On globalization, regionalism and the Smart City
Enrico Prandi
With this issue, 61 edited by Ugo Rossi, FAM delves into the broader
reflection on the globalization of cultures, regionalism and the Smart
City.
The method with which the curator has constructed his palimpsest is a
grid of twelve questions provided to the authors together with an
introductory text: the guests were asked to «provide reflections,
studies and research, experiences and testimonials addressing the
questions, or to extend the problems». Questionnaire questions,
which can be read in the curator's article below, range from regional
architecture (its existence, purpose and meaning) versus global
architecture and the Smart City model as a proposition for architecture
in developing contexts. In the palimpsest of questions, it is not
difficult to understand the equation between the capitalist global city
and the Smart City and the danger that developing contexts run in
pursuing these universal models.
In the brevity of an editorial that critically introduces the theme, I
don't shy away from providing my personal point of view indirectly
starting from the essays by the various authors.
Critical Regionalism and its (alleged) rebirth guide the reader in the
various contributions which have the merit of fueling the discussion
around one of the moments in the recent history of architecture, such
as the attempt to overcome the Postmodern. The evolution of the term
Critical Regionalism and its relevance after a period of oblivion, the
thesis here subject to critical verification, demonstrates how it can
accommodate examples that are also very distant from each other.
Therefore, some clarification is appropriate starting from the origins
of the concept itself at the end of the 1970s interpolated with the
current reflections of Kenneth Frampton (the militant critic of
Critical Regionalism) interviewed for the occasion by Ugo Rossi himself.
Like other terms, as courageous in the attempt to define attitudes as
labile in specific definitions, also Critical Regionalism – which
Frampton himself (1984) invites us not to understand either as a style
or as a historical period – can be better understood by
difference, also clarifying what it is not: Critical Regionalism is not
vernacular; Critical Regionalism is not the spontaneous product of the
multiple interaction between climate, culture, myth and craft (that is,
spontaneity must be replaced by the intentionality of critically
measuring oneself with the elements of transformation). Critical
Regionalism is linked to the “Schools”; Critical
Regionalism is anti-centrist (and therefore against globalization);
Critical Regionalism aspires towards forms of cultural, economic and
political (therefore even more anti-global) independence. (Frampton
1980, p. 313).
With the exception of the question on the Schools, we have outlined the
majority of “good contemporary architecture” as regionalist
architecture, meaning as such that which is attentive to the different
contexts and their characteristics (thus excluding architecture
indifferent to the context, interchangeable which does not seize the
opportunity to introject and re-elaborate stylistic, formal,
typological, symbolic and so on characteristics typical of the place of
belonging). But if we reintroduce the criterion of the Schools then the
concept immediately becomes more complicated if not contradictory. The
proliferation of Schools, their hybridization with topical issues, the
often spurious character of a supra-regional dimension makes the
application of this principle inapplicable in the contemporary world.
What could be, for example in the Italian context, the “[recently
formed] regional schools, whose main aspiration is to reflect and deal
with the specific constituent elements on which they are based”?
(Frampton 1982, p.371). None. If we extend the reasoning to the vast
international context, probably some exist.
At the end of an intense Post Scriptum to the interview published in
this issue, which begins as an ancient epistle, Kenneth Frampton
proposes the myth of Critical Regionalism as a «hypothetical
terrain on which to create a microcosm again», an alternative
modernity such as that of Alvar Aalto. Even the theme of other
modernity is a road already taken at the level of international
critical literature to define irregular figures of modernity.
Beyond the theoretical implications of a debate that lasted almost
twenty years – and in some ways sterile in focusing too much on
the attempt to define something elusive – we can understand a
“Critical Regionalism of return” if it can be defined in
this way, in a broad sense as a attention to contexts (an attitude that
still characterizes a large part of Italian architecture) but above
all, as Ugo Rossi underlines in his essay on the USA, as a
“cultural resistance” in antithesis to a globalizing and
internationalist (consumerist) approach: a balanced planning between an
instinctive and spontaneous attitude that flows into the vernacular
and, on the contrary, an attitude indifferent to the context, culture
and specific identities.
In the succession of critical contributions Luigi Coccia proposes as a
regionalist a manifesto work by Peter Zumthor such as the Terme di Vals
judging it with good reason as a «design experimentation that
favors the development of a strong culture full of identity, which
nevertheless keeps open contacts with the universal technique»
(Frampton 1983): although a solitary experience not ascribable to a
specific school, the analysis is particularly interesting also thanks
to Peter Handke's theoretical-interpretative filter. While Ettore
Vadini analyzing some points of Framptonian precepts verifies the
hypothesis that the Paulista School in its decline of modernism in a
specific way could be, yes in the vastness of the overall production,
attributable to regionalist architecture.
