Allen Noble - Vernacular Buildings: A Global Survey

Allen G. Noble is Distinguished Emeritus Professor at the University of Akron, Ohio. He was previously Professor of Geography and Planning at the university. His books include Wood, Brick and Stone: The North American Settlement Landscape (1984), nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, Barns of the Midwest (with H. G. Wilhelm, 1995) and Traditional Buildings: A Global Survey of Structural Forms and Cultural Functions (I.B.Tauris, 2007).

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VERNACULAR BUILDINGS

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A Global Survey

Allen G. Noble

Published in 2014 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd

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Distributed in the United States and Canada

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Copyright 2014 Allen G. Noble

The right of Allen G. Noble to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

International Library of Human Geography: 20

ISBN: 978 1 78076 624 9

eISBN: 978 0 85773 485 3

A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available

Typeset in Palatino by JCS Publishing Services Ltd

Contents

Figures

The rural Pennsylvania-German landscape

An Ohio Amish farmstead

An exuberant example of popular architecture

Typical pioneer farmstead, Minas Gerais State, Brazil

A Thai urban landscape

A rainbow-roofed Toda hut high in the Nilgiri Hills, India

Ido period houses of Japan

German-Russian housebarn development in Manitoba

The New England connecting barn, photo and floor plan

Main house types, Chamba District, Himachal Pradesh, India

Longhouse, bastle, and laithe housebarns

Abandoned longhouse, Gola Island, Ireland

Restored late-colonial period hall and parlor house, Yorktown, Virginia

Stages of development of the Howard-Hartsfield house

Hut and granary of the Jal people, Nigeria

Evolution of kitchen locations

Night soil jars sunning in the doorway, Yangtze Valley

An early dwelling-enclosed privy in the village of Quimper, France

Typical house of the Amazonian caboclo, near Belem, Brazil

Interior of a Colorado Indian house, near Guayaquil, Ecuador

A triple-decker house, Utica, New York

A Nile delta farmstead, Egypt

A weavers house, Yorkshire, UK

Diagram showing the geographical aspect of weavers cottages

Topographic map of Chortitz, Manitoba

Topographic map of farmhouse locations on kames, near Normal, Illinois

Cistern storage of rainwater drawn from roof, on the delta lowland, Louisiana

Farm courtyards preserved in Skansen, Stockholm

Amish homestead with grandfather house, Ohio

Map of the largest Ukrainian settlement of Alberta, Canada

Road adjustment, General Land Office survey

Masai dwelling, Tanzania

Adobe plaster eroded by roof drain overflow, Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico

Puddled adobe dwelling, Punjab village, northern India

Pueblo Indian oven or horno, Taos, New Mexico

Rammed earth wall construction and tamper tool, northern Peru

Hounds-tooth brickwork

Protective wall coverings of brick cladding and adobe

Limestone traditional buildings, Dvori, Croatia

A stone girna, northern Malta

Map of cobblestone building in northeastern North America

Typical rural hut, Ethiopian plateau

Bamboo and thatch dwelling, Tanzania Village Museum

Vertical pole and mud daub construction, near Senkiw, Manitoba

A reconstructed log cabin, northeastern Ohio

Methods of log chinking

Stovewood house wall, Door County peninsula, Wisconsin

Cruck- and box-frame houses, Woebly, Hereford, UK

Example of half-timber construction, Bernkastel, Germany

Mud daub over wattle, Jamestown reconstruction, Virginia

Tenoned planks slotted into posts, near Zakopane, Poland

New England one-and-a-half-story dwelling with small upper-level windows and frets, Stow, Ohio

Roof-positioned eyebrow window

Lithograph of early tree-top structure

Stilt houses above the lagoon at Ganvie, Benin

Food safe in the wall of a Nuristani dwelling

Tentative classification of excavated and related earth structures

Interior of a loess cave

View of an open, sunken courtyard in the Matmata plateau

Irregularly positioned cave openings, Cappadocia

Limestone cave dwelling, Saumur, France

Thatched dwelling and closeup of thatch, Cloppenburgdorf, Germany

Hebridean thatched hut

Three-foot shakes on a roof in Eagle, Wisconsin

Cow dung drying near Agra

Limestone and tile roofs in Croatia

Cone-on-cube dwelling form of the Bamileke, Cameroon

Bell-cast eaves to deflect rain run-off away from base of walls, Isle dOrlay, Quebec

Changes in the coyau of Quebec cottage roofs

Heavy snows are typical in northern New York State

Cobblestone wall damaged by rain, snow, and frost in Eagle, Wisconsin

Heavy icicle accumulation in Boonville, New York

Thatched roof weighted with boulders in Scotland

Hurricane damage, Russiaville, Indiana

Abandoned farmhouses

Unsympathetic rehabilitation attempts

Gothic houses in the former British Concession, Shanghai, China

Window frame in new adobe construction, Taos Pueblo, New Mexico

Artillery damage to a building wall in Wrzburg, Germany

A United States weather map, showing the extreme lowpressure which was a major element in the Great Peshtigo Fire

Fire destruction of dwellings

Lava flow, central Iceland

Community bakeoven in Brittany

A rural Chinese threshold

Round-top door typical of Carpathian village log houses, Poland

Log ladder, Colorado Indian settlement, near Guayaquil, Ecuador

Pacific Northwest Coast Indian totem pole door

Early Dutch windows in the Hudson Valley, New York State

The most common traditional dwelling window types

Thatch-roofed Icelandic dwelling

Rural farmstead and village family chapels

Typical rural Turkish house

Pueblo roof stack of burned-through cooking pots

Summer kitchen, bakeoven and privy, Arranches, France

A summer kitchen in the Belgian settlement in the Door County peninsula, Wisconsin

Typical traditional dwelling of the Western Caribbean

Cottage with bed outshot, Ulster, Northern Ireland

An exterior chimney, Williamsburg, Virginia

Farmhouse with hay bales along foundation for insulation, Ohio

Cross section of a wind catcher

Cladding removed from log house, near Sharpsburg, Maryland

Two examples of traditional decoration and architecture

A square mandala which represents the Hindu guide for vernacular and other building

Spirit houses in Isaan, Thailand

Dragon and tiger hills according to Feng Shui doctrine

Half-timber gable wall decoration, Cloppenberg, Germany

Gable ridge profiles and decorations in Taiwan