Does America even have a vernacular?
"Global/local is a classic binary, with all the problems associated with binary thinking... sides are taken, the underdog is championed and much effort put into defining its special status... Opposites proliferate, but they are always in reaction to the dominant, and thus either in the thrall of it or in retreat from it."
'Here, There and North of Nowhere' by Jeremy Till was an illuminating read into the two sides of the debate, local versus global, except that he argued it shouldn't be two sides. As he says, this binary way of thinking doesn't help either side. New construction will continue to be modern no matter what you do and considering modern as the "dominant" and "bad" architecture while the local is "good" will pull the project apart. It is better to negotiate between the extremes and "dissolve the rigid binary".
I think the most beautiful projects in Europe do this by allowing the new to influence tradition, but also allowing tradition to influence the new. Where I see this exchange dissolve is in America. That isn't to say that there isn't good architecture here, I just think that how we are taught in school and how we are brought up to think about architecture is vastly different than in Europe. Growing up, we watch as whole forests get razed to put up a new gated community of McMansions (anyone else watch this eat up forests and farmland or just me?). We (developers and Americans) technically have the space to spread out... so we do with less than little regard for wildlife around us and natural habitats. This means that typically the ground is drastically altered for ideal foundations and buildings are continually knocked down and rebuilt. We don't have 800 year old structures to work with like Europe, so we have nothing to preserve (architecturally that is, we have so much nature we SHOULD have reserved before we forked it all up).
Back to my main point, I think the fluidity between what is old and what is new gets tricky when we really have no old to pull on. The oldest construction we have is from less than 300 years ago... and I'm pretty sure its all copies from Europe. Vernacular is typically what we look to as local architecture and this is architecture that was done without architects using materials from the immediate vicinity. This doesn't really work in America. Unless you're pulling architectural inspiration from Native American tribes, you aren't really pulling true vernacular.
Instead, we tend to pull from settler cabins and street layouts that appeared when the horse and buggy were a strong presence. America as we know it started from these settlers who banded together to survive, but didn't really know each other. People migrated from all around to new towns, constantly looking for opportunity and work, so the community wasn't as strong and it really never has been since. So there isn't a strong community to pull on and there isn't a strong vernacular. One could argue that America's vernacular is big box stores, industrial mills, and log cabins. That is for the whole country though, with vastly different climates spread across it.
Should we focus more on using the landscape and climate we work with and less on trying to harken back to "vernacular" American architecture? I see these two binaries fighting less with each other in America since we really are all modern.
And I'll end with this lovely quote from Till:
"But it is to argue that our aesthetic and technical twiddlings - whilst the world burns - are accorded a reverence, and an association with resistance, that they simply do not deserve."
I struggle with American Architecture because the only true architecture I can think of is the Chicago School but I would hardly call that vernacular because it is a tradition steeped in modern technology. Any other forms of vernacular are styles that are taken from European models and adapted to the American climate... Queen Anne and Victorian to name a few. The true vernacular architecture is that of the Native Americans and we know that those traditions were squashed with Manifest Destiny. So I guess the question still remains...Do we have a vernacular that we can be proud of?
ReplyDeleteJenn, I completely agree. I had thought about this often in undergrad as we only learn about the "greats" in architecture, most of which are European and not American. It truly is a pity to think about what is the vernacular history of America? I think this would be hard for anyone to answer, especially an architect. Plantation homes...? We have a long way to go before we can see both sides when all we have is land and power (rolling my eyes). I want to move to Europe lol or at least Chicago haha closest you can get to Europe in America.
ReplyDeleteJenn,
ReplyDeleteIt’s interesting to think that the reason we [as Americans] have such a difficult time identifying with a vernacular is due to our lack of history, relatively speaking. Let me play devil’s advocate here for a minute though: I have had the privilege of living in both metropolitan NY and Charleston. I could argue that these two have incredibly different vernaculars, due to different cultural exchanges, climates, economies, among other things [i.e., Brooklyn brownstone vs. Charleston single home]. I believe it would serve us well if our new regional architecture looked to the meaning behind architectural gestures as simple as these – which oftentimes, they do not.