was Sri Lanka’s most eminent and prolific
architect producing a wealth of projects, primarily within his home country, many
of which have received international critical acclaim. His lifetime’s contribution to
architecture was honored in 2001 with the Aga Khan Special Chairman’s Award
(Robson 2001).

Bawa came to his architectural career late in life driven by his passion for
landscape design. The purchase of the rubber plantation at Lunuganga in 1948
marked the beginning of his interest in architecture and landscape and the
transformation of this property through large-scale terra-forming to micro-scale
pruning continued until his death in 2003. Bawa was particularly concerned with
the relationship between buildings and landscape. Indeed, Bawa believed
that the two were inseparable (Brawne 1995). For Bawa, it is not only the careful
situation of architecture within a landscape but also the embodiment of that
landscape within the building; a unity between architecture and place (Taylor
1986). He was strongly influenced by the architecture of his native Sri
Lanka. For Bawa, ‘good Sri Lankan architecture’ is defined not in relation to
particular styles or historical periods but through its response to place; to light,
views, topography, materiality and particularly climate (Bawa in Taylor
1986).

Bawa was one of the original proponents of Tropical Modernism, a design

movement in which sensitivity for local context combines with the form-making
principles of modernism. Bawa’s architecture led to the formation of a new
architectural identity and aesthetic for many tropical environments.

Reference:Wikipedia, archnet
Lunuganga Estate
Lunuganga Estate was the country home of the renowned Sri Lankan architect
Geoffrey Bawa. Started in 1947, the garden led Bawa, a lawyer, to decide to
become an architect. As he went on to become Sri Lanka's and one of Asia's
most prolific and influential architects, the garden at the Lunuganga estate
remained his first muse and experimental laboratory for new ideas. He continued
to change and experiment with its spaces and structures throughout his life until
his final illness in 1998. Left to the Lunuganga Trust on his demise in 2003, the
gardens are now open to the public and the buildings on the estate are run as a
country house hotel.

Reference:archdaily
Masterplan of Lunuganga Estate
Bawa’s Residence in Colombo
Ena de Silva house
• The Ena de Silva house was conceived as a series of pavilions and
verandas contained within a high surrounding boundary wall and
arranged to form a major central courtyard and five subsidiary
courtyards.

• It had been created for the artist and designer Ena de Silva and her
husband Osmund in 1960. , she is remembered for her work in reinvigorating
traditional crafts such as Kandyan embroidery and batik prints - perhaps
most famously decorating Sri Lanka's parliament building with fabric banners
patterned in batik. (Bawa designed the building)

• Its spatial qualities were enhanced by the choice of materials: walls of

plastered brick, roofs of half-round Portuguese tiles, columns of satin
wood, windows of timber lattice, floors of rough granite. The house
recalled ancient Kandyan manor houses, but the open plan and
continuous flow of space suggested a more contemporary discipline.

• "It is probably the most important house in the history of contemporary South
Asian architecture because it changed the way we looked at ourselves and
our past," says Channa Daswatte, an architect and trustee for the Bawa
Trust.

Reference:https://www.world-architects.com/oma-office-for-metropolitan-architecture-rotterdam
Heritance Kandalama Hotel
• Kandalama hotel is one of Bawa’s last hotel designs, commencing in 1992
and opening in 1995. The 162 room, five-star hotel is located at the edge of
an ancient tank or reservoir beside a rocky outcrop near Dambulla and the
famous cultural site of Sigirya.

• Originally, the clients had planned to construct the hotel near Sigirya itself,
an impressive Sinhalese fifth century palace and fortress built around,
into and on top of a giant rock. However, Bawa rejected the site and instead
opted for a new location with distant views to Sigirya across the ancient
Kandalama tank. Here, Bawa could more readily explore his own version of
the Sinhalese love affair with picturesque planning, combining water and
topology with man-made insertions in spectacular compositions
(Robson 2002).

• Bawa’s concept sought to accentuate his immediate impressions of the site –

an impenetrable ridge occupied by an old cave hermitage, opening up to a
broad vista across the Kandalama tank to Sigiriya. The dramatism of the
view was to be enhanced by compressing the entrance through a narrow
cave-like passage, seemingly tunnelling through the ridge (Robson
2002).

