Technology, Place, and the Nonmodern Thesis

Proposals for regionalist architecture have appeared regularly in architectural discourse since the seventeenth century. Central to this discourse are shifting attitudes toward the core concepts of technology and place. Moderns, it seems, tend to value technology and devalue place. Postmoderns do the opposite - they value place and devalue technology. The doctrines of critical regionalism defy categorization because they value both technology and place positively. However, by deriving its program equally from the modern assumptions of Jurgen Habermas and from the postmodern assumption of Martin Heidegger, critical regionalism presents a philosophical antinomy, or unresolvable conflict. It is this conflict that suggests a nonmodern thesis for architecture.