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The Intersecting Fields of Ethno-Architecture. From the Indo-Himalayan World to Occidental Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Gérard Toffin
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For some thirty years, a handful of architects has been trying to call into question the primacy that the history of architecture has given to monumental buildings. The representatives of this trend want to get away from the short chronology, common since the Italian Renaissance, and react against the dominant international functionalism that has too little respect for the local cultural contexts. It is under the influence of this “vernacular” approach that the small traditional structure became as legitimate an object of research as the well-known buildings. This approach, innovative and audacious as it was, broke with a Utopian vision of a large part of modern architecture. It led the architects concerned to turn toward non-European countries and to focus their attention on the connections between indigenous housing patterns and cultures. From this decentralization ethno-architecture was born by which we understand the study of preindustrial, “traditional” habitats and housing. Inspired by Panofsky, Eliade, and Lévi-Strauss and familiar with the social sciences, these researchers appropriated the conceptual tools of anthropology. They opened up important fields of research in Asia, Oceania, the Middle East, and Africa and reaped a rich harvest of ethnographic materials. It quickly became clear to them that the so-called “traditional” house developed, in imitation of palaces and temples, from the culture of a given population and that it was informed by the religious images of the inhabitants as much as by its most sacred buildings.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 42 , Issue 166 , June 1994 , pp. 23 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

Notes

1. It should be remembered that the word verna refers to a "slave who is born in the house," and by extension to the "intimate universe of domestic life."

2. This article takes up the broad outlines of a presentation that the Association for the Study of Traditional Environments at Berkeley invited me to make on the occasion of its third international conference, entitled "Development vs Tradi tion. The Cultural Ecology of Dwellings and Settlements" and held in Paris on October 8-11, 1992.

3. See C. Lévi-Strauss, Anthropologie structurale (Paris, 1958); P. Bourdieu, "La maison kabyle ou le monde renversé," in: J. Pouillon and P. Maranda, eds., Échanges et communications. Mélanges offerts à Claude Lévi-Strauss, Vol. II (Paris, 1970), 739-58.

4. A. Leroi-Gourhan, Le Geste et la Parole (Paris, 1982).

5. See F. Paul-Lévi and M. Segaud, Anthropologie de l'espace (Paris, 1983).

6. See, e.g., P. Claval, "Les sciences sociales et l'espace rural: découverte des thèmes, attitudes, politiques," in: Habitat et l'espace dans le monde rural, ed. by La Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (Paris, 1986), 15-40. Idem, Autour de Vidal de la Blache. La formation de l'école française de géographie (Paris, 1993).

7. These examples have been taken from the excellent article by F. Calame, "Tech nologie et architecture rurale," in: Habitat et espace dans le monde rural, op.cit., 67-73.

8. Ibid., 72.

9. Ibid., 70f.

10. For a more complete picture of these constraints, see G. Toffin, "Convertures des habitations et milieux au Népal," in: D. Blamont and G. Toffin, eds., Archi tecture, milieu et société en Himalaya (Paris, 1987), 155-58.

11. P. Claval, op.cit., 25ff.

12. A. Demangeon, "L'habitation rurale. Essai de classification des principeaux types," in: Annales de Géographie, 1920, 352-73, repr. in Problèmes de géographie humaine (Paris, 1942), 260ff.

13. On triennial rotation see esp. M. Bloch, Les Caractères originaux de l'Histoire rurale française, Vol. II (Paris, 1968; first publ. 1931). For the close connection between the historians of the Annales School and the French School of Geogra phy during the interwar period, see above all: L. Febvre, Pour une Histoire à part entière, Vol. I (Paris, 1962). See also L.E. Hackin, Initiation à la critique historique (Paris, 1963).

14. P. Arbos, La vie pastorale dans les Alpes françaises (Grenoble, 1922); J. Robert, La maison rurale permanente dans les Alpes françaises du Nord. Étude de géographie humaine (Grenoble, 1938).

15. T. Neverre and G. Toffin, "Types d'habitations dans une communauté montag narde du Centre Népal," in: D. Blamont and G. Toffin, eds., op.cit., 127-51.

