Neo defamiliarism for modern architecture

Neo-defamiliarism for modern architecture M.arch 1 / 2013990773 / WEN Fan

1. Rethinking of critical regionalism 1.1 History of regionalism

With the globalization trend, architects concern about the regional nature of architecture again. This kind of concern does not appear for the first time: In the 17 th century, people tried to express their thinking about the regional nature through landscape gardens, with informal composition and concern about kinds of events, to avoid the unity and universality with France; in the 19th century, architects tried to emphasize the regional nature so as to call attention to the regional identity and civics’ rights; while from the last decades of 19th century to the first half of the 20th century, this discourse had nothing to do with the national liberation movement any more, but developed to be used as a commercial tool which finally got over-familiarized.[1]

With this background, Lewis Mumford redefined the concept of regionalism in his book “Sticks and Stones, American Architecture and Civilization” in 1924. In this book, he claimed that rather than being in the opposite side of the globalization, regionalism should be fused with that actively and it would be more effective if we could add a universal thinking onto the term “regionalism”. After that, we can easily see the continuation of Mumford’s theory in Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre’s

discussion about critical regionalism. They admitted the fact that globalization happened everywhere in a high speed, and with the deep-going of that trend, the world would probably eventually become a “world-realms”, which first introduced by Melvin Webber, in a post-industrial society. So, they considered the only solution for this was to find some balance between the nature of global and the nature of region in architecture. Frampton also expressed some similar viewpoints in his article” Critical Regionalism: Modern Architecture and Cultural Identity”.

1.2 The limitations of critical regionalism

Then, what did they mean by saying critical regionalism exactly? Briefly speaking, they did not make a quite clear and definite definition of critical regionalism, which was indistinct and could only tell what NOT to do rather than what to do. In their theories, the critical regionalism was ever changing, and adjustable for the surrounding material, culture and political environment, like the Blob created by Greg Lynn. It was more like a strategy rather than a definite concept or method. Actually, the critical regionalism itself was more like a paradox: on one hand, it tried to protect the regional culture which seemed in a dangerous condition, from being invaded by the universal and rational culture, which was the common purpose for the several similar discourses in history; on the other hand, in order to resist going back to the past with a nostalgic style, it raised up the so-called Defamiliarization method, which actually was quite universal and rational, and emphasized modern rational thinking. In

fact, the real regional nature of architecture was generated organically through centuries, and those created by rational critical regionalism and declared to be generated from the local culture were actually not regional at all.

What critical regionalism refused to do was an imitation of the past, with just simply copying in a symbolic way, and it encouraged a deep understanding and re-creation on the basis of real regional nature, rather than an over-familiarization. Then the question is whether there is always really a regional nature for every culture. If yes, then what it is, and how it can be discovered. Critical regionalism did not give answer to the question, actually it cannot as there’s no such stable nature. Then the defamiliarization failed to be established.

In fact, though they would not like to admit, they were still thinking in a top-down way when saying either regionalism or critical regionalism, as they were trying to find a universal way for all architects and all architecture to achieve a balance between regional and global. So when people talking about critical regionalism, it seems talking about more or less the same thing for what Chinese architects do in Beijing, what Portuguese architects do in Portugal and what Brazil architects do in Sao Paulo.

However, actually, what architects do in each country or even each village is totally different.

1.3 Neo-defamiliarism for modern architecture

As mentioned above, defamiliarization is a strategy raised up by the critical regionalists to resist the over-familiarization. However, it is a top-down way in the operation level, which cannot be developed into a universal method. As for the conflict between regional and global culture, a defamiliarization of the previous KNOWLEDGE in head for architects will be more important, meaningful and effective than that of the previous architectural form, material, color or structure.

2. Defamiliarism introduction and practices 2.1 The definition of regional nature

Every architecture has its regional nature. The definition of regional nature is completely different from that of regionalism. The former one is a kind of inborn nature, while the latter one is a kind of method, which tries to keep a balance between the regional nature and the global culture.

