Frampton is especially well known for his writing on twentieth- and twenty-first century architecture, and for his central role in the development of architectural phenomenology.[4] His books include Modern Architecture: A Critical History (1980; revised 1985, 1992, 2007 and 2020) and Studies in Tectonic Culture (1995). Frampton achieved great prominence (and influence) in architectural education with his essay "Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance" (1983) – term, critical regionalism, had been coined by Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre.[5] In this paper, he mounts a criticism of globalisation, mass consumer culture and the impact that this has had on architecture. For Frampton, this represents a particularly salient issue within the Modern Movement, as it has pushed architecture toward mediocrity, sameness and urban form that lacks any kind of cultural relevance or specificity. To remedy this, Frampton argues that the adoption of a more critical regionalist approach is required in architecture, one that takes into account specific considerations of place, topography, climate, and culture, as well as the creation of new "vernacular" forms of architecture.
Frampton's essay was included in the book The Anti-Aesthetic. Essays on Postmodern Culture, edited by Hal Foster, though Frampton is critical of postmodernism in architecture. Frampton's own position attempts to defend a version of modernism that looks to either critical regionalism or a 'momentary' understanding of the autonomy of architectural practice in terms of its own concerns with form and tectonics, which cannot be reduced to economics (whilst conversely retaining a Leftist viewpoint regarding the social responsibility of architecture). He summed up his critical stance towards postmodernist architecture and its advocates' belief in the primacy of architecture as a language as follows:
It seems to me that we cannot escape from two aspects of architecture which I tried to identify ... as ontological tectonic and representational tectonic. Representation certainly cannot be removed from architecture any more that it can be removed from other discourses. ... In my opinion, it is of the utmost importance that the ontological and representational aspects of architecture be maintained as a dialogical interaction. I think that the attempt to isolate atomized elements such as morphemes is, in the end, a kind of reductive pseudo-scientific project, which just leaves you with the banality of pieces such as 'a door is a sign of a door' rather than with any notion as to the socio-cultural, complex desire of the species-being to realise itself, collectively.[6]
In 2002 a collection of Frampton's writings over a period of 35 years was collated and published under the title Labour, Work, and Architecture. An English translation of his 2015 book, The Other Modern Movement, is due out in 2021. In addition to his own scholarly research and criticism, Frampton has frequently furthered the intellectual reach of his work through writing introductions, prefaces and forewords for other authors and publications on allied themes.[7]
"Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance", in The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture. edited by Hal Foster, Bay Press, Port Townsen (1983).
Studies in Tectonic Culture: The Poetics of Construction in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Architecture. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1995.
Le Corbusier (World of Art). Thames & Hudson, London, 2001.
Labour, Work and Architecture. Phaidon Press, London, 2002.
"Ando at the Millennium", in Tadao Ando: Light and Water. Book Design by Massimo Vignelli. The Monacelli Press, New York, 2003.
The Evolution of 20th-Century Architecture: A Synoptic Account. Springer, New York, 2006.
FRAMPTON K., STRAUVEN F., GÜBLER J. & VERPOEST L., Georges Baines, Ludion, Gent, 2006.
Modern Architecture: A Critical History (World of Art), Thames & Hudson, London, Fifth Edition (2020).
American Masterworks: Houses of the Twentieth & Twenty-First Centuries, edited by David Larkin. Rizzoli, New York (2008).
Five North American Architects: An Anthology by Kenneth Frampton, Lars Muller, Zurich, (2012).
Genealogy of Modern Architecture: A Comparative Critical Analysis of Built Form, Lars Muller, Zurich, (2014).
L'altro Movimento Moderno. Edited by Ludovica Molo. Mendrisio Academy Press-Silvana Editoriale, Mendrisio-Milan 2015.
Writings on Kenneth Frampton
Daniel Sherer,『Architecture in the Labyrinth. Theory and Criticism in the United States: Oppositions, Assemblage, ANY (1973–1999),』Zodiac 20 (1999), 36–63.
Jorge Otero-Pailos, Architecture's Historical Turn: Phenomenology and the Rise of the Postmodern. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, (2010), 183–250.
Tom Avermaete, Veronique Patteeuw, Hans Teerds, Lea-Catherine Szacka (eds), Oase #103: Critical Regionalism Revisited, (2019), ISBN9789462084865.
Karla Cavarra Britton and Robert McCarter, editors, Modern Architecture in the Lifeworld: Essays in Honor of Kenneth Frampton (Thames & Hudson, 2020, ISBN 9780500343630).
Stylianos Giamarelos, Resisting Postmodern Architecture: Critical Regionalism before Globalisation. UCL Press, London (2022). DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800081338
