Peripatetic Ken Frampton, best known for his lectures and scholarly writing, is the author of "Modern architecture: a critical history" (Thames & Hudson, 1980). Trained as an architect at the AA School, London, he is Professor at the Graduate School of Architecture at Columbia University, New York, a Fellow of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, New York, and a visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art, London, and various other universities.
In his talk, he categorises architecture today under five isms: "productivism, rationalism, structuralism, populism, and regionalism". He does this, not only to put some order into the confusion of the present situation, but as a way of suggesting what might prove to be the most fertile method for continuing with architectural culture in the future.
He thinks that productivism and populism, abundantly evident, and the spontaneous building production of our time, are somewhat incapable of significant elaboration. But rationalism and structuralism, though not extensively realised, are capable of constituting the basis of a critical regionalism open to endless creative development as the fundamental principle of architectural form.
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