Reference: archnet
Sigiriya Fortress
View from Kandalama 6th floor
Sri Lankan Parliament Building, 1982
Charles Correa
• Charles Mark Correa (1930 –2015) was an Indian architect, urban planner
and activist. Credited for the creation of modern architecture in post-
Independent India, he was celebrated for his sensitivity to the needs of
the urban poor and for his use of traditional methods and materials.

• He studied architecture at the University of Michigan and at Massachusetts

Institute of Technology after which he established a private practice in
Bombay in 1958, after a period with B.V.Doshi at Ahmedabad.

• His work in India shows a careful development, understanding and

adaptation of Modernism to a non-western culture. His early works
attempt to explore a local vernacular within a modern environment. His land-
use planning and community projects continually try to go beyond typical
solutions to third world problems.

• All of his work-from the planning of Navi Mumbai to the carefully detailed
memorial to Mahatma Gandhi at the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad has
placed special emphasis on prevailing resources, energy and climate as
major determinants in the ordering of space.

Reference: Wikipedia, Ashik Vaskor Mannan

Gandhi Memorial Museum (Sabarmati Ashram)
• The Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya (Gandhi Memorial Institution) is a
museum and public service institution dedicated to preserve the work and
memory and commemorate the life of Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi. It is
located at Gandhi's Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, India on the banks of
River Sabarmati.

• It was Correa's first important commission, consisted originally of 51

modular units, each 6 x 6 metres, surrounding a water court. The
complex was inaugurated by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1963.

• In order to reflect the simplicity of Gandhi's life and the incremental nature
of a living institution the architect used modular units 6 metres x 6 metres of
reinforced cement concrete connecting spaces, both open and covered,
allowing for eventual expansion.

• The modular simplicity of the structure is continued in the use of basic

materials: stone floors, brick walls, wooden doors and louvred
windows devoid of glass, and tiled roofs. The units are grouped in a
consciously asymmetric manner to be analogous to the Indian village with
its pathways and seemingly randomly placed buildings and its meeting
points; in this instance the central water court.

Reference: archnet
Belapur Housing
• Belapur is a new node in Nerul some two kilometers from the center of New
Bombay. This area of 5.4 hectares has been developed to house 500 people
(100 households) per hectare - a total of some 550 families.

• Each unit has its own plot and does not share any common walls with
its neighbor. it also has its own open-to-sky space which augments the built-
up area. This independence, well recognized as desirable in contemporary
planning, allows each house owner to extend or change his dwelling in
whatever way the family sees fit and at a pace in keeping with family
economic well-being.

• This low-rise high-density scheme utilizes a cluster arrangement around

small community spaces. At the smaller scale, seven units are grouped
around an intimate courtyard of about 8 x 8 meters. Three of the clusters
combine to form a larger module of 21 houses surrounding an open space of
12 x 12 meters. Three such modules interlock to define the next scale of
community space - approximately 20 x 20 meters. The spatial hierarchy
continues until the neighborhood spaces are formed where schools and other
public-use facilities are located.

Reference: archnet
Cidade De Goa
• Sited on a hillside by a palm-fringed beach in Goa, which for over four
centuries was a part of Portugal, this vacation hotel was completed in 1982.
The name Cidade de Goa was the original name for Goa's capital Panaji.

• Here the architecture does not try to be either overly vernacular or

monumental but sets out to explore under the theme of city, with
allegorical and cultural references within a linear organization.

• The architecture is well served by the paintings of Bhiwandkar, a film-poster

painter from Bombay, with the painted streets, the timeless clock and the
wood cut-out figures guarding doors, among other such references. The mix
of Portuguese, Hindu, Muslim and contemporary western imagery gives rise
to an architecture in which there is an interplay between two-dimensional
image and three-dimensional form.

• There are 100 bedrooms which reflect the prototypical Portuguese

cassas or the damao with its Gujarati connection influenced by Hindu
imagery. The "Alfama" - the hotel's main restaurant - is on several levels
grouped around a plaza - a city square in miniature.

Reference: archnet
Triton Hotel/
Jawahar KalaHeritance
Kendra, 1992
Ahungalla Hotel
Jawahar Kala Kendra, 1992
Jawahar Kala Kendra, 1992
Kanchanjunga Apartments, 1983
Kanchanjunga Apartments, 1983
Kanchanjunga Apartments, 1983
Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, 2010