This seminar is located at the intersection of architecture, gender studies, material culture,heritage preservation, linguistics, and sustainability. Each of these disciplines appropriates the notion of vernacular in divergent ways — as a retrogressive style, as domestic labor, as resistance to mass-production, as environmentally-aware acts of dwelling, as culture-specific markers of belonging, as indigenous know-how, etc. Through readings, discussions, creative projects and self-defined research, we will sift through many of the contradictory narratives and theoretical paradoxes raised by the study of forms (linguistic, architectural, narrative, economic) that resist mass-reproduction within a globalized world.
*This course meets with ARCH 506-006.
Undergraduate students must register under ARCH 409; Graduate students must register under ARCH 506.
Approved for the ARCH minor