2.1.1 Origins of the regional nature

The regional nature is exactly what we want to protect under such a globalization trend. Then where does the regional nature come from? It’s quite complex. When considering how the regional nature of architecture in a village forms, we often make

reference to the topography, the local culture, the climate, even the human evolution [2]

. Actually, the regional nature is so complicated that it is not defined by a single

factor while it is a result affected by all the factors. We can take a quick review in the dwelling houses, which can mostly show the influences from every aspect. The house form is affected by climate, material, construction technology, site (topography), protection, economic condition, religion, etc. Even in the same climate and same topography with the same materials, the house forms can appear totally different [3].

Figure 1.Houses built in different forms with same materials

Some people may think climate should be the decisive factor for house forms as people build houses for resisting bad climate firstly. However, you can find many opposite examples that show how people build their houses “ignoring� the climate factor. In Japan and China, many house forms are decided by the social class, and in some other countries, they are decided by religion [4].

Figure 2.House forms designed for protection in Latin America

Particularly, the regional nature is ever changing with the time. For instance, in a period, the local people would like to use a kind of stone, but when they learned the skills to make bricks and they just had the materials in their region, the regional nature of material may change; in a time of history, people in a village may had no sense of security, so they built their houses in a close form, but with the development of the surrounding situation, they may get open to the outside, and then all things changed.

Figure 3.The traditional Tulou and new dwelling house forms in the villages in Fujian

So, the regional nature is organic, ever changing, and cannot be rationally generated or imitated in a globalized way of thinking.

2.1.2 Difference between the vernacular architecture and modern architecture

Actually, architecture can be simply divided into two groups: vernacular architecture and modern architecture. Paul Oliver made a clear definition of vernacular architecture in 1997 that: indigenous, anonymous (thus built without architect), spontaneous, folk, traditional and rural should be the most important features of vernacular architecture

[5]

. Then the regional nature is mostly expressed through the

vernacular architecture, as they are really generated from the local climate, culture and materials, etc. Though the vernacular architecture is not designed by professional architects in most of the time, but it is certainly directed by some local artisans, who learned architecture and building skills from an elder member of his community, and then handed down to the next generation.

So, apparently, the local artisans know the regional nature most rather than anyone else. And what makes the regional nature come out is just the process that the artisans build the architecture, which is completely different from what modern architects do in other areas.

Let’s take the traditional Anhui-style ancestral temple for example.

Figure 4. Plan of the Gao’s ancestral temple

Figure 5. Ground levels of different rooms in several ancestral temples

When building an ancestral temple, the local artisans will make it with the following sequence: initially, they will build the basement for the whole temple, which would be the most important step. When the earth seems soft, they often add some pines to make it harder, and all these procedures are done together with the local masons and slaters. After making the basement, they will try to define the ground levels of different areas in the temple. Normally, the antechamber and the memorial hall will be in the highest level, while the court yards will be in the lowest level, as they think this will hold the fortune. Particularly, when building dwelling houses, they follow the same rules, which will help the backside rooms get more sunshine, and help the wooden memorial tablet keep dry in all seasons. At the same time of defining the levels, they will also define the orientations with the help of the Master Fengshui, and define the exact dimensions of all the rooms, the amount and size of the wood to be used. Most of the time, they define all these elements not by any rational knowledge, but by some pithy formulas taught by the elder. How much pithy formulas an artisan knows decides how professional he is in building houses. After all the ground elements get defined, they will then look into the different rooms in sections, which mainly care about the roof and the structure. Different rooms will have different functions and height, width, structure, material, and even proportion.

Figure 6. Proportion of the rooms in an ancestral temple.

All of these skills of different artisans are not learned from books, but from some practical

experience

taught by the elder.

