Vernacular architecture

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vernacular architecture is a term used to categorize a method of construction which uses immediately available resources to address immediate needs. As such, it is often dismissed as crude and unrefined.

Image:Duncan600.jpg

The term is derived from the Latin vernaculus - a slave quarter at the back of the master's garden - ,but today refers to that type of architecture which is indigenous to a specific place (not imported or copied from elsewhere). The term is not to be confused with so-called "traditional" architecture, though there are links between the two. Vernacular architecture may, through time, be adopted and refined into culturally accepted solutions, but only through repetition may it be become "traditional." Traditional architecture can also include temples, palaces, and the like, which would not be included usually in the rubric of "vernacular." In Japan, for example, not all pre-modern architecture is "vernacular," which would usually refer only to rural buildings and structures. In the US, vernacular architecture might refer to a so-called craftsman bungalow, fashionable in the nineteenth centeury, even though the bungalow as an architectural form did not originate in the US. "Vernacular" might even refer to a building like the 1848 Duncan House in Cooksville, Wisconsin despite the fact that the white man was not indiginous to the continent. All in all, the use of the term "vernacular" can be quite ambiguous.

An early work in the defense of vernacular was Bernard Rudofsky's 1964 book Architecture Without Architects: a short introduction to non-pedigreed architecture, based on his MoMA exhibition. The book was a reminder of the legitimacy and "hard-won knowledge" inherent in vernacular buildings, from Polish salt-caves to gigantic Syrian water wheels to Moroccan desert fortresses, and was considered iconoclastic at the time. Rudofsky was, however, very much a Romantic who viewed native populations in a historical buble of contentment. Rudofsky's book was also based largely on photographs and not on on-site study.

A more serious work is the "Encyclopedia of Vernacular Architecture of the World" published in 1997 by Paul Oliver of the Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development. Oliver has argued that vernacular architecture, given the insights it gives into issue of environmental adaptation, will be necessary in the future to "ensure sustainability in both cultural and economic terms beyond the short term." Christopher Alexander, in his book A Pattern Language, attempted to identify adaptive features of traditional architecture that apply across cultures. Howard Davis's book The Culture of Building details the culture that enabled several vernacular traditions. Image:VIPlibrary.jpg

Some extend the term vernacular to include any architecture outside the academic mainstream. The term "commercial vernacular," popularized in the late 1960s by the publication of Robert Venturi's "Learning from Las Vegas," refers to 20th century American suburban tract and commercial architecture. There is also the concept of an "industrial vernacular" with its emphasis on the aesthetics of shops, garages and factories. Some have linked vernacular with "off-the-shelf" aesthetics. In any respect, those who study these types of vernaculars hold that the low-end characteristics of this aesthetic define a useful and fundamental approach to architectural design.

An architect whose work that exemplifies the modern take on vernacular architecture would be Samuel Mockbee, whose pioneering work with Rural Studio is well-regarded and widely discussed amongst practicing architects and academics alike.

Among those who study vernacular architecture are those who are interested in the question of everyday life and those lean toward questions of sociology.In this, many were influenced by The Practice of Everyday Life (1974) by Michel de Certeau.