As demonstrated by his article, Nicola Pagnano imports into China a
contextual critical attitude that derives from an Italian and in
particular Venetian training, while on the contrary the Chinese majors
are exporting an uncritical attitude to the new Asian markets (India
and Africa in primis). acontextual and linguistically homogenizing in
reducing the different characters to banality.
Also for this reason the weighty theme of the globalization of cultures
will be taken up indirectly in one of the next issues (for which the
call for papers is still open) dedicated to tropical architecture in
Sub-Saharan Africa, i.e. that form of contextualism typical of tropical
band that finds in the geographical and climatic conditions the reason
for resistance to a real estate market also managed from the planning
point of view by foreign investors.
A new form of «economic neo-colonialism» as defined by Anna
Bruna Menghini which is part of that cyclical process of colonization
and decolonization of which the author clearly explains the historical
reasons for a loss of cultural identity and stylistic-figurative
hybridization. In anticipation of a new «African identity»
– perhaps it would be appropriate to speak in the plural of
specific identities for a vast and composite continent such as Africa
– projects by a (relatively) young and effervescent generation of
architects working in Africa are presented, whether they are indigenous
such as the Pritzker 2022 Diébédo Francis
Kéré (from Burkina Faso but trained in Germany) and David
Adjade (from Tanzania but trained in Great Britain) as well as
allochthonous such as TAM, the Caravatti brothers and others.
Not without reason Ludovico Micara appeals to the «compromise
between global thrusts linked to modernization [...] and resistances,
or rather, “existences”, of identities, traditions,
customs, uses». Thus, taking the theme of Islamic architecture as
an example (Islamic, of Islamic countries, etc.), the author presents
some of his projects in Tripoli in Libya and Yazd in Iran demonstrating
patient research between historical reasons and contextual that make
the interpretation of the place in its complexity and vastness the
origin of every transformation intervention.
Finally, Costantinos Doxiadis' Ekistica is the background to the
contribution of Ray Bromley who summarizes the principles of a
“science of human settlements” as a premise for the
development of a city on a human scale. Beyond the implicit visionary
nature of ekistic thought, the most significant contribution of
Doxiadis' experience is the audacity of the attempt to plan the future
of settlements in the complexity and totality of aspects. As history
teaches, visionaries, in addition to exerting a certain charm, have the
advantage of promoting discussion and stimulating innovation.
Faced with the current conditions of crisis (environmental, social and
urban), Alberto Ferlenga proposes a “new realism” instead
of a “new regionalism” (hence the title End of Regionalism)
based on the analysis of urban phenomena taking as a case study the
Italian city and therefore placing itself in continuity with the
tradition of studies interrupted half a century ago. “Learning
from the Italian city” to paraphrase the title of Francesco
Tentori's book on Venice, in turn derived from the more famous
“Learning from Las Vegas” by Venturi-Scott Brown.
I consider a final clarification necessary on a term as slippery as it
is abused and misunderstood even by many insiders such as that of Smart
City: after the first phase that psychoanalysts would call the
“honeymoon” between scholars, architects and the digital
world (the city of Bits, Smart City 2./3./4.0, etc.), the time is ripe
for the return to the responsibility of the architectural project in
the transformation of the city.
I already had the opportunity to express this concept a few years ago
by arguing that the truly intelligent city is one in which the project
is intelligent in its traditional, classic and ever-present forms (Smart Design for a Smart City,
N. 33 (2015)) . No technological-IT superstructure will be able to beat
the architectural project in terms of intelligence and efficiency (and
in this we also include the concept of sustainability, another often
abused term), if it is born contextually to the place and if it is not
spoiled by speculative pressures.
The traditional city, which arises from the balanced interaction
between climate, culture, myth and craft (i.e. mediated by the ability
of the architect), is the intelligent city par excellence. Calling it a
city of cultural resistance, a city of Critical Regionalism or a city
of New Realism, at this point is indifferent; the important thing is
that, as the latest Frampton underlines, "it can still make possible
the creation of a microcosm" that reflects the identity characteristics
of different cultures.
References
FRAMPTON K. (1980) – Critical Regionalism: modern architecture and cultural identity. In: Id., Modern Architecture: a Critical History, Thames and Hudson, London. Italian Translation (1982) – Storia dell’architettura moderna. Zanichelli, Bologna.
FRAMPTON K. (1983) – Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance, in Foster H., The Anti-Aesthetic, Bay Press, Seattle, Washington, pp. 16-30.
FRAMPTON K. (1984) – “Anti-tabula rasa: verso un
Regionalismo critico”, in «Casabella» n.500, march,
pp. 22-25.
PRANDI E. (2015)– “Smart design for a Smart City”, in
«FAM» n.33. DOI: 10.12838/fam/issn2039-0491/n33-2015/76