HOUSE FORM AND CULTURE

  

HOUSE FORM AND CULTURE

BY : AMOS RAPOPORT

 

THE BOOK  COMPILES OF THE EFFECTS OF THE CULTURES AND THE  HOUSE FORM AND CULTURE PRESENTS CROSS- CULTURAL STUDIES OF DWELLINGS, BUILDINGS AND SETTLEMENTS WITHIN THE FIELDS OF ARCHITECTURE, PLANNING AND CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

AMOS RAPOPORT BORN ON 28 MARCH 1929, WARSAW.

 AN ARCHITECT AND ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF ENVIRONMENT-BEHAVIOR STUDIES (EBS).

HE IS THE AUTHOR OF OVER 200 ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS IN THIS FIELD, INCLUDING BOOKS THAT HAVE BEEN TRANSLATED INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING FRENCH, SPANISH, GERMAN, PERSIAN, JAPANESE, KOREAN AND CHINESE. 

HE HAS HELD HONORABLE AND VISITING POSITIONS IN MANY UNIVERSITIES AROUND THE GLOBE, IS PROFESSOR EMERITUS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MILWAUKEE.

HIS WORK HAS FOCUSED MAINLY ON THE ROLE OF CULTURAL VARIABLES, CROSS-CULTURAL STUDIES, AND THEORY DEVELOPMENT AND SYNTHESIS.                                

CHAPTER I : THE NATURE AND DEFINITION OF FIELD

This chapter starts with introducing that the Architectural theory and history have traditionally been concerned with the study of monuments. It is initially  an attempt to define the work’s disciplines as it’s innovative and new and requires rationalization. Also explains how this environment is the result of vernacular (or folk, or popular) architecture, and it has been largely ignored in architectural history and theory.

The chapter shows how differentiation affects the types of buildings and hence the type of evidence which we need to consider, explains in vast detail the reasons to study the vernacular systems and dwelling forms and also factors affecting them ad leading them, we see various methods of studying with respect to the principles and the facts, for example chronologically, tracing the development over time either of techniques, forms, and ideas, or of the thoughts of the designer, or one can study them from a specific point of view and the goal of most of the work which has been done on the topic of primitive and vernacular buildings has been the classification, listing, and description of house types and their features .i.e. defining the specific task. 

CHAPTER II : ALTERNATIVE THEORIES OF HOUSE FORM

This chapter explains the principal types of explanations, including physical ones-involving climate and the need for shelter, materials and technology, and site-and social ones-relating to economics, defense, and religion.

It starts with defining the climate and need for the shelter, effects and importance of  materials, construction, and technology, importance of site for primitive and vernacular spaces, social explanations of house form are proposed, defense and economics-the most material ones-are most commonly used, why is economics importance to explain the settlement and building form, how religion affects the community and lastly how and what is the general criticism of the physical determinist view.

CHAPTER III : SOCIO-CULTURAL FACTORS AND HOUSE FORM

This chapter begins with the basic hypothesis .i.e. discussing the reasons for the forms of houses and settlements and it states that the house form is not simply the result of physical forces or any single causal factor, but is the consequence of a whole range of socio-cultural factors seen in their broadest terms. 

In the chapter the socio-cultural forces and form explains the various effects of the social and cultural norms on the form and the space, describing the basic needs and explaining it’s importance and how it affects the dwelling form, we get to see what is the relationship between the house and the settlement, selection of a particular site and what factors lead choosing it (choice access to food or water, exposure to wind, defensive potential, the sparing of land for agriculture, and transportation all play a role.) and last but not least shows how the constancy and change plays an important role in the social and cultural factors.

CHAPTER IV : CLIMATE AS MODIFYING FACTOR

This chapter Shows how climate and it’s variables affects the building construction, community and  different dwelling spaces. Also what are the  different and various responses towards them.

It describes how the climatic determinism fails to account for the range and diversity of house forms, climate is, nevertheless, an important aspect of the form-generating forces, and has major effects on the forms man may wish to create for himself. 

This chapter at start explains that how climatic scale climatic scale is a useful concept for determining the need for shelter; including Non material Solutions which are in addition to climatic solutions which are best analyzed in terms of orientation, structure, plan form, and materials, there are other approaches; we see several methods of approaching the study of the influence of climate on house form and lastly it explains in detail the climatic variables (temperature, humidity, wind, rain, radiation and light.) and responses to them (they generate in terms of form, materials, and devices.)

CHAPTER V : CONSTRUCTION, MATERIAL AND TEXHNOLOGY AS MODIFYING FACTORS 

This chapter shows that the availability and choice of materials and construction techniques in an architectural situation will greatly influence and modify the form of the building. The house responds to the physical stresses of climate, heat, cold, humidity, radiation, and light-it must also respond structurally to the mechanical stresses-gravity, wind, rain, and snow. 

This chapter deals with these universal problems of the enclosing of space; weathering, wind forces, and portability; the ways in which different people have solved them; and the form consequences these solutions may have. 

The chapter also explains the process/procedure of construction; also explains what should the basis of choosing materials; defines portability, its major uses, people using it and how it affects various factors like transportation, etc.; How and where prefabrication is done; action of lateral forces; how weathering affects the construction; gravity defined structures like space frames, pure tensile structures, round dwellings and trusses 

CHAPTER VI : A LOOK AT PRESENT

The chapter concludes with the talking about the developing countries like the concerns regarding the development in social and cultural terms, importance of connection with built environment and the house. It also throw light on the whole problem of understanding the relation of built form to the cultures concerned, in turn making clear the value of cross-cultural analysis in relation to the house and built environment in general, explaining what does all housing needs to achieve four objectives in order to be successful.

The chapter ends with the topic “The Case of Our Own Culture” which further explains the turn to the Western world, and see whether the basic framework suggested helps us in any way to understand the form of the popular house and explaining the  definition of the image and how the meaning of the house is of great importance, the impact of attitudes toward eating, how fundamental problems of hygiene have always existed, but the importance attached to them, and the forms used, have been very different, depending on beliefs, fears, and values rather than utilitarian considerations and how attitudes toward privacy are still very much culturally shaped, and have great impact on house form. 

CONCLUSION

All of the preceding evidence seems to fit the schema which he have proposed rather closely. Our era is one of reduced physical constraints. We can do very much more than was possible in the past, and criticality is lower than ever. The result is the problem of excessive choice, the difficulty of selecting or finding constraints which arose naturally in the past and which are necessary for the creation of meaningful house form. This great freedom of choice, and the fact that house form can now be the domain of fashion, suggests the general validity of the concept of criticality and the primacy of socio-cultural factors, and all that this implies for the understanding of house form, as well as its choice. However, we act as though criticality were high and close fit to physical "function" were essential. The unspecialized nature of vernacular buildings, and their consequent success over time. There may lie the great lesson of vernacular building for our own day-the value of constraints to establish generalized, "loose" frameworks where the interplay of the constant and changeable aspects of man can find expression.

The book tries to propose a conceptual framework for looking at the great variety of house types and forms and the forces that affect them. It attempts to bring some order to this complex field and thus create a better understanding of the form determinants of dwellings. This is a subject which overlaps many disciplines: architecture, cultural geography, history, city planning, anthropology, ethnography, cross cultural studies, and even the behavioral sciences. 

When references to dwellings and settlements occur in the anthropological literature, for example, they are descriptive rather than analytical; cultural geography, which has seen the dwelling as important, has either used it as a diagnostic tool or concentrated on morphological classification.

It concerns with primitive and vernacular buildings and settlements, from the point of view of the environmental designer. The forces that shape these dwellings and give them clearly identifiable characteristics, and their lessons for the present day.