The Merits of both mainstreams. Regional architecture and International architecture are different in shape, character and feeling. The photo above shows three buildings, different in detail, but great similarities in design. These River Road townhouses express in their shapes ideas of style which come from the international world, taking little account of their geographical location. The angles sharp, rectangular flat roofed shapes stand separate and alone. Their dialogue is between each other. They show all the worldly influences of abstract art, new functionalism, and post-modernism. They are polite, modern buildings we see everywhere, in schools and public works. They are tough, dominating statements. You can take them or leave them, intrigued and guessing where they came from. The question is really whether architecture has to respond in its forms and style only to international forces. The alternative is regional architecture, or the architecture of belonging and identity. It is hard to achieve and forces architects to recover their old position of artists, a job made hard by today's sea of regulations. Nowhere in all the laws is the building as a work of art ever mentioned.....Christchurch has good examples of both mainstreams of architecture. We need both regionalism and internationalism. I leave the reader to decide ...... Peter Bevan, a founder of the Civic Trust, is a long serving Christchurch Architect. River Road is furnished in a modernist style, including 2 Barcelona Chairs and foot rest and a similarly styled Chaise Longue. An elegant glass dining table with chrome and leather chairs in a similar modern style furnishes the dining room. Out door flow to the patio and shrubbery connects the indoor outdoor environments as does the dramatic River view obtained from the floor to ceiling lounge window.