TROPICAL ARCHITECTURE: CRITICAL REGIONALISM IN THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION.

Edited by Alexander Tzonis, Liane Lefaivre an Bruno Stagno. London: Wiley-Academy. 2001 [pound]24.95

This collection of essays is the product of 1998 symposium in Costa Rica organized b Bruno Stagno, one of the three editors. There are diverse contributions by theorists, historians of colonial-era architecture and ideologically committed designers such as Ken Yeang Tay Keng Soon, Severiano Porto and Stagno himself. The other two editors, Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre, who claim to have on mated the concept of critical regionalism (not Kenneth Frampton as is widely thought), contribute two chapters. Sensibly, the editors embrace the differences in the essays as a necessary part of their critical approach, which they argue has to do with the reinterpretation, or 'defamiliarization' of regional models.

There is also one inexplicable editorial gaffe. In their introduction, Lefaivre and Tzonis quote from the essay on globalization by Gerado Mosquera, which they say the author describes as '... an effective interconnection of the whole planet by means of a reticular network of communication and exchange'. What Mosquera actually says is: 'What we call globalization does not consist of an effective interconnection...', and goes on to present a far more complex picture, full of ambiguities and contradictions.

Mosquera's chapter is one of the better ones in a mixed bag. Question is, will this book leave readers any the wiser about what critical regionalism means? The answer is a qualified 'yes', mainly because of the excellent exposition by Lefaivre and Tzonis in chapter 2 of Lewis Mumford's earlier writings on regionalism, which underpin their own position.