REGIONALISM AS CULTURAL REGENERATION : AN ARCHITECTURAL IDEOLOGY SEEKING TO SYNTHESISE THE TENETS OF MODERNISM AND TRADITION

Abstract

Regionalism has many dimensions, political, economic, social, anthropological and architectural. This thesis focuses on one aspect, the response in architecture to a comparatively recent shift in global values away from universalism towards a regionally centred view. The thesis demonstrates that Regionalism in Architecture is not an attitude which is axiomatically formed in relation to the International style within Modernism but that there is a growing desire in countries in the Third World to define an identity and to re-establish cultural continuity. The break in continuity with the cultural heritage is perceived to be the result of colonialism and/or rapid urbanisation. This has been exacerbated in many cases by so-called neo-colonialism. Regionalism is an architectural ideology, which seeks to synthesise the tenets of modernism and tradition. The thesis places Asia in the context of the international debate on this issue, identifying the work of architects in India, Japan, Malaysia and Sri Lanka whose work expresses various strands of Regionalism in Architecture. A Taxonomy of Regionalism is devised which is used to evaluate selected buildings in Singapore. Further directions for research are suggested, including an analysis of the semantic properties of Regionalism models and their ability to communicate meaning.