1st Edition
Region
This book explores how the concept of ‘region’ has evolved over time and shaped architectural culture and practice. It questions what the words ‘region’ and ‘regional’ mean for architecture, cities and landscapes past and present, and speculates on the forms they might take in the future. Region is explored in many thematic guises: as a real geographical site of evolving socio-economic activity; as a mythical locus of enduring value; as a gatekeeper of indigenous crafts and vernacular techniques; as a site of architectural and artistic imagination; as a repository of contested, conflicted and mobile identities. The contributing chapters take these themes from the theoretical and literary page through to architectural and urban practice, and from the scale of the domestic hearth through to the ocean archipelago and international law, enriching the long-standing trope of viewing architectural regionalism purely as a matter of style. Curated into four key thematic areas – Theorised Regions, Contested Regions, Heritage Regions and Future Regions – the book incorporates the values, concerns and approaches of a truly diverse international community of scholars, curators and practitioners, as well as the design work of international students tasked to explore what region means to them.
Part 1: THEORISED REGIONS
- A ‘true organ of Humanity’: on the Anti-feminist Architectural Regionalism of Comtean Positivism in Victorian Britain
- The Question Concerning Types: A Review
- Four decades on three fronts: the unfinished projects of Critical Regionalism
- On the Unique Intertwining of Region, Nature, and Architecture in Norway
- On ‘Region’: Alterity and Regional Encounters in a Postcolonial Archipelago
- The Azorean archipelago: the invention of a political region
- Dismantling the Territorial Exclusions
- Holding the Street: An Assemblage of Nicosia’s Borders
- The implications of power on the status of women in society and its reciprocal relationship with the home space in Azerbaijan, Iran
- How Wealth Kills Craft
- Material Culture and Decolonisation: Post-Partition Lahore
- Southwestern Fantasy: Pueblo Revival and regional authenticity in New Mexico
- The Mediterranean: Between Vernacular and Contemporary. Tradition, Modernity and Tourism in the Architecture of Germán Rodríguez Arias
- The Case of Capri: Landscape, Regional Culture and Modern Architecture
- Oscillating between cosmos and roots: the case of Geoffrey Bawa and his architecture
- Designing for adaptability and sustainability in regional architecture: lessons from residences in North East Brazil
- Infrastructural Peripheries in the City-Region: Airport Spatial Influences
Matthew Wilson
Davide Landi
Stylianos Giamarelos
Marta Piórkowska
Part 2: CONTESTED REGIONS
Amanda Achmadi
Inês Vieira Rodrigues
Esra Can
George Themistokleous
Neda Abbasimaleki and Cagri Sanliturk
Part 3: HERITAGE REGIONS
Dana Buntrock
Mehwish Abid and Ghiasuddin Pir
Harrison Blackman
María Sebastián Sebastián
Part 4: FUTURE REGIONS
Klaus Tragbar
Mengbi Li and Hing-Wah Chau
Mila Santos et al.
Nuria Casais Pérez and Ferran Grau Valldosera
Part 5: REIMAGINING THE ARTEFACT
The Infinity Porch
Christina Slotkowski
Mythical-ities: Spatial transcriptions of votive offerings dedicated to the Nymphs
Dimitris Moutafidis
A Wild Plant of Life
Irina Nikolaeva
Forget-me-Not
Lizzie Eves, Prity Chatterjee and Zsofi Veres
Mis-reading
Hossein Arshadi
Wound-up. Waxed. Rotted
Yafei Li
Yuanlin Region and Piranesi Region
Yiming Liu
Panam: The Lost City of Muslin
Nafiz Ahmed and Farah Nusrat
New Babylon
Vishwal Gowda
Resurrecting Architectural Ghosts [An Anticipation of Collective Memory]
Law Kai Xiang
Biography
Simon Richards is a Senior Lecturer in Architectural History and Theory at Loughborough University. An art historian by training, his research and publications focus on the themes of comparative aesthetics, architectural tradition and heritage, as well as environmental psychology and philosophy. His previous books include Le Corbusier and the Concept of Self (Yale 2003) and Architect Knows Best: Environmental Determinism in Architecture Culture from 1956 to the Present (Ashgate 2016), and he is currently collaborating on a major project on Constantinos Doxiadis and the Delos Symposia.
Robert Schmidt III is a Reader in Architectural Design at Loughborough University and leads the Adaptable Futures Group. His practice experience includes an extended period in New York with the prestigious and award-winning firm, Herb Beckhard and Frank Richlan (HB+FR), and he has received numerous plaudits for his design work including the Jeffrey J. Pilling Scholarship for Excellence in Design and the Pella Architectural Scholarship. Robert’s research focuses on the themes of adaptability and re-use, on which he has published several papers and books.
Cagri Sanliturk is a Lecturer in Architecture and Politics at Loughborough University. His research and publications focus on the relation between theory and practice, seeking to understand architecture through the lenses of politics, performance art, visual art and narrative. He is particularly interested in exploring everyday life and spatial practices, often in situ with real communities, and in tracing how these relate to the controlling power within conflicted and divided societies.
Garyfalia (Falli) Palaiologou is a Senior Lecturer in Urban Design at Loughborough University. Previously, she was Research Fellow at the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture at the Space Syntax Laboratory, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Falli’s research and publications concern the study of urban form through urban morphology and mapping methodologies, revealing the processes of urban change in a diverse range of settings from inner city residential typologies through to UNESCO heritage landscapes.
