Marta Lata Dobrochna Lata Agata Czechowska Mateusz Pietryga
Poland
Formely people used to live in small villages. They have used materials they could find around. It was natural, varied in different parts of the world. Architecture was created by people, without architects and their dreams.
Our views from windows have a lot in common. You will see similar solutions - no matter if you’re reading this in Asia or Africa. Today we live in a global village. Places don’t have a genius loci anymore. We can easily share informations and universal solutions. Globalization stays in opposition to vernacular architecture.
We should re-discuss vernacularity especially in cities. Our habitat now is much different than before. Most people live in the surroundings that are not natural. In the past architecture was always result of needs. It was born in context, raised by local people. Today so called vernacular buildings are in fact falseness. Building timber cottage in metropolia won’t be vernacularity, because the context is no longer a forest. In cities there is a lot of waste of transient industries, the urban trash. Unused machines, buildings. Roads that have changed routes, structures that have lost functions... These elements are part of modern landscape. Reusing them can make all the cities different, give them identity, create traditions. It already happens today in architecture made not by architect. When the economic situation makes them use waste of the city. We are talking about slums that formally are surprisingly similar to vernacular homes of ancient peoples.
We need to stop constant production. Not everything should be new and shiny - every element that we put in our environment stays. Today’s vernacularity has mission that it didn’t have before. It should not any longer derive from natural surroundings because eventually will destroy nature. It should heel the environment instead. Make the forest grow again.
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