Then what a globalized educated architect will do when he receives the

same

building

order? They will not Figure 7. Typical structure and roof in the Gao’s ancestral temple.

know

all

of

the

affecting elements in this region, and just start from the typical designing method they are familiar with. And try to add as much as possible the regional features in the end to declare

it

is

a

“regionalism” design.

Hence, we can easily Figure 8. Three kinds of roof in the ancestral temples.

know

the

huge

difference in way of thinking when designing a new building will make it quite difficult for modern architects to reserve or protect what they think should be the regional nature in practice. The only way to the real regional nature for modern architects is firstly a defamiliarization of their previous modern architectural knowledge, such as the normal procedures when designing architecture, the common perspective such as sections, elevations, plans or massing when thinking about architecture, and then they should have a familiarization of the vernacular language.

2.2 Methods for responding to regional nature

However, as has been talked for so many times, globalization is still spreading around the world in a high speed, and it’s impossible to resist its invasion. While on the other hand, it is also difficult to build all the buildings with the local artisans. So the defamiliarization means different things for the local architects or artisans and the globalized modern architects. For the former group, they need a defamiliarization of their experience of building in their region, but still make a re-creation based on their previous experience; while for the latter group, what they need is a defamiliarization of the globalized modern knowledge.

2.3 Case study

Actually, the basic spatial arrangement will not be that different, but what makes

difference is what they choose to use and how they build it.

Figure 9. Structure of the Huacun Primary School.

The Huacun Primary School in Sichuan designed by ZHU Tao can be a good example. It is a project with a limited budget which is very small, so the architect had no other way but to make it in a quite regional Figure 10. Typical regional structure in Sichuan

way: with the local structure,

the local material, and the local labor. It seems the project is not designed by a professional architect, but by some local artisans: the corridors, the bricks, and the roofs. It’s so ordinary that cannot be easily distinguished from the surrounding architecture. However, we can still see some details that show the architecture is designed by an educated architect: the holes over the corridor for getting more sunshine and the little-curved roof. All what an architect does here is just to make some tiny “modern” changes onto the “regional” architecture. The most interesting

thing is that, the workers who are just some farmers from the surrounding villages will often suspend their work for their farming, and then come back after the harvesting seasons. The project is more like a work of the local residents rather than the architect.

Figure 11. Light wells and the curve roof

And we can also see some projects which are designed in the opposite ways. The Jiujiantang villa is designed by Rocco YIM, which declares to be a modern traditional villa. Though it tries to imitate the traditional Chinese garden, the traditional roof, the traditional spacial sequence, it still looks like a museum rather than a house, commented by the local residents, as it is just a modern villa with some traditional elements added.

Figure 12. The Jiujiantang Villa (Designed by Rocco YIM)

However, there are also some architects who design in other ways. As talked above, the regional nature is organic and ever changing, so it can only be described there and then. Many architects claimed that, what they designed for a great project can be totally damaged by the workers in China, as their constructing skills are quite poor.

However, this is not the workers’ fault, but just shows the fault of architects, and the different dealing strategies of modern architects and vernacular artisans: the local artisans will know exactly what materials they have, how much money they have, what problems they are facing and what they can do in mind, and will not gain such a risk of construction on their projects. So, eventually, they can get what they want, and express the regional nature best.

Figure 13. Construction detail of the Guangzhou Grand Opera (stone curve has been replaced by concrete)

Figure 14. Construction detail of the Guangzhou Grand Opera (painting on the concrete)

Figure 15. Construction detail of the Guangzhou Grand Opera (polygonal boundary)

We can learn more about how local material and technique affects architecture and its regional nature by reading LIU Jiakun’s works.

Most of LIU’s works are located in the west of China, where it is less globalized. He thought what he did was actually a resistance to “architecture�, as the works are more like vernacular architecture without architects rather than something can be described as architecture in our mind. He showed his respect to the local technique, the local wisdom, the local material, the local prototype, the local forms, and most importantly, the grass-root culture and the building strategies used by the local artisans rather than the elite culture and the modern architectural strategies. LIU thought he was just dealing with the reality. However, that is just what the artisans think [6].

