4.611/13 Civil Architecture in Islamic History (HASS)
Instructor: Nasser Rabbat
17- Traditional Residential Architecture:
Vernacular Architecture: The word is derived from the Latin word verna, domestic slave. In architecture, it was widely used form the 1970s on to designate indigenous, architect-less, low-tech, and mostly un-urban residential architecture.
Possible influences on the formation of vernacular types:
1: Climate and locale.
2: Social structure and religious beliefs.
3: Technological know-how.
4: Economics.
5: Taste, precedents and models.
Case Studies:
The varieties in vernacular types in a single country:
Syria:
Riwaq-type houses and liwan-type houses: variations on a theme.
Domical adobe houses in Northern Syria (Khan Shaykhun): rural innovations or representatives of a missing precedent.
The hosh house: Rural collective housing
The requirements of security and defensibility
Ksours of the Berbers in South Morocco: singular ksar, a fortified village.
Kasbah of the Berbers in South Morocco: fortified courtyard house.
The spread of a traditional type beyond the confines of a single region:
Upper-class, multi-storied urban dwellings based on the Yemeni models which spread across the area of coffee trade in the Red Sea.
Brick tower-houses of Rashid (Rosetta), the Delta, Egypt.
Adobe tower-houses of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: the Nourwali House.
Persistence of a type throughout the economic scale and the climatic spectrum:
Iranian adobe houses with courtyard:
Covered courtyard: A house in Zavareh.
Open courtyard: Bougerdi House, Kashan.
Regional variations of a single type based on construction techniques:
Anatolian houses:
First floor stone construction
Second floor, built of light material, projects over corbels. Plan is sofa type.
Regional variations:
Ashlar stone 1st floor + wood frame and bricks 2d floor: Apolyut, Bursa.
Undressed stone with wood rafters 1st floor + Wood 2d floor: Antalya.
Ashlar stone 1st floor + plastered wood frame 2d floor: Anamur and Safranbolu.
Wood shingles 1st and 2d floor: Eyup.