Transcultural Architecture : the Limits and Opportunities of Critical Regionalism.

221 Pages·2016·3.342 MB·English

by  Thorsten Botz-Bornstein

TransculTural archiTec Ture
Reproduced by permission of photographer Naquib Hossein. © Naquib Hossein.
Transcultural architecture
The limits and Opportunities of critical regionalism
Thorsten Botz-Bornstein
Gulf University for Science and Technology, Kuwait
© Thorsten Botz-Bornstein 2015
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Thorsten Botz-Bornstein has asserted his right under the copyright, Designs and
Patents act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
Published by
ashgate Publishing limited ashgate Publishing company
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
a catalogue record for this book is available from the British library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Botz-Bornstein, Thorsten.
Transcultural architecture : the limits and opportunities of critical regionalism / By
Thorsten Botz-Bornstein.
pages cm
includes bibliographical references and index.
isBn 978-1-4724-6341-8 (hardback) -- isBn 978-1-4724-6342-5 (ebook) -- isBn 978-
1-4724-6343-2 (epub) 1. regionalism in architecture. 2. architecture, Modern--20th
century. 3. architecture, Modern--21st century. i. Title.
na682.r44B68 2015
724'.6--dc23
2015010327
isBn 9781472463418 (hbk)
isBn 9781472463425 (ebk – PDF)
isBn 9781472463432 (ebk – ePuB)
Printed in the united Kingdom by henry ling limited,
at the Dorset Press, Dorchester, DT1 1hD
Contents
List of Figures ix
About the Author xiii
Acknowledgments xv
Note on the use of East-Asian names xvii
Introduction: Critical Critical Regionalism or From Regionalism
to Transculturalism 1
1. Transculturalism 2
2. Defense of Critical Regionalism 3
3. Different Critical Regionalisms 3
4. The Chapters 4
1 Reima Pietilä’s Kuwait Buildings Revisited: About the Limits of
Transcultural Architecture 9
Introduction 9
1. “City of Kuwait: A Future Concept” 10
2. The Sief Palace Buildings 19
3. Transcultural Architecture 37
4. The Ministry Transformed 47
5. Conclusions 68
2 Empathy, Abstraction, Style, Non-Style:
Reima Pietilä’s Philosophy 81
Introduction 81
1. Style and Non-Style 81
2. Empathy and Abstraction 83
3. Regionalism 84
4. Ironical Regionalism 85
5. “Making Things Strange” 86
6. Empathy and Alienation in the Architecture of Alvar Aalto and
Reima Pietilä 89
7. Lifestyle 91
8. Dream 92
9. Conclusion 94
vi TRANSCuLTuRAL ARChITECTuRE
3 “Magic Internationalism” or the Paradox of Globalization:
Louis Kahn’s National Assembly Complex in
Dhaka, Bangladesh 99
Introduction 99
1. Metaphors, Symbols, Irony: Kahn and Pietilä 101
2. The hermeneutics of Style 102
4 Wang Shu and the Possibilities of
Critical Regionalism in China 107
Introduction 107
1. Wang Shu 108
2. The Possibilities of Critical Regionalism in China 112
3. Conclusions 117
5 When the Monumental Becomes Decorative:
Thoughts on Contemporary Chinese Architecture 121
Introduction 121
1. Architecture in hangzhou 121
2. The Semantics of Monuments 123
3. Stammering Monumentality 125
4. Nietzsche: The Decorative vs. the Monumental 126
5. Monuments and Identity in China 127
6 Play, Dream, and the Search for the “Real” Form of Dwelling:
From Aalto to Ando 129
Introduction 129
1. Anti-rationalism of Play in Aalto and Ando 130
2. Ando’s “Dreamlike Anti-Rationalism” 132
3. Conclusion 134
7 Wittgenstein’s Stonborough House and the
Architecture of Tadao Ando 137
Introduction 137
1. Simplicity 139
2. Form of Life 139
3. Emptiness, Silence 140
4. Body Architecture, Architecture as Gesture 140
5. Dreams 141
8 Cardboard Houses with Wings: The Architecture of Alabama’s
Rural Studio 143
Introduction 143
1. Kitsch Culture and Junk Culture 144
2. Regionalism and Kitsch 146
3. Colonial Space and Third World Architecture 148
CoNTENTS vii
9 H-Sang Seung: Design is not Design 151
Introduction 151
1. h-Sang Seung 153
2. Seung and the “Right Way of Living” 154
3. Landscript 157
4. Landscript and the Culture of Writing 159
5. Conclusion 162
10 The Secularization of the Architectural Heritage through
Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia 163
Introduction 163
1. Some General Thoughts on Conservation 164
2. The Case of Saudi Arabia 165
3. The Wahhabi Interpretation of Islam 167
4. The Past and the Sacred 168
5. Comparisons 170
6. Religion, Culture and Deculturation 173
7. Critical Regionalism 174
8. Conclusion 176
Conclusion 179
Land, Place, and “Form of Life” 181
Bibliography 185
Index 199
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List of Figures
1 Reima Pietilä’s Kuwait of the “T” to be “flanked
Buildings Revisited: About by parking structures, four
the Limits of Transcultural stories high, and new buildings”
Architecture 1.6 Plan of the three
buildings. Reproduced
1.1 The area of greater Kuwait city by permission of Pietilä
1.2 Within the black line is Archive in the Helsinki
Kuwait’s Old City which Museum of Architecture
today represents only 1.7 Today the Sief Palace Area
around 4 percent of is dominated by the “New”
Kuwait’s urban area New Sief Palace
1.3 Sketches from the archive 1.8 One of the two authentic
show that Pietilä has Sief Palace buildings from 1907
been obsessed with 1.9 The addition to the Sief
a T-form as an urban Palace by Pearce, Hubbard
planning concept for and Partners from 1963.
the old city. Reproduced Being originally made of
by permission of Pietilä yellow bricks, the central
Archive in the Helsinki façade has been painted in pink
Museum of Architecture 1.10 Pietilä’s philosophical
1.4 Aerial view of the musings about the reality
waterfront prior to large of Kuwait (Pietilä Archive
scale destruction of the Helsinki). Reproduced
traditional fabric by permission of Pietilä
1.5 Approaching the Sief area Archive in the Helsinki
from the land side today. Museum of Architecture
On the right hand side is 1.11 Pietilä’s Sief Palace Extension
the stock exchange. Pietilä 1.12 Extension archway with
wanted the central shaft use of blue and green tiles