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Volume 2.2

DUALITY IN MODERN CHIRICAHUA APACHE SETTLEMENT PATTERNS
Martha L. Henderson
The location and efficiency of settlement patterns are often the result of conflicts between political entities. Invading political powers have used relocation of population and destruction of First-World patterns of adaptation as methods by which to control geographic area. This paper interprets the changing settlement patterns of the Chiricahua Apache Indians of North America as indicative of a conflict in human territoriality. From the early nineteenth century the United States government sought to dominate the territoriality of the Chiricahua through historic policies aimed at assimilating American Indians into mainstream American culture. But human territoriality is based on mechanisms that can be enforced or withdrawn, and since 1950 there has been a relaxation of U.S. territoriality in regard to the Chiricahua. In his context, modern Chiricahua settlement patterns now indicate a reassertion of traditional Chiricahua spatial patterns. This has, however, occurred in ways that are indicative of Third-World spatial conditions and social relationships. The duality of Chiricahua settlement patterns over time allows a unique opportunity to investigate the difference between First- and Third-World patterns for inhabitating the same area.

IDENTITY THROUGH DETAIL: ARCHITECTRUE AND CULTURAL ASPIRATION IN MONTAGU, SOUTH AFRICA, 1850-1915
Derek and Vivienne Japha
The anthropologist Robert Thornton has suggested that tradition and culture can be used by groups within a society as a means of creating identity and status boundaries. Such activity occurred in the development of the South African colonial town of Montagu. By the mid-nineteenth century, the small-farmer elite of the area had marked out a clear status hierarchy on the landscape through the form of their residential architecture. This architecture relied on British patterns of space making and British-inspired systems of detail that connoted the concept of progress that was important to their self-image. But the architectural symbolisms chosen by this first generation represented only a transitional phase in the overall development of the architectural form of the town. As Montagu changed from a agricultural settlement to a more complex town by the end of the century, old symbolisms were replaced by a new order whose distinctions were more subtle. This new order, which was influenced by more far-reaching architectural developments, in many ways represented an inversion of the previous tradition. In the case of both architectural styles, however, the deployment of architectural form in the interest of social boundaries involved both “basic form” and “style and detail,” a pattern described elsewhere in the work of Henry Glassie.

A COMPARISON OF TRADITIONAL SETTLEMENTS IN NEPAL AND BALI
Joseph L. Aranha
The processes of colonization and modernization have changed the forms of traditional settlements in much of South and Southeast Asia. Fortunately, a few places remain where patterns of living and physical forms of settlement have remained relatively untouched by the forces of change. Places like these provide the opportunity to study architectural environments that are determined by factors other than functionalism and profit. These are environments where the physical forms of dwellings and settlements are entwined with religious, cultural, and social systems. The rich meanings of these environments may not always be obvious to the casual observer. But to the initiated townsman, villager, or priest, the environments have a profound influence on religious, social, mental, and even physical well-being. Environments like these still exist in Nepal and Bali. This paper is a comparative study of traditional dwellings and settlements in these two places.

THE MORPHOLOGY OF DWELLING ENVIRONMENTS ON AMORGOS WITHIN THEIR INSULAR TRADITIONAL CONTEXT
Maria-Christina Georgalli
This paper traces the effect of historical factors and processes normally encompassed by the term tradition on the morphology of the post-Byzantine dwelling environments of the island of Amorgos in the Aegean Sea. Amorgos is unique in its socioeconomic and geographical context, yet it is also an example of larger theoretical issues involved in the study of traditional dwellings and settlements for which adequate empirical data is scarce. The paper discusses how architectural analysis makes it possible not only to interpret the present morphology of settlements on Amorgos, but also to comprehend the historical evolution of these settlements. This is possible because of the double role tradition plays in the diachronic process of settlement evolution. As a factor for stability, tradition results in the establishment of forms with an a-contextual, and thus a-historical, nature. But as a dynamic force, exposed to both external and internal contextual changes, tradition also produces instances of form that are bound to their context. Because forms that belong to a local architectural tradition are to a certain extent a-historical, they can be described and interpreted synchronically. Meanwhile, information inherent in specific instances of form can also be presented as suggestive of the context in which the forms were generated.

THE MYTH OF MEANINGFUL FORMS:
COMPARING THE FORMS OF INDIGENOUS AND CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE
Ralf Weber
A return to an architecture of traditional forms has been propagated recently by a number of movements which have aimed at creating a more “meaningful” architecture. Starting with the question of whether meaning is innate in form, this article discusses various kinds of meaning in architecture as well as the notion of architecture as a language. It determines that meaning is principally inferred into architecture by individual subjects, but that this can occur at different levels of intersubjectivity. It argues that the development of a vernacular architectural tradition is characterized by the parallel evolution of architectural forms and the intersubjective cognitive schemes that allow different people to infer similar meanings from them. By contrast, the emergence of classical architecture (defined broadly as architecture produced by architects) is characterized by a process of formal ritualization that results in a steadily decreasing intersubjectivity of meaning. The article concludes by noting how both classical and vernacular architecture eventually undergo a process of stylization by which original meanings become less and less accessible to the public.

HOUSE BUILDING IN SHAANXI, CHINA: A CHRONICLE OF THE TECHNIQUE AND CEREMONY OF RAISING THE ROOF FRAME
J. Azevedo
In north China raising the roof frame for a new house is a community event attended with defined ritual and ceremony. On the day of the frame raising chronicled here, two professional builders directed the erection of the frame by a volunteer crew of village men. Before raising the final beam at the ridge, the owner of the house and his father presided over a small traditional ceremony. Whereas the older men seemed to view the ceremony as a natural and necessary step in the building process, the younger men felt less need for the ritual. They nonetheless celebrated the completion of the frame as a joyous event in its own right without the scope of tradition. This field report shares the experience of frame raising and some thoughts about how social change in China is affecting the form and ceremony of rural house building.