1. INTRODUCTION - THE DISCOVERY OF VERNACULAR-ISM IN THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE ‘NATIVE’, ‘MONUMENTAL’, ‘PRESTIGIOUS’, ‘PRIMITIVE’, ‘INDIGENOUS’, ‘TRADITIONAL’, ‘LOCAL’, ‘ARCHITECTURE WITHOUT ARCHITECTS’, ‘FOLK’, ‘RURAL’, ‘ETHNIC’, ‘INFORMAL’, ,…..
There are some common areas of interest, which are common to all these terms or vocabularies. These common areas are making difficulties for the clear distinctions between the terms. Among those, the term which has gained the widest acceptance is ‘vernacular architecture’ with its linguistic comparison to the common people. Architecture is a unique component of a country's culture just as much as its language, music, art, literature or food. Architecture is also the most visual of those cultural components; the pyramids in Egypt, skyscrapers in New York, a temple in India, all convey a unique image. This is called “genius loci,” the “spirit of a place”. Every country has its own genius loci, its own uniqueness. Vernacular architecture is composed of local materials and derived from local customs, techniques that have been passed on from generation to generation. Architecture is the physical manifestation of the needs and aspirations of a society and is determined by the environmental, socio-cultural, and political climate of a place or a region. Each period in history can be associated with a genre of architecture, which is reflective of beliefs and achievements of the society it represents. It includes the inter relationships of the built and open spaces within the larger landscape. Each period in history can be associated with a genre of architecture, which is reflective of beliefs and achievements of the society it represents. Distinctive images representative of each period in history are etched in the collective memory. 9