16. G. Toffin, "Système agro-pastorale et societé dans une zone montagneuse à grands versants du Népal central," in: Techniques et Cultures, 7, 1986, 1-40.

17. A. Leroi-Gourhan, Milieu et Techniques (Paris, 1945), 24.

18. A. Meitzen, Siedelung und Agrarwesen der Westgermanen und Ostgermanen, Kelten, Roemer, der Finnen und der Slaven, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1895). See also H. Bausinger, Volkskunde ou l'ethnologie allemande (Paris, 1993), 118ff., about German scholar ship on regional architecture at the beginning of this century.

19. M. Sorre, Les Fondements de la Géographie humaine, Vol. I, III: L'habitat (Paris, 1952), 116.

20. G. Krauskopff, "De la maison sur pilotis à la grande maison. Réflexion sur les transformations des habitations tharu," in: D. Blamont and G. Toffin, eds., op.cit., 15-39.

21. P. Sagant, Le pays limbu: sa maison et ses champs (Paris, 1976).

22. G. Krauskopff, "De la maison sur pilotis à la grande maison," op.cit.

23. M.P. Mallé, "Maison du nord des Hautes-Alpes. L'habitat rural entre histoire et tradition," in: Terrain, 9, 1987, 65. See also idem, "Modes et modèles: les maisons à arcades du nord des Hautes-Alpes," in: Études rurales, 117, 1990, 85-102.

24. M.P. Mallé, "L'inventaire de l'habitat rural. Un example: les Hautes-Alpes," in: Habitat et espace dans le monde rural, op.cit., 59-65.

25. H. Focillon, Vie des formes (Paris, 1943), 90.

26. See J. Cuisenier, La maison rustique. Logique sociale et composition architecturale (Paris, 1991).

27. La Côte normande des années trente: Trouville, Deauville. Société et architecture bal néaire, 1910-1940, ed. by Institut français de l'architecture (Paris, 1992).

28. S. Kramrish, The Hindu Temple, Vol. I (Delhi, 1946), 29ff. See also M.L. Reiniche, Tiruvannamalai. Un lieu saint sivaître du sud de l'Inde (Paris, 1989), 6-11.

29. A. Rapoport, Pour une anthropologie de la maison (Paris, 1972), 65 and 67.

30. V. Barré et al., Panauti, une ville au Népal (Paris, 1981), 157.

31. G. Toffin, "L'espace social des communautés montagnardes du Népal. Le cas des Tamang du Ganesh Himal," in: J. Bourliaud et al., eds., Sociétés rurales des Andes et de Himalaya (Grenoble, 1990),25-31.

32. L. Bernot, Les paysans arakanais du Pakistan occidental (Paris, 1967), 419.

33. R. Shetty, "The Impact of Kinship Systems on the Generation of House Types," in: Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, 2, 1990, 52.

34. C. Bromberger, "L'habitat et l'habitation, des objets complexes. Quelles direc tions pour une analyse?," in: Habitat et espace dans le monde rural, op.cit., 4.

35. P. Bourdieu, "Célibat et condition paysanne," in: Études rurales, 5-6, 1962, 32- 125. See also P. Lamaison, L'impossible mariage. Violence et parenté en Gévaudan (Paris, 1982).

36. See C. Lévi-Strauss, Paroles données (Paris, 1984), 191. See also the article "Mai son" in: P. Bonte and M. Izard, eds., Dictionnaire de l'éthnologie et de l'anthropolo gie (Paris, 1991), 435-36. See also P. Lamaison, "La notion de maison: entretien avec C. Lévi-Strauss," in: Terrain, 9, 1987, 34-39.

37. P. Dollfus, Lien de neige et de génévriers. Organisation sociale et réligieuse des com munautés bouddhistes du Ladakh (Paris, 1989).

38. I. Chiva, "La maison: le noyau du fruit, l'arbre, l'avenir," in: Terrain, 9, 1987, 5.

39. On this topic, see A. Hublin, "Construction populaire et architecture savante," in: Architectures et cultures (Cahiers de la recherche architecturale, 27/28), 20-24.