Identity Matters. Architecture between individualism and homologation

Author: Riccardo Salvi
Publisher: Franco Angeli Edizioni
Printed in Italy
Date: June 2014
ISBN: 9788891706553
Softcover, 176 pages

The technological development and the cultural breakdown of national borders – in some cases metaphorical and in some cases real – has caused a levelling process of design methods and of their consequent results so that it is senseless, among other things, to talk about architecture considering its territorial and geographical character. Moreover, it is undeniable that some national mentalities survive even within the globalized cultural world. We might think of some architectures by Herzog & de Meuron that, beyond their formal outcome, different from time to time, and their global success are certainly characterized by their professional pragmatism, respect for the place, attention to the scale, strictness and extreme accuracy in details; properties that can be undoubtedly referred to the typical system of values peculiar to the moral complex and intellectual qualities of the Swiss world, especially relating to the German-speaking area. Starting from this consideration we tried to understand, through a work done in the field, what the opinion of some leading architects – assumed as a prototype of thought orientation – on the subject concerning the influence of local cultural hallmarks on the modalities of architectural production, is.