For example, he tried to use the pale gray concrete like Ando and many other architects in China, but he finally chose to use a combination of concrete and shale brick wall, as the workers know more about the technology of bricks. And as the concrete and brick structure is the most commonly used in the area, he also chose this for most of his projects, and designed around walls, which are the most important elements in this structure system [7].

Figure 16. Combination of concrete and Shale brick wall

Figure 17. Material used by LIU and the rough finished surface

And he also never tried to make super-flat finished surface, but just let it be what it can be. It’s an attitude learned from the local artisans.

3 Conclusions

Actually, the cases given above are not simply indicating architects should know well

about the local material, local technique, local climate, local topography, or the other factors. When giving the same design order, why will the vernacular artisans and the modern architects make the different buildings, even if they are all based on the same influencing factors mentioned above? The answer to the question is that, they are thinking in different ways: the modern architects are just trying to collage the regional nature to their globalized architectural designs, while the local artisans are learning from the modern architecture with what they think can be useful in the region.

Though both of these two kinds of architecture can be described as modern regional, but the former one is modern in nature, while the latter one is regional in nature, they are substantially opposite.

Hence, the only way to achieve a real regional nature of architecture is a defamiliarization of the previous knowledge, to temporally forget what learned from the modern architectural system, and get a familiarization of the local building knowledge, then come back to pick out what you consider useful from your architectural memory. It is just like a post-educated vernacular artisan.

However, it is easier to do so in rural regions, as there’s strong regional nature, and artisans who can tell the nature. Then how about in the cities, where the culture is highly mixed, the population is constituted by different nations, and the materials and techniques have almost no limitation? It can be a more complicated question for architects to explore in the future.

NOTES:

[1]王颖. "对“批判的地域主义”的批判性阅读." [In Chinese]. 建筑师 129, no.

2007-10 (200710 2007): 6.

[2]Amos Rapoport, House Form And Culture (Prentice-Hall, 1989),17.

[3]2.Rapoport, House Form And Culture,23.

[4]Ibid., 30.

[5]单军. " 批判的地区主义批判及其他." [In Chinese]. 建筑学报, no. 2000-11 (200011 2000): 22.

[6]刘家琨,此时此地(北京:中国建筑工业出版社，2002),16 [7]2.刘家琨,此时此地,17

IMAGES:

Figure 1: Amos Rapoport, House Form And Culture (Prentice-Hall, 1989),26.

Figure 2: Amos Rapoport, House Form And Culture (Prentice-Hall, 1989),30.

Figure 3: Http://tupian.baike.com/8524/11.html Figure 4: Surveying and mapping work of the writer Figure 5: Surveying and mapping work of the writer Figure 6: Surveying and mapping work of the writer Figure 7: Surveying and mapping work of the writer Figure 8: Surveying and mapping work of the writer

Figure 9: 朱涛. "华存希望小学,通山乡,中江县,德阳,四川,中国." [In Chinese]. 世 界建筑, no. 2008-07 (200807 2008): 54.

Figure 10: 王赵晓. "四川盆地传统民居地域特质与形成." [In Chinese]. 重庆建筑, no. 2004-S1 (2004S1 2004): 106.

Figure 11: 朱涛. "华存希望小学,通山乡,中江县,德阳,四川,中国." [In Chinese]. 世 界建筑, no. 2008-07 (200807 2008): 54.

Figure 12: http://www.rocco.hk/#/zh/projects,typology,featured-project/jiu-jian-tang Figure 13: http://blog.sina.com.cn/hzrenseng/ Figure 14: http://blog.sina.com.cn/hzrenseng/ Figure 15: http://blog.sina.com.cn/hzrenseng/ Figure 16: 刘家琨,此时此地(北京:中国建筑工业出版社，2002),21.

Figure 17: 刘家琨,此时此地(北京:中国建筑工业出版社，2002),23.

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