ABSTRACT
This book has presented several architects whose work can be linked to Critical Regionalism. It has also considered cases where a critical regionalist attitude was lacking. The diversity of the scenarios shows that Critical Regionalism is more than a mere resistance movement using local styles in order to resist globalization. Pietilä, when working in Kuwait, adhered to no clear form of “Finnishness” or “Arab style” and the Ministry is, according to the terminology that could be derived from his theoretical writings, absolutely “styleless.” As a result, it is difficult to rephrase the Ministry’s language in terms of resistance: the regional does not merely resist international tendencies by applying identifiable local themes but Pietilä creates a completely new transcultural language. Still the architecture of the Ministry corresponds to that of Critical Regionalism. It could actually be characterized as the most self-critical form of Critical Regionalism, which has been called “Ironical Regionalism.” Because any clear resistance rhetoric is missing, theoretically, this architecture could also most successfully circumvent Keith Eggener’s paradigm of “Critical Regionalism as colonialism by other means.” In practical terms, however, the Ministry turns out to be the less successful one of all architectures presented. The local environment perceived Pietilä’s work as an example of avant-garde intellectualism by which it could feel “colonized.” References to well-meant regionalist intentions could then even appear as cynical. What the “locals” found disturbing was not the fact that here a resistance spirit was trying to impose a resistance attitude on a public that did not want to be affiliated with such a spirit, but rather that here a totally self-critical attitude had created ironical expressions that the local culture could not absorb.
