I totally relate to the foreign feeling when hearing terms like critical regionalism and vernacular architecture - I never felt like there was a standard set of definitions for some of them and instead they felt like elusive concepts that only professors and starchitects understood.

And speaking of starchitects, I agree that Aalto is one of the few that I give allowances for. I think that he’s the last in an era that was so focused on the removal of ornamentation and a shift towards modernism, but still designed for emotional movement. And I can respect that.