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Vernacular Architecture

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20 views

Vernacular Architecture

Uploaded by

vittoria.guglielmi
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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Vernacular Architecture

Spring semester 2024

Jim Maurice König

Anne Lacaton & Jean-Philippe Vassal, Il fera beau demain

The proposal intends to demonstrate that vernacular architecture is to be seen as an important


resource for architectural contemporary design. Even though it is not categorized as such links to
vernacular processes of designing can be seen in contemporary architecture. Through the case study of
the Latapie House of architects Lacaton & Vassal and the historical background of housing in the
region around Bordeaux the paper intends to show vernacular processes in contemporary design even
though it is not categorized as such. A brief chronology on the typical housing - “La maison échoppe
“- in the bordelaise region helps us opposing the definition of vernacular in its architecture historical
context to a wider understanding of it implemented in a design process.
The paper intends to give a new impulse on how to perceive vernacular in a contemporary design.

Maison Échoppe

In French échoppe means booth or stall and refers to the medieval workshops mostly build
along city walls in the south-west region of nowadays France. They are deeply rooted in craftsmanship
as they often combine the living and working space. Precisely in Bordeaux during 20th Century an
extensive amount was built to cover the demand in housing by a rural population striving for new
perspectives given by the Industrialization. Even though situated in the city or its periphery the house
organizes itself in a simple way reapplying rural principles of self-sufficiency through the
implementation of a garden and the “chambre noire” for example. A front façade for commercial use
and overall community life. Further stylistic elements, materials and composition are strongly inspired
by the “masion vigneronnes” found wine agriculture surrounding the city.
Latapie House

The proximity to agricultural infrastructures reminds us of the key points advocated by


Giuseppe Pagano in the Exhibition Documenting rural architecture at the Triennale Milano in 1936.
The consideration of the surroundings and the flexible understanding of a living space and the
incorporation of the surrounding into the living space was inspired by the architects stay in Africa in
between 1980 and 85. The interplay of defined and undefined living space in interaction with climate
and the environment led to a simple housing shape.
The radical implementation of agricultural design principles leads to an interplay of efficiency and
functionality. The simplicity in form, materiality and construction can be explained through necessity
of space colliding with economic factors. But further than that presents a richness through simplicity
and space achieved through rigor in the architectural design. A relation can be made to Adolf Loos’s
attempt to argue form in the essay But look for the reason of shape, in which he describes the rural
building typology in Austria as sublime through their simplicity, functionality and implementation in
topography.

The Juxtaposition of both case studies intends to challenge the conventional perceptions of vernacular
architecture and position it as a design tool through study and reinterpretation. Further it is noticeable
that through globalization processes the scope of vernacular architecture and its influence on Western
European design processes increased.

Bibliography:

Pierre Barrère, Les Quartiers de L’agglomération Bordelaise (Revue géographique des Pyrénées et du
Sud-Ouest, 1956)

• Origin and evolution of the maison échoppe and its influence on Bordeaux

Feargus O’sullivan, How the Low-Rise Échoppe Homes of Bordeaux Went Upmarket (Bloomberg,
2023 Article)

• General information and contextualization of maison échoppe today

Anne Lacaton & Jean-Philippe Vassal, Il fera beau demain (Série Manifeste France, 1995)

• Questioning notion of comfort in European standards


• Nomadism -> questioning temporality of architecture
• Defining their view of necessity necessity and sufficiency

Lacaton & Vassal, El croquis new and enlarged version (Madrid, 2021)

Michelangelo Sabatino & Giuseppe Pagano, Documenting rural architecture (Journal of Architectural
Education, 2010)

• “Rural architecture represents the first and immediate victory of man extracting sustenance
from the land “ (“Documenting Rural Architecture - JSTOR”)
Giovanna D’Amia, Le débat sur l’architecture rurale en Italie et l’exposition de Giuseppe Pagano à
la Triennale de 1936 (Ministère de la culture, 2019)

• Observation and study of rural architecture as Instrument of work for design in the
interwar period in Italy
• Refered to as genius loci postwar World War II, Italian architects used the approach
suggested by Pagano in the Italian rationalism movement.
• Pagano’s work emphasizes the functionality and cultural dimension of rural architecture,
drawing parallels between modernist and vernacular practices and challenging the
monumental and ornate tendencies of that era.

Bernard Rudofsky, Architecture without architects: a short introduction to non-pedigreed architecture


(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987)

• Pietro beluschi defined: Communal aspect of


• The beauty of architecture has long been dismissed as accidental, but today we should be
able to recognize it as the result of rare good sense in the handling of practical problems.

Adolf Loos, Aber suche den Grund der Form auf Gedanken von Adolf Loos - Natur und Land (Blätter
für Naturkunde und Naturschutz Band 3, 1980)

• Focus on architecture, culture and society relationship in the Austrian rural environment
• Contrasts the unobtrusive beauty of peasant houses, which seem naturally integrated into
the landscape with the appearance of those designed by architects.
• Functional aspects further underlined with the essay about building in the mountain

John Hix, The Glasshouse (Phaidon, 1996)

• Definition and historical background of the Glasshouse/greenhouse


• Definition of efficiency of different types

Paul Oliver, Shelter and society (London, Barrie & Jenkins, 1969)

• Forms of shelter through different societies


• Environmental influence on the shape of shelters link to greenhouses

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