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.