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Hypothesis
It is my approach not to copy the past, but to use the past’s mentality in the present.
A building’s form should result from the architect’s translation of a region’s climactic and cultural characteristics into an appropriately modern expression. This form should not return nostalgically to past traditions. Instead the architect should adapt and transform those traditions to answer the realities of modern economics, materials and methods of production. In this sense, the idea is closer to the vernacular then to high style architecture. Critical regionalism accepts the changes in architecture brought about by new functions or the introduction of new materials. Critical regionalism is not about style. It is rather about architectural design, and therefore aims beyond the vernacular’s rational lessons to deal with artistic issues of metaphor, of proportion and of space, light and shadow.
Stephen T Dixon
2nd October 2007