Perspectives In Vernacular Architecture

From workers' cottages in Milwaukee's Polish community to Alaskan homesteads during the Great Depression, from early American retail stores to nineteenth-century prisons, different types of buildings reflect the diverse responses of people to their architectural needs. Through inquiry into such topics, the contributors to this volume examine a variety of building forms as they assess the current state of vernacular architecture studies. Because scholars in vernacular architecture have come to consider thematic questions rather than simply to look at types of structures, the essays chosen for this collection address issues of how people, power, and places intersect. They demonstrate not only the inextricable links between people and place but also show how power relationships are defined by spatial organization--and how this use of space has helped define the distinction between private and public. The essays examine a wide range of forms, from camp meetings to trolley cottages, to consider what buildings might reveal about their makers, users, and even interpreters. One article, for example, will give readers a new appreciation of balloon framing in Midwest farmhouses, refuting popular notions that it was a single individual's invention. Another considers servants' quarters in Apartheid-era South Africa to explore the relationship between black domestic workers and their white employers. Drawn from the Vernacular Architecture Forum conferences of 1996 and 1997, these thirteen essays make significant contributions to the study of design and building processes and the adaptation of architectural forms and spaces over time. They help redefine the scope of "vernacular" and provide new models for better understanding the built environment. The Editors: Sally McMurry is professor of history at Pennsylvania State University and author of Families and Farmhouses in Nineteenth-Century America. Annmarie Adams is associate professor of architecture at McGill University and author of Architecture in the Family Way: Doctors, Houses, and Women, 1870-1900.

« Invitation to Vernacular Architecture: A Guide to the Study of Ordinary Buildings and Landscapes is a manual for exploring and interpreting vernacular architecture, the common buildings of particular regions and time periods. Thomas Carter and Elizabeth Collins Cromley provide a comprehensive introduction to the field. » « Rich with illustrations and written in a clear and jargon-free style, Invitation to Vernacular Architecture is an ideal text for courses in architecture, material culture studies, historic preservation, American studies, and history, and a useful guide for anyone interested in the built environment. »--

Exploring America's material culture, Common Places reveals the history, culture, and social and class relationships that are the backdrop of the everyday structures and environments of ordinary people. Examining America's houses and cityscapes, its rural outbuildings and landscapes from perspectives including cultural geography, decorative arts, architectural history, and folklore, these articles reflect the variety and vibrancy of the growing field of vernacular architecture. In essays that focus on buildings and spaces unique to the U.S. landscape, Clay Lancaster, Edward T. Price, John Michael Vlach, and Warren E. Roberts reconstruct the social and cultural contexts of the modern bungalow, the small-town courthouse square, the shotgun house of the South, and the log buildings of the Midwest. Surveying the buildings of America's settlement, scholars including Henry Glassie, Norman Morrison Isham, Edward A. Chappell, and Theodore H. M. Prudon trace European ethnic influences in the folk structures of Delaware and the houses of Rhode Island, in Virginia's Renish homes, and in the Dutch barn widely repeated in rural America. Ethnic, regional, and class differences have flavored the nation's vernacular architecture. Fraser D. Neiman reveals overt changes in houses and outbuildings indicative of the growing social separation and increasingly rigid relations between seventeenth-century Virginia planters and their servants. Fred B. Kniffen and Fred W. Peterson show how, following the westward expansion of the nineteenth century, the structures of the eastern elite were repeated and often rejected by frontier builders. Moving into the twentieth century, James Borchert tracks the transformation of the alley from an urban home for Washington's blacks in the first half of the century to its new status in the gentrified neighborhoods of the last decade, while Barbara Rubin's discussion of the evolution of the commercial strip counterpoints the goals of city planners and more spontaneous forms of urban expression. The illustrations that accompany each article present the artifacts of America's material past. Photographs of individual buildings, historic maps of the nation's agricultural expanse, and descriptions of the household furnishings of the Victorian middle class, the urban immigrant population, and the rural farmer's homestead complete the volume, rooting vernacular architecture to the American people, their lives, and their everyday creations.

​This book discusses applying vernacular strategies to modern architectural design to adhere to basic green principles of energy efficiency and materials utilization. Written from an international perspective, chapters present the perspectives and experiences of architects and engineers from across the globe. Historically successful approaches are integrated with modern design concepts to create novel, sustainable, and resource conscious solutions. The scope of topics covered include natural ventilation, cooling and heating, daylight and shading devices, and green micro-climate and functional facades, making this a useful reference for a wide range of researchers and workers in the built environment. Covers the most up-to-date research developments, best practices, and innovations from countries all over the globe; Presents the latest research in vernacular architecture and sustainable building; Contains case studies and examples to enhance practical application of the technologies presented.

Papers presented at various meetings of the forum.