REGIONALISM: TIME TO REVIEW AND RENEW.

Regionalism: Time to review and renew: While recent political events reveal a very dark side to Regionalism, the notion still deserves much further exploration in architecture, not least because new technologies and materials give the opportunity for developing a wealth of diverse buildings which could respond sympathetically to local cultures and climates.

Regionalism is not what it was. When Kenneth Frampton and others launched the proposal that local enclaves of culture could be a counter to the homogenization of the world, the ideal seemed brave and full of promise. A couple of decades later, the notion seems more problematical. Experiences of the Balkans, Chechnya, Ireland, the Basque lands, and Afghanistan show how drastically the ideal can become corrupted and lead to death rather than life. But it would be ridiculous to abandon Critical Regionalism because sometimes its political expressions have been dreadful and disgusting.

Regionalism is the opposite of the new global market order, which attempts to homogenize the world to ensure the success of giant international corporations which in the name of serving consumers, actually pander to the lowest common denominators of function and sensibility. In building, the drear clasp of such thinking can be seen from Peru to Peking, Norway to New Zealand in deadly dull commercial buildings, soulless suburbs and vast areas of agricultural monoculture. Yet the global market does provide prosperity (at least to the developed countries).

Nature more powerful than the market

As its protagonists suggest, the market may possibly be a mechanism for improving the life of everyone in the world. But our lives, and the life of the planet, are in some ways much degraded by the unrestricted activities of the market, which has expression in some of the most fashionable architecture today. Hence for instance the plastic, plasticine world of Rem Koolhaas. And the endless gesturing of Peter Eisenman, or Daniel Libeskind, who in their different (and sometimes similar) ways, are paradoxically trying to show that they have not been seduced by commerce by always trying to shove themselves into the limelight. It often seems that we are faced with a future in which dullness and stupidity can only be countered by flash fash.

Yet, while we may be in thrall to apparently implacable forces, however much fashionable architects line their pockets with cringing subservience. to an anti-human system, we must not despair because there are much more powerful forces at work. The planet will fight back. The world is totally indifferent to species. As James Lovelock has explained, Gaia looks after itself. If we behave immoderately, we shall become extinct. Global warming (now accepted as a phenomenon by almost every sensible person), is only one aspect of our lack of proper relationship to our environment: pollution, deforestation and excessive exploitation will all combine to make the earth less welcoming. We shall make the planet inhospitable to ourselves - yet other species will grow and flourish in even the most hostile (to us) environments. If worms can live at the bottom of the ocean nourished by sulphur dioxide on peaks of unseen volcanoes, can you believe that the human race is going to last for ever, and that others will not be able to thrive in the planet whatever we do to it? If we are going to survive, we must join the natural forces of the planet in harmony.

Regionalism is one of the instruments through which we can begin to do that. Almost by definition, regionalist architecture responds thoughtfully to local topography and seasons. It almost always draws on lessons learned from buildings inherited from the past, which were gradually honed by experience of generations to make economical and rational responses to climate and materials. This is no plea for vulgar replication or folkish kitsch a la Prince Charles. Our problems are very different from those of our ancestors. For one thing, labour is (rightly) much more expensive than it used to be in the developed world. This means that if you want to build a replica Cotswold cottage or a Calabrian farmstead today, you must almost inevitably fake it up at great expense.

While changes in economy and technology take away with one hand, they give back with the other. For instance, high performance glass, new insulation systems, the relatively cheap availability of well made industrial products, modern horticulture, and computer-controlled heating and cooling systems offer amazing opportunities for making new kinds of buildings that respond to regional cultures. But for all the developments and opportunities offered by modern technology, basic lessons remain unaltered. Instead of having identical office blocks from the Arctic to Australasia, we should have many different types, each responding to local climate and to the ways in which people are used to working together. Mass, shade and convection should still be our fundamental ways of dealing with interior climate control. Siting (location as the estate agents say) is, as always, still one of the key factors in creating

successful buildings.

Commitment to diversity

In the dimension of politics, regionalism is far from being entirely bad. In Europe for instance, there is a renaissance in local cultures the Scots now have their own parliament; in Switzerland, Romansch grows in importance with a thriving literature; and even in Norway, with its tiny population, Nynorsk and Samisk are official languages, as well as the orthodox Riksmal (AR September 2001). Germany, with the extraordinarily varied and distinct cultures of the Lander is an example to us all: a Bavarian would hate to be taken for a Prussian, a citizen of Lubeck would not want to be mistaken for a Franconian. Yet they are all German and seem to get on perfectly well together. Germany has the third biggest economy in the world, and the first two, Japan and the United States, in different ways, also have distinct (if less well pronounced) regional cultures. Paradoxically, this plurality is achievable largely because of the riches that the global economy brings.

What matters in all countries, rich and poor alike, is a commitment to diversity, to prevention of environmental rape, to particularity against sludge, to focus against endless anomie, to tenderness against indifference. In this effort, our profession has much to offer, both in ideas and by example.