Architectural Anthropology

The built environment in which we live as humans is an important matter. The architectural landscape deeply structures our lives. On the other hand, architecture, as it is produced today in our urbanized environments, is based on too restricted knowledge. Postmodern “theory of architecture” is determined by the conventional history of art. Its narrow concept of aesthetic values prevents scientific research and reasoning by judgments of subjective taste. The wider human condition is not integrated. Humanity appears only marginally as user and is represented by standardized functional needs. Consequently, architectural anthropology maintains that theoretical horizons have to be widened. The term architecture is defined in new ways by integrating it into anthropological dimensions, including primatological and paleanthropological considerations. Thus the term architecture implies: all what humans and their biological relatives built and build.

In the late 1960s, modern architecture was maneuvered into a crisis. Using the dynamite destruction of a modern habitat district (Pruitt-Igoe) as key incident, Charles Jencks declared the “Death of Modernism” and proposed a new era of “Postmodernism.” Pruitt-Igoe had won an architectural award before but had finally ended up as a slum. However,Jencks's declaration was felt as a regress into the 19th century's history of styles by many young architects. The post-modern architectural theory, based on written history related to architecture (e.g., Vitruvianism) now imposed by art historians, was critically questioned as a historism inadequate for the “anthropological depth” of architecture. The origins of architecture cannot be found in ancient texts.

In the same period, a considerable interest developed for the achievements of traditional “architecture without architects” as proposed by Bernard Rudofsky. Vernacular architecture now was perceived by many as a new domain of research. Books published by Paul Oliver and others made it evident that ethnology had neglected this field considerably. Particularly architects became active in this direction of research. A worldwide movement emerged with numerous international associations that focused on the study of traditional environments (IASTE, University of California, Berkeley). The most important result of these efforts can be seen in the Encyclopaedia of Vernacular Architecture of the World edited by Paul Oliver. It is a three-volumed oeuvre in folio size, with about 2,000 contributors worldwide. The basic goal was to globally document traditional architecture and to classify it according to anthropological criteria. The encyclopaedia is a milestone in global house [Page 262]research. It shows the great variety of house forms in various cultures of the world. It documents traditional aesthetics and the very special structural conditions of related ways of life and social orders often still felt as exotic today.

However, theoretically, the Encyclopaedia is not without problems. It rests largely on the level of an anthropology of the house and uses its patterns of explanation from disciplinary anthropology without being conscious of the Eurocentric origins of these interpretations. Many characteristics of house traditions cannot be explained in this framework.

Furthermore, something very important becomes clear if, in regard to materials used, we concentrate our interest on the traditional or ethnological domain of architecture. Besides durable materials, we also find materials of limited durability like wood or even very ephemeral fibrous materials. Evidently, they have the advantage that they can be easily worked merely by the hand. The hand as the primary tool? Binding, weaving, and so on can be seen as very ancient techniques technologically or anthropologically. We find many types of roofs, walls and floors, mats for sleeping, and so on. Furthermore, there are containers, means of transportation, and cages for animals and the like. All these are important products of this fibrous type.

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