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Volume 14.2

COLONIAL SPACE: HEALTH AND MODERNITY IN BARABAZAAR, KOLKATA
Martin Beattie
This article investigates colonial attitudes toward disease in the indigenous parts of Kolkata, focusing on a market area called “Barabazaar.” Through the health and planning reports produced by the British authorities, it explores the construction of the “urban history of Kolkata” and the formation of an intertwined “Western” narrative of health and modernity. Concluding, it argues for a hybrid notion of modernity that offers “other” possibilities, one which acknowledges particularly the huge part played by the indigenous population in the urban history of Kolkata.

DRAWING BOUNDARIES: VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE AND MAPS
Marcel Vellinga
The analytic potential of maps has never been fully explored in the discourse on vernacular architecture. This disregard for cartographic representations is unfortunate, as maps may provide researchers with valuable insights and open up new directions for inquiry and understanding. Using several examples, this paper aims to show how maps may be of particular value in charting the ways in which architectural boundaries sever or coincide with national, cultural or ethnic boundaries, and in identifying new areas for research and recording that go beyond a narrow focus on culture areas.

A MEDITERRANEAN JEWISH QUARTER AND ITS ARCHITECTURAL LEGACY: THE GIUDECCA OF TRANI, ITALY (1000-1550)
Mauro Bertagnin, Ilham Khuri-Makdisi, and Susan Gilson Miller
During the late Middle Ages the city of Trani in southeastern Italy was home to a significant minority population of Jews. This community reached a highpoint during the thirteenth century, when under the protection of the progressive King Frederic II, it combined successful commercial activities with the presence of noted religious scholars. A conception of Jewish separation, even isolation, has been central to the study of late-medieval and early-Renaissance cities in Italy — particularly after the sixteenth century, when the prototype of the ghetto was invented in Venice. However, the giudecca of Trani was compact in size and diverse in architectural character and largely open to the city around it, indicating that this ghetto model may have been far more limited in time and space. Indeed, the elaborate spatial arrangements of Trani’s giudecca indicate a specific form of coexistence the lasted five hundred years. Today, only the buildings of this once-vital community remain to provide evidence of its former existence at an important Mediterranean crossroads.

BOZO-DOGON BANTERING: POLICING ACCESS TO DJENNE’S BUILDING TRADE WITH JESTS AND SPELLS
Trevor H.J. Marchand
Based on research with masons in Djenne, Mali, this article examines the use of interethnic bantering as a means to control access to the building trade. The possibility of becoming a mason is salient in Djenne, where control (traditionally in the hands of the Bozo) over the reproduction of style-Soudanaise architecture constitutes an important form of cultural capital. On the construction site, bantering was most prominently displayed between Bozo masons and their Dogon laborers. This article reviews the anthropological literature on the so-called “joking relationship” between these two groups, and then expands a contemporary understanding of this social institution that importantly includes issues of power, authority and resistance.

THE DANCE OF A SUMMER DAY: LE CORBUSIER’S SARABHAI HOUSE IN AHMEDABAD, INDIA
M. Susan Ubbelohde
Le Corbusier’s Sarabhai house in Ahmedabad, India, is a remarkable example of an architecture that “reveals the world” to the occupants. Tracking the experience and performance of the house through one summer day, this article demonstrates the overlay of climatic response, cultural understanding, and architectural design to support both body and psyche during a highly stressful season. From the cool moments of early morning, through the furnace of heat, and into the slow cooling of the evening and dark relief of the night, the house is an active participant in the daily rituals of its inhabitants.