Imaging vernacular architecture: A dialogue with anthropology on building process

Ethnographic surveys of building processes rarely feature in mainstream architectural history. The curious dearth of studies derives perhaps more from the absence of a relevant methodological orientation and cross-disciplinary collaboration than a lack of serious interest in the building process itself. By drawing on building methods and know-how from an oral culture, in this essay, we propose that sentient building processes are useful means for constructing one seamless history that transcends limited disciplinary representations. We also pursue the possibilities of collaboration on ethnographic knowledge across vernacular architecture and anthropology. The essay discusses concepts and methods including visual methods. Informed by current anthropology, images are additionally utilised to interpret architectural temporality, a biographical view of dwelling, situated learning, technology-culture non-duality, and socio-spatial references. By intertwining a cross-disciplinary methodological position with methodological techniques and by tying conditions and potentials of human life to the very act of building, concerning an indigenous culture without any written history, we advocate vernacular architecture’s potential to complement mainstream architectural history.