Letters.

CONNECTING CRITICALITY

SIR: There is a connectivity between Glasgow, Dublin, and Lisbon, not only in myth, which may offer a response to Kenneth Frampton's idea of Critical Regionalism.

Attending the perennially excellent Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland's annual conference, last year in Lisbon, was my first visit to the city. Portuguese architects and planners graciously lectured on the history of the country, the city and their place in European architecture. It was left to a young architect from Porto to outline the contemporary scene in Portugal. From the post-war radicalism of a young Alvaro Siza to the creative blend of old and new in the work of Eduardo Souto de Moura in Porto and the fine emerging architects who seem to gravitate towards these two masters. As a consequence Porto rather than Lisbon seems particularly rich in new architecture.

Vittorio Gregotti's massive Belem Cultural Centre in Lisbon (AR January 1998), though rich in regeneration potential for a neglected part of the city demands an appreciation of culture rather than permitting us to engage and seems at odds with the open nature of much of the new work such as Paula Santos' archaeological site welcome centre or Christina Guedes' cafe on Estiva.

Lisbon lies on a latitude approximating Athens and Ankara with a population rich in Arab and African origins - six flights per day to Casablanca. Yet this rich, mature contemporary modernism has more in common with Dublin or Glasgow - a basis in the architecture of Helsinki or Los Angeles or Tokyo as much as in its own history. Changes in economy and technology are, contrary to Peter Davey's assertions, a one-way street. Offering opportunities for a new response, but rather than emphasizing regional and cultural differences they act as environmental attenuators. Smoothing out an indigenous response. Architecture is no longer at the mercy of a specific economy, topography or climate. Even Ken Yeang is exportable.

By any millennial timescale, the third could have been said to begin on 11 September 2001. Proof, if it were needed, that certain cultural values are no longer indigenous but international, if not global. Information networks and virtual images ensure influences from across the planet. However, this is not a cybernetic revolution. In architecture, the Athens Charter of 1932 was drafted to ensure, through CIAM, a thoroughly European cultural mix. A concensus architecture, at least among architects.

Further, if we look at critical points in cultural development - Finland under Russian occupation, or Spain as the restoration of parliamentary monarchy produced a political background sound enough for the final impulse toward modernity - inward looking reference points were essential to ensure the preservation of the culture which was under threat of eradication. Nowhere more so than in Portugal where architects have a conviction that until the 'spring' of Marcelo Caetano the Bau Polizei conditioned the style of architecture to the regime.

With autonomy comes a self-confidence which finds a strength in the past but consigns it to its rightful place - in the past; and then looks forward and outward to influences from Europe and beyond. Whether Aalto in the 1930s or Miralles in the 1980s. Climate, topography, and context will always be there but architecture has to be a manifestation of something more. This is the connectivity.

Regionalism in its true sense, as Frampton defined it, now exists only where architecture is absolute - a battle for supremacy over context, climate and topography and where it is reliant on these for its birth. The Aga Khan awards in this sense illustrate regionalism at its finest.

Yours etc

GORDON C. MURRAY

Glasgow, Scotland

JUST SHOWING OFF?

SIR: At school there was a particularly unpopular boy who when trying to curry favour or make new friends would expose his genitals in the playground. It wasn't big and it wasn't clever.

While Sarah Wigglesworth may be anatomically unable to repeat the boy's act, she and Jeremy Till have however managed an architectural equivalent (AR January, pp 64-68).

By clearly striving for sensationalism they have produced their own peculiar brand of masturbatory architecture. This self-satisfying offering does not deserve to share the same binding as the finely crafted and truly creative architecture all too infrequently featured in AR January. That it should appear in an issue devoted to ecological matters is frankly bizarre.

Any building which encourages the critic to make references to the dark days of post-modernism is to be despised. There are no architectural jokes. The only occasions at which I have laughed aloud in response to any architectural offering is when the results are so pathetically poor it seems to be the only reasonable response. I'm sure Terry Farrell's egg cups keep him awake until late in the night as I hope the failed gabions, knackered shuttering ply and burst sacks at No. 9 Stock Orchard Street will haunt Wigglesworth and the eccentric professor for some time to come. Thank God they have to live with it.

My heart sinks when I learn that the building has already been listed as a contender for this year's building of the year. It wouldn't surprise me if the slags and the slappers of the RIBA got themselves in on 'the joke' (as the AR has) and dished out the gong at this year's freak show.

Yours etc

SHONA MORDAK

Lincolnshire, England

TRANSKEI TRAVESTY

SIR: As a South African architectural practice, we subscribe to the AR and await each edition eagerly. It is truly informative and a showcase for innovative design solutions around the world. Something irked me however when I read an article about the Museum at Mvezo at South Africa (AR November 2001, p44).

I've been to the buildings and found them truly publish-worthy. My gripe is with the description of Transkei as being one of the hated bantustans. I've lived on the border of the Transkei my whole life and have never heard the word bantustans used, nor was the Transkei a hated place. Most of the folks I grew up with (myself included) spent a big portion of their holidays in the Transkei, and owned property there on a tribal land scheme. We speak the local language and respect the cultures.

The Transkei was a homeland which failed to develop along with the rest of the country. It has many, many enormous problems, but I cannot perceive that it was hated, on any level except by an extreme few. The concept of separate development as proposed by apartheid regime and implemented in the form of homelands, was unacceptable, but that does not translate into a hatred of place. The people who originate in the Transkei are truly an independent culture, and I am sure have a sense of pride and belonging. The Transkei in particular was not a place people were forced to move to -- they lived there and always had. The Mvezo Museum is just one small example of the commitment that is being shown by the new regime to developing this area. For many South Africans and International tourists the Transkei, and particularly the Wild Coast, is one of the most pristine and beautiful areas. This asset, now the region's most valuable, paradoxically comes from being underdeveloped for many years. Unfortunately the region h as a very high crime rate which prevents it from reaching its full potential, but this is a different discussion.

It's just semantics at the end of the day, but I don't think it right to present the place in that way. I can't tell from the article who supposedly hated the place -- whites, blacks, both? It wasn't like that and it's unfair to make sweeping statements which account for a whole nation or group. There's always more to it than meets the eye. An architectural magazine is perhaps not the place to launch a political debate, although the buildings featured in it may well do this in their own right.

All this said, I am proud to today be working in this area, on reconstruction and development projects, righting the wrongs of the past.

Yours etc

URSULA SKELLERN-GOUWS

Toi Skellern Architects, Uvongo, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

AR+D BUT WHERE EMERGING?

SIR: Congratulations for a wonderful issue! (AR December 2001). Fantastic and inspiring works. What struck me is the fact that there are no projects from the United States featured in the above mentioned issue. What does it say about emerging architecture' in the US?

Yours etc

DROR BALDINGER

San Antonio, Texas, USA