Buildings without Architects: A Global Guide to Everyday Architecture

by John May, Anthony Reid

A wonderfully informative reference on vernacular styles, from adobe pueblos and Pennsylvania barns to Mongolian yurts and Indonesian stilt houses.

This small but comprehensive book documents the rich cultural past of vernacular building styles, from Irish sod houses to sub-Saharan wattle-and-daub huts and redwoods treehouses. It offers inspiration for home woodworking enthusiasts as well as architects, conservationists, and anyone interested in energy-efficient building and sustainability. The variety and ingenuity of the world’s vernacular building traditions are richly illustrated, and the materials and techniques are explored. With examples from every continent, the book documents the diverse methods people have used to create shelter from locally available natural materials, and shows the impressively handmade finished products through diagrams, cross-sections, and photographs. Unlike modern buildings that rely on industrially produced materials and specialized tools and techniques, the everyday architecture featured here represents a rapidly disappearing genre of handcrafted and beautifully composed structures that are irretrievably "of their place." These structures are the work of unsung and often anonymous builders that combine artistic beauty, practical form, and necessity.

Genres: Architecture, Nonfiction, Design, History

192 pages, Hardcover

First published April 27, 2010

About the author

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

Reviews

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seems like it's been a while since a grownup nonfiction book has crossed my path that I couldn't put down, had to keep turning the pages because it was just so daggone fascinating.

I call these books Your Neighborhood Librarian's Fetish Books, because I go through them so obsessively. The one about the little girl beauty pageants; Hair Wars; the book of Powwow attire. Yum.

So here's a new one, and what is it about? Vernacular architecture. The way people have built their houses and service structures all over the world and throughout history, when building is entirely driven by materials, function, and comfort. How did the ancient Scots cope with bitter winds and lack of lumber? What's the best way to stack hay in Eastern Europe? How exactly is a yurt put together?

And oh, what a luxurious wealth of types of structures! Haida plank houses, Yanomamo compounds, indlus, igloos, tipis and toleks. Bottle buildings, log cabins, