COP3 - Critical Regionalism

Critical Regionalism

As a mid point between modernism and postmodernism (cultural diversity)

Critical regionalism isn't a term within typography but it is a great was of looking at past and present styles being inspirational, looking at the modernism in overall aesthetic as well as the regional tastes and ideas that make sure there is a connection to the place they have been designed.

The examples of architecture are all critical regionalism. There could be an argument to try and implement this into typography and graphic design.

Quotes on critical regionalism

The case can be made that Critical Regionalism is a cultural strategy is a much a bearer of world culture as it is a vehicle of universal civilisation. And while it is obviously misleading to conceive of our inheriting world culture to the same degree as we are all heirs to universal civilisation , it is nonetheless evident that since we are in principle, subject to the impact of both, that we have no choice but to take cognisance today of their interaction. Pg 23 - Foster, H., 2017. The Anti-aesthetic. New Press. - Towards a critical regionalism.

That critical regionalism cannot be simply based on the autochthonous for of a specific region alone was well put by the Californian architect Hamilton Harrell Harris when he wrote, now nearly thirty years ago: Opposed to the Regionalism of Restriction is another type of regionalism, the Regionalism of Liberation. This is the manifestation of a region that is especially in tune with the emerging thought go the time. We call such manifestation “regional” only because it has not yet emerged elsewhere… A region may develop ideas. A region may accept ideas. Imagination and intelligence are necessary for both. In California in the late Twenties and Thirties modern Europeans ideas met a still developing regionalism. In New England, on the other hand, European Modernism met a rigid and restrictive regionalism that at first resisted and then surrendered. New England accepted European Modernism whole because its own regionalism had been reduced to a collection of restrictions. - Pg 24 - Foster, H., 2017. The Anti-aesthetic. New Press. - Towards a critical regionalism. - Kenneth Frampton

The fundamental strategy of Critical Regionalism is to mediate the impact of universal civilisation with elements derived indirectly from the peculiarities of a particular place. - Pg 23 - Foster, H., 2017. The Anti-aesthetic. New Press. - Towards a critical regionalism. - Kenneth Frampton

It may find its governing inspiration in such things as the range and quality of local light, or in tectonic derived from a peculiar structural mode, or in the topography of a given site. - Pg 23 - Foster, H., 2017. The Anti-aesthetic. New Press. - Towards a critical regionalism. - Kenneth Frampton


In this regard the practice of Critical Regionalism is contingent upon a process of double mediation. In the first place, it has to ‘deconstruct’ the overall spectrum of world culture which it inevitably inherits; in the second place, it has to achieve, through synthetic contradiction, a manifest critique of universal civilisation.

- Pg 23 - Foster, H., 2017. The Anti-aesthetic. New Press. - Towards a critical regionalism. - Kenneth Frampton