Theoretical Underpinning on the Study of Vernacular Architecture

The growing interest and importance of the subject of the VA has resulted in the multiple perspectives in looking at the subject matter. The result is the emergence of different theoretical approaches in the study of the material. The loaded reality of vernacular architecture and subsequent endeavour for its understanding leads to the application of varied methodologies. Upton speaks of “four avenues of inquiry” and “four approaches are interdisciplinary both with respect to the individuals who practice them and to the methods they use” (Upton:1983:264). Thus, he outlines the approaches as objectoriented study, socially oriented study, culturally oriented study and symbolically oriented study.

However, the nature of the vernacular as “socio cultural hodgepodge” naturally leads to certain indispensability of all these approaches for a proper appreciation of the subject. Focussing on theoretical underpinnings Blier throws light on different approaches. Thus, Blier speaks of ethno-archaeological, Functionalist, Structural, Psychological, Phenomenological, Post-structuralism as well as Deconstruction perspective in the study of vernacular architecture. Thus, while the ethno-archaeological approach to be summed up as an approach for the search of “mythic idioms of origin”. The practical considerations such as environment, materials, socio-political factors, economy, and security as Blier mentions are the highlights of the Functionalist approach. The Structural approach as developed by the French Anthropologist, especially Claude LeviStrauss who reconfigured “a broad cross-cultural theory of internal dualism” has “showed the striking manner in which village plans, axiality, and notions of the body reveal comparables across a range of cultures and contexts”. Similarly Mary Douglas has “provided structuralist insights into how vernacular (and other architectural models) are shaped in their form, action and belief through dualistic idiom”, Pierre Bourdieu and others are “paradigmatic structuralist engagements with vernacular architectural form and signification”. On the other hand, different scholars carried forward the psychological relation and concern in the study of VA. Phenomenology of built environment that expresses the needs and aspirations of the resident and builder as well as “ontology as evidenced through the phenomenology of architecture have been accorded special value with respect to vernacular exemplars”. Similarly the Poststructuralism and Deconstruction are the successive approaches to find meaning in the vernacular architecture study (Blier:2006:234-238).