Relationship to Other Theories

New Contextualism presents itself as ‘not an isolated theory’: it ‘draws ideas from existing models like Modernism, Postmodernism, and Critical Regionalism in a more nurtured and advanced manner’ (Reza and Nitu 2025). The sections below set out the relationships the published texts describe, with the works they cite. Further reading chosen by the editors is listed under Further Reading.

Architectural Contextualism

Contextualism has a long history in architectural thought. In its classic form, associated with the urban design teaching of Colin Rowe and the arguments of Collage City (Rowe and Koetter 1978), it read the city as a figure–ground field of solids and voids into which new buildings should fit. Esin Komez Daglioglu’s survey of the ‘context debate’ traces how the idea developed from the 1960s and later fell out of favour (Komez Daglioglu 2015).

The September 2025 essay recalls how ‘Classic Contextualism arose as a corrective to modernist universalism’, urging architects to echo the scale of neighbouring buildings, align rooflines and match materials. It concludes that ‘the movement often stopped at the surface’, leaving ‘deeper layers of culture, ecology, and history’ untouched (Reza and Nitu 2025). It also acknowledges earlier attempts, from the late twentieth century, ‘to expand “Contextualism” to include cultural memory, identity, or even political narratives’, most of which ‘remained practice-specific’ (Reza and Nitu 2025).

The phrase ‘new contextualism’ has also been used independently of this approach, for example in a 2015 study of urban regeneration in Hong Kong that points ‘to a new contextualism in urban planning and design’ (Lejano and Kan 2015). The two should not be confused.

Critical Regionalism

Kenneth Frampton’s critical regionalism sought an architecture capable of mediating between universal civilisation and the particularities of place (Frampton 1983). The founder’s 2023 essay places New Contextualism within ‘the discourse on contextualism and critical regionalism articulated by thinkers like Robert Venturi, Charles Jencks and Kenneth Frampton’ (Reza 2023c; Venturi 1966; Jencks 1977), and describes a scale of context that ‘extends to regional ideas aligned with critical regionalism’ (Reza 2023c).

The difference is drawn in terms of process. New Contextualism ‘inherits the spirit of resisting placelessness but is process-based rather than style-based’. The essay’s example is a heritage eco-resort at Bagura (Bogura), which ‘could apply community co-creation, unlike typical Critical Regionalism, which rarely includes participatory economic planning’ (Reza and Nitu 2025).

Place Theory and Placemaking

The September 2025 essay cites Kevin Lynch’s The Image of the City and Edward Relph’s Place and Placelessness among its references (Lynch 1960; Relph 1976), and its phrase ‘resisting placelessness’ echoes Relph’s title; that connection is an editorial observation. Christian Norberg-Schulz’s phenomenology of place, Genius Loci, is a related work included here as further reading (Norberg-Schulz 1980).

Of placemaking as a movement, the same essay writes that it ‘brought people back into the conversation but it remained limited to small-scale interventions, unable to address systemic issues of infrastructure, climate, or equity’ (Reza and Nitu 2025). The founder names Jane Jacobs and Jan Gehl among the champions of the ‘community-oriented design’ on which New Contextualism places emphasis (Reza 2023c; Jacobs 1961; Gehl 2010).

Heritage and Conservation Theory

The texts reject a conception of heritage as something to be preserved apart from contemporary life. ‘Heritage, within the New Contextualist perspective, is not a static relic to be cordoned off or merely replicated. It is a vital, living continuum—a repository of knowledge, identity, and meaning that must actively inform contemporary design’; the aim is ‘building upon legacy, not just beside it’ (Reza 2025).

The founder specialises in heritage management as well as in architectural history and theory (Reza 2025). His earlier work includes documentation and heritage management plans for traditional oasis settlements in Oman (Bandyopadhyay et al. 2014) and a community-involved management plan for Chhoto Katra in Old Dhaka (Reza 2018a). The 2026 article on Somapura Mahavihara brings the approach explicitly into heritage management, combining conservation of tangible and intangible heritage with community participation and sustainable tourism (Reza and Rahman 2026). See Heritage Management.

Sustainability, Ecology and Urban Justice

Sustainability has been part of the approach from its first formulation, which places ‘greater emphasis on sustainability and community-oriented design’ than earlier contextualism (Reza 2023c). New Contextualism 2.0 makes this more explicit, through ‘a more explicit integration of contemporary sustainability frameworks’ and alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (Reza 2025; United Nations General Assembly 2015). At the 2024 workshop, a speaker suggested that the approach ‘could be termed SDG+’ (Arch-Bangla 2024c).

Urban justice enters through the principle of equity. ‘Design must protect the “right to the city,”’ the September 2025 essay states (Reza and Nitu 2025), using the phrase introduced by Henri Lefebvre (Lefebvre 1968). The essay grounds the principle in present conditions: gentrification that ‘pushes communities away from the very places they helped shape’, and ‘parallel cities for the rich and the poor’ (Reza and Nitu 2025).