Professional Documents
Culture Documents
on Architecture
Arghya Santra1* and Amit Kumar Kisku2
ABSTRACT
The architecture of houses ever built can broadly be divided into two main divisions: one,
polite or modern architecture and another, vernacular architecture. The former type is built
by textually trained architects and the later type is built by the inhabitants themselves
through learning the craftmanship from their own experiences. Researches on architecture
have been initiated and mostly done by architects and architectural historians. But these
researches mainly focussed on the polite architecture. Anthropologists, to some extent, have
researched on vernacular architecture but not as much as they have given importance to the
study of kinship, religion, society, and culture of particular group of people. Reflecting on
the existing literature, this paper attempts to illuminate on the nature of architectural research
so far conducted by anthropologists and also opportunities for further research.
INTRODUCTION
This paper focuses on the scope for anthropologists to research on architecture.
Architecture reflects the ways houses or buildings are made. It thus includes designs,
materiality, technology, labour force, art, and economy in connection with constructions
of houses or buildings. Architecture can broadly be divided into two types - Polite or
modern architecture and Vernacular architecture (Rapoport, 1969; Vellinga, 2011). Polite
Architecture means those constructions which are made by textually trained architects.
It thus includes all the modern and post-modern buildings, monuments, houses, and so
on. The term ‘vernacular’ defined in general sense as folk, indigenous, regionalist, and
primitive styles. It is not commonly seen as high architecture sense. Vernacular
architecture, in simplest sense, refers to those constructions which are made by those
architects who are not textually trained and therefore refers to houses of rural and
remote areas. It is also synonymous to folk or indigenous architecture and mostly refers
to mud houses (Vellinga, 2011). Such houses are built using locally available resources,
and craftsmanship for constructing these houses is learned through direct experiences
(Rudofsky, 1964). These houses are also made keeping in mind the cultural traditions
and ritual beliefs of particular society/ies. The vernacular architecture thus reflects the
environment, culture, and historical context in which it exists.
During the late medieval age, Gothic architecture flourished in Europe with its
characteristics of pointed arch and the ribbed vault. Many of the great cathedrals, abbeys
and churches of Europe exhibit this architectural design. Consecutively, during the
mid-12th century, with the influences of European Renaissance, Baroque architecture
replaced the Gothic architecture. The Baroque architecture contained the characteristics
of new explorations of form, light and shadow, and dramatic intensity (ibid).
In the 18th century, through colonialism, European architecture spread over to the
rest of the world (Kniffen, 1965). The Industrial Revolution of Europe in the late
eighteenth century brought the mass production of iron and steel. The world thus
experienced brewery, factory, winery, and mill structured buildings as well as high-
rise buildings and monuments. Thus, the architectural tradition of 18th century continued
in 19th century. Beside this tradition, the classic historical style of architecture evolved
organically to all over the Europe which later led to the modern architectural design
(Amiri, 2016).
In the 21st century, the world architecture turned towards new and contemporary
mode. The earlier building making materials such as adobe and masonry (stone, clay,
concrete blocks, and timber) were replaced by hard, machine-made building materials
(Dey Sarkar, 2015). In this period, architecture designs and styles become plural and no
single style of architecture is found to be dominating the world. Furthermore, the computer-
aided designs and new technology have opened opportunities for the contemporary
architects to work on thousands of different styles ranging from the post-modern and
high-tech architecture to highly conceptual and expressive styles such as those resemble
sculptures. The contemporary buildings are seen to be wrapped in glass or aluminium
screens with asymmetric facades. Above all, where the major monuments of modern
architecture of 20th century concentrated mainly in United States and Western Europe,
the contemporary or post-modern architecture dispersed across in China, Russia, Latin
America, Gulf states of the Middle East and rest of the world. The Burj Khalifa in Dubai,
Sanghai Tower in China, Twins tower in Kuala Lampur, Federation tower in Russia are
the notable examples of the architectural designs of this period.
co-existed in rural, suburban, countryside of the world with least changes (Patidat &
Raghuwangshi, 2014). The Resthus house of Germany, Shotgun houses of United States,
Batak houses of Sumatra, and the traditional Brgule of Serbia have retained this tradition.
India has also retained its vernacular architectural style and its planning. Thakars house
of Maharashtra, the Do-chala-bari, Chachala-bari, Kotha-bari of West Bengal are the examples
of such architectural designs (Anonymous, 2014).
architecture practices. This is the area where anthropologists have given attention to
some extent.
Since 18th century to the long 19th century, the study of material culture gave limited
attention on architecture (Stocking, 1985; Buchli, 2002). Carsten and Hugh-Jones (1995)
noted that ‘houses are taken for granted by the anthropologists’ for long-time. As for
Humphrey (1988) there is ‘no place like home in anthropology’.
The foremost anthropological attention on house came in the 19th century with the
hands of Laugier’s primitive fantasies, Morgan’s (1881) work on the American Aborigines,
and several archaeological excavations by Pitt-Rivers. These works facilitated to
understand of architecture and material culture of past and present people. But these
works are not scholarly researches on ‘anthropology of architecture’ in true sense.
With the legacy of Claude Levi-Strauss’s concept, a house society (1982) the
architecture begins to resume a fundamental significance in the understanding of human
society and culture. The notion of a house society helped to anthropologists and
archaeologists have understood dwellings and reproduction of human societies (see
Carsten and Hugh-Jones, 1995). According to Levi-Strauss, the house is a material and
immaterial wealth which express itself in the language of kinship and relations (ibid).
The concept of a house society advocated the anthropologists to researches on particularly
in traditional or vernacular architecture and architecture in general.
Carsten and Hugh-Hones (1995) noted that the relationship between the body and
built form is difficult to uncoil; and both have complementary relation. According to
him, ‘Vitruvius man’ concept of Da Vinci’s played a key role for the study of embodiment
and architecture.
From the mid-20th century, architects and anthropologists both shared common
interest to study ‘common’, ‘everyday’, ‘native’, ‘indigenous’, ‘traditional’ and
‘vernacular’ architecture; the constructions which are built for meet the need of people
living in rural, sub-urban, remote area of the world specially isolated from the civilized
and developed areas. Therefore, vernacular architecture perceived a new field of
architectural research. Through the compliance of Rapoport’s book House form and Culture
(1969), and Encyclopaedia of Vernacular Architecture of the world (1997) by Paul Oliver
architecture took a position into the anthropological researches. The Encyclopaedia of
Vernacular Architecture became a milestone in global traditional house researches.
In the last quarter of 20th century, a new branch of anthropology opened ‘Habitat
Anthropology or Architectural Anthropology’ with new framework, which related to
culture and space and architecture. According to Eganter (1992)- “…human space
perception and space conception originally were formed in small, local settlement units,
in which architecture provides the semantic systems for spatial organisation”. He also
defined architecture through the anthropological knowledge and divides into five
patterns such as- subhuman, semantic, domestic, sedentary, and urban architecture.
types and patterns with effective environmental cause. Furthermore, the cultural
perspective anthropological work on architecture has been done by Mitra (2002), who
studied the architecture of Santals of Birbhum. His study reveals that architecture in
the Santal community is shaped by its culture, environment, economy and religious
faith. For him, the house achieves its durability both through materials and spiritual
ways.
Architects have been working for a long time to build houses along with some
others such as monuments, bridges and so on. They emphasize on the plans, drawing,
models, materiality and technology. Moreover, architecture is a continuous changing and
dynamic discipline - it changes in historical perspectives (Askland, 2014). Different patterns
and styles of architecture have been found in different historical periods. Architecture
thus becomes a social agent or a part of society. After the World War II, post-modern
movement in terms of literature, humanity, arts, philosophy emerged out that led to
change architectural practices and expressions. Most of buildings built after Second World
War focused on the functional and cultural relevance such as the Neue Staatsgalerie in
Stuttgart, Germany and the EMP Museum in Seattle, Team Disney building in California,
PPG Palace in St. Pittsburg, and SIS building in London. The prominent features of post-
modern architecture are diverse aesthetics sense and the principle of “anything goes”
which gives the unique forms of these buildings (Amiri, 2016).
However, in the 21st century, due to increasing population size and large scale of
urban migration of different cultural people, the concept of space has changed. Besides,
the utilization, value, and management of space vary according to the culture of
inhabitants (Ward Thompson, 2002). Because of the lack of knowledge on the cultural
utilization, value, and management of space, most of the governments in developing
countries face the problem of accommodating its subjects or to provide them shelter –
one of basic human needs. There are several instances across the world, where
government initiated housing schemes have failed (Bhattacharya, 1990). Unfortunately,
architects can minutely contribute in this arena, which opens the scope for anthropologists
to conduct research in the field of architecture. The spatial management will be better
understood through the anthropological researches.
Anthropologists mainly study the human society, culture, and development from
all time. As discussed in the previous section, they have exclusive expertise on participant
observation, worm’s eye view, and emic approach. Their specialized knowledge can
help to understand better than the architects what people need from their build
environment. Anthropologists can emphasize not only on shaping particular building
but also on the purchasing power, social sustainability, need, energy consumption,
environmentality, comfortability, and aesthetic sense of the inhabitants.
CONCLUSION
The paper attempted to explore the kinds of role anthropologists have played in
architectural research and the scope architecture has for anthropologists to research on.
Researches on architecture have mostly been done by architects and historians. However,
their researches mainly focussed on what may be called polite or modern architecture.
They studied the monuments and private and public buildings. However, the offshoot
architecture styles namely the vernacular architecture, have been ignored by them.
Though, these kinds of architecture existed since the remote past and with little changes
in styles there have not been concerted attempts to study them by historians and
architects.
It was not until the late 19th century that some anthropologists and social scientists
became attracted to study the vernacular architecture. However, the amount of such
studies is scanty. Anthropologists have been attentive towards studying the society,
culture, kinship, religion, rituals, and customs of human being. In short, anthropologists
have studied human beings outside of their houses. In that attempt, houses, in which
those studies human being lived, have been mostly ignored or say overlooked.
However, the vernacular architecture consist the houses of people living in remote
rural regions, more particularly the houses of tribal, indigenous, adivasi people.
Anthropologists are mostly interested to study these people, their society and culture.
Interestingly, the houses of these people are built by locally available resources which
are hardly bought or available in markets. The resources also vary according to the
climate and geography of particular region/s on which culture of human being is also
dependent upon. The craftsmanship of building such houses is only learned through
direct experience and not by textual training. The house are built keeping in mind the
local tradition, practices, and beliefs apart from the needs of the people who live in
them.
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