Terminologies (b): Primitive Architecture

The “primitive architecture” is another label used to designate the buildings in reference. The word primitive carries the notion of search for the origin of these buildings that signals the search for either the place of origin or the archetype. The search of primitivity in the traditional architecture is a matter of speculation without much reference in the written text. The primitive architecture or the primitive building “describes only the cultural and technical development of a society” or “reflect negatively upon structures, that are often precisely designed, symbolically executed, and more carefully fitted to the local environment”. Any kind of “primitive” creation may be pioneering but they are not so simple as they appear but are “in fact quite complex and exacting” (Noble:2007).

Rapoport said:

Primitive building, most simply, refers to that produced by societies defined as primitive by anthropologists. It refers largely to certain technological as well as economic levels of development, but also includes aspects of social organization. While dwellings produced in such a culture may, at first glance and by our technological standards, appear elementary, they are, in fact, built by people using their intelligence, ability-no different from ours-and resources to their fullest extent. The term primitive, therefore, does not refer to the builders” intentions or abilities, but rather to the society in which they build. It is of course a relative term;to future societies we will undoubtedly appear rather primitive. (Rapoport:1969:3)