Architecture and the Vernacular

What is the connection between the elite world of avant-garde architectural design and the 'ordinary' everyday buildings which most of us inhabit in our daily lives?

Architecture and the Vernacular explores the troubled borders between architectural design and the everyday world. In contrast to the view widely-held in architectural circles, this book argues that there has always been a constant flow of ideas in both directions between the world of 'designed' architecture, of icons and big-name architects on the one hand, and the world of ordinary, anonymous buildings on the other. Whether rural vernacular buildings, shotgun shacks, shanty towns, suburban housing, or edge-of-town retail barns - these typologies may have been marginalized, but they have been far from mute in the formation of architectural discourse.

Providing an accessible examination of the key academic questions and debates concerning the relationship between architecture, the vernacular, and the everyday, this book is also a powerful argument for a new way of thinking about the making of buildings and the practice of architecture. Many of the issues addressed go right to the heart of the identity crisis that architecture faces in the twenty-first century: What is architecture? What defines an architect? And what can architects and designers learn from the everyday world around them?