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Vernacular architecture
Vernacular architecture (also folk architecture) is building done outside any academic tradition, and without professional guidance. It is not a particular architectural movement or style but rather a broad category, encompassing a wide range and variety of building types; with differing methods of construction from around the world, including historical and extant and classical and modern. Vernacular architecture constitutes 95% of the world's built environment, as estimated in 1995 by Amos Rapoport, as measured against the small percentage of new buildings every year designed by architects and built by engineers.
Vernacular architecture usually serves immediate, local needs, is constrained by the materials available in its particular region, and reflects local traditions and cultural practices. The study of vernacular architecture does not examine formally schooled architects, but instead that of the design skills and tradition of local builders, who were rarely given any attribution for the work. More recently, vernacular architecture has been examined by designers and the building industry in an effort to be more energy conscious with contemporary design and construction—part of a broader interest in sustainable design.
As of 1986, even among scholars publishing in the field, the exact boundaries of "vernacular" have not been clear.
Vernacular architecture tends to be overlooked in traditional histories of design. It is not a stylistic description, much less one specific style, so it cannot be summarized in terms of easy-to-understand patterns, characteristics, materials, or elements. Because of the usage of traditional building methods and local builders, vernacular buildings are considered cultural expressions—aboriginal, indigenous, ancestral, rural, ethnic, or regional—as much as architectural artifacts.
The term vernacular means 'domestic, native, indigenous', from verna 'native slave' or 'home-born slave'. The word probably derives from an older Etruscan word.
The term is borrowed from linguistics, where vernacular refers to language use particular to a time, place, or group.
The phrase dates to at least 1857, when it was used by Sir George Gilbert Scott, as the focus of the first chapter of his book "Remarks on Secular & Domestic Architecture, Present & Future", and in a paper read to an architectural society in Leicester in October of that year. As a proponent of the Gothic Revival movement in England, Scott used the term as a pejorative to refer to the "prevailing architecture" in England of the time, all of it, as opposed to the Gothic he wanted to introduce. In this "vernacular" category Scott included St Paul's Cathedral, Greenwich Hospital, London, and Castle Howard, although admitting their relative nobility.
The term was popularized with positive connotations in a 1964 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, designed by architect Bernard Rudofsky, with a subsequent book. Both were called Architecture Without Architects. Featuring dramatic black-and-white photography of vernacular buildings around the world, the exhibition was extremely popular. Rudofsky brought the concept into the eye of the public and of mainstream architecture, and also kept the definitions loose: he wrote that the exhibition "attempts to break down our narrow concepts of the art of building by introducing the unfamiliar world of nonpedigree architecture. It is so little known that we don't even have a name for it. For want of a generic label we shall call it vernacular, anonymous, spontaneous, indigenous, rural, as the case may be." 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.
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Vernacular architecture
Vernacular architecture (also folk architecture) is building done outside any academic tradition, and without professional guidance. It is not a particular architectural movement or style but rather a broad category, encompassing a wide range and variety of building types; with differing methods of construction from around the world, including historical and extant and classical and modern. Vernacular architecture constitutes 95% of the world's built environment, as estimated in 1995 by Amos Rapoport, as measured against the small percentage of new buildings every year designed by architects and built by engineers.
Vernacular architecture usually serves immediate, local needs, is constrained by the materials available in its particular region, and reflects local traditions and cultural practices. The study of vernacular architecture does not examine formally schooled architects, but instead that of the design skills and tradition of local builders, who were rarely given any attribution for the work. More recently, vernacular architecture has been examined by designers and the building industry in an effort to be more energy conscious with contemporary design and construction—part of a broader interest in sustainable design.
As of 1986, even among scholars publishing in the field, the exact boundaries of "vernacular" have not been clear.
Vernacular architecture tends to be overlooked in traditional histories of design. It is not a stylistic description, much less one specific style, so it cannot be summarized in terms of easy-to-understand patterns, characteristics, materials, or elements. Because of the usage of traditional building methods and local builders, vernacular buildings are considered cultural expressions—aboriginal, indigenous, ancestral, rural, ethnic, or regional—as much as architectural artifacts.
The term vernacular means 'domestic, native, indigenous', from verna 'native slave' or 'home-born slave'. The word probably derives from an older Etruscan word.
The term is borrowed from linguistics, where vernacular refers to language use particular to a time, place, or group.
The phrase dates to at least 1857, when it was used by Sir George Gilbert Scott, as the focus of the first chapter of his book "Remarks on Secular & Domestic Architecture, Present & Future", and in a paper read to an architectural society in Leicester in October of that year. As a proponent of the Gothic Revival movement in England, Scott used the term as a pejorative to refer to the "prevailing architecture" in England of the time, all of it, as opposed to the Gothic he wanted to introduce. In this "vernacular" category Scott included St Paul's Cathedral, Greenwich Hospital, London, and Castle Howard, although admitting their relative nobility.
The term was popularized with positive connotations in a 1964 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, designed by architect Bernard Rudofsky, with a subsequent book. Both were called Architecture Without Architects. Featuring dramatic black-and-white photography of vernacular buildings around the world, the exhibition was extremely popular. Rudofsky brought the concept into the eye of the public and of mainstream architecture, and also kept the definitions loose: he wrote that the exhibition "attempts to break down our narrow concepts of the art of building by introducing the unfamiliar world of nonpedigree architecture. It is so little known that we don't even have a name for it. For want of a generic label we shall call it vernacular, anonymous, spontaneous, indigenous, rural, as the case may be." 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.
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