Dwellings by Paul Oliver

Hassan Fathy

Mahatma trogdolyte excavated building and plan, Tunisia

Berber tent, North Africa

French building tradition - tying a bush to rafters to symbolise growth, Dordogne

In his book “Dwellings”, Paul Oliver discusses and describes  the vernacular building, or “architecture without architects” which represents over 90% of the world’s buildings.  In his introduction he writes that during the period of modernism many architects recognised the quality and interest of vernacular building, but according to Oliver it was not until the 1940s and the work of Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy that the social and cultural importance of this building was acknowledged.  Fathy believed that “the result of human-environment interaction constitutes culture and has led to the development of a multitude of cultures by different people in different environments.  Vernacular architecture is one of the most concrete manifestations of this interaction”. (p. 11).         

In 1964 (the same year as Alexander published “Notes on the Synthesis of Form”), Bernard Rudofsky curated an exhibition at Museum of Modern Art, New York entitled “Architecture without Architects”.  Increasingly, vernacular architecture was recognised not as a primitive form of a building but a real expression of culture, often a long way from the Western spirit (“impervious to the spirit of ecology” (Aldo van Eyck, p. 12)) and much more attuned to climatic conditions and available materials.   

“For countless millions of people the bond between themselves and the place where they live transcends the physical frame of their habitation.   It is this double significance of dwelling – dwelling as the activity of living and residing, and dwelling as the place or built form which the focus of residence – which encompasses its manifold cultural and material aspects” (p. 15)

Oliver’s book comprehensively describes different kinds of dwellings, from nomadic tents and temporary structures to cities and permanent structures.  He stresses the cultural importance of vernacular architecture and traditional ways of living and in his epilogue gives the example of the British firm contracted to replace housing to be lost during the Three Gorges dam project.  Here, the proposals for high density terraced housing, although “ecologically and environmentally advanced”, represent a huge shift in living conditions and culture for many of those to be rehoused, especially the farming community.  “A major opportunity to meet the dwelling needs of an agricultural people .. who will have to develop an appropriate and lasting economy, has been missed….  With sympathetic management it could have provided a model for future housing related to rural regeneration in other countries, and shown how the pressure on cities could be alleviated” (p 259).  

The Alexander model of design would have taken a very different approach to the problem from this company by consulting the inhabitants about their traditions and way of life and economy and the practicalities of adapting to the loss of their land and working out an imaginative and realistic solution.