From Norms To Controversial

One walks for days by unnoticed normal buildings creating street borders. They all follow strictly municipal regulations of heights, fenestrations, bow window, balcony projections and generally prevailing styles. They all by necessity abide by functional allocations of ```floors. Stores are on ground level with entrances in the middle. Four or five stories of apartments. Service rooms are on the roofs. After Every five or six buildings there will be a perpendicular street interrupting the monotony of the walk ups.

The situation is more depressing with terrace duplexes like in "Bath" Millions of walk ups and elevated block of flats present prevailing lining of gridiron street pattern of 19th and 20th century, western dull cities.

On the other hand, the uncontrolled cities of the Middle East left free the site, size and directions of two or three stories housing units. Filling left over spaces was controlled only by the right of passage of loaded camels and horses. The same freedom and absence of rules were practiced in Mediterranean French, Italian and North African villages.

This brought Romantic picturesque deconstructed quality to vernacular housing. Lack of discipline might be disputable between romantics and rationalists of the modern movement.

Such disputes stir stagnant water with every group pulling the modern movement to his side with normal everyday architecture out of this fight.

Hassan Fathy came in the picture with his appropriate technological approach, building with local materials and methods of construction cut of the international norms. His approach definitely influenced the norms and started a dispute with both modern movement and academic romanticism. As a result of his ventures modern movement turned more humanistic towards post modernism.

Zaha Hadid , Frank Gehry, Eisenman and others challenged the new historism in post modernism moving to the most disputed deconstruction movement. They broke the bonds of the straight line and right angle to hyprid sculpturesque forms.

Such breakthrough of the norms continued to expressionistic forms in Gomhouria office building in Cairo.

With the tendency of natural complexity and diversity, spiral, twisted, crystallized forms appeared to break the norms of the basic Geometric forms. Slick forms appeared in Sydney OPERA house. They all, with clear message, created as many Pros. & Cons. however they are the benevolent energy that moves architectural forms to more romantic and technological varieties that keeps architectural design both vibrant and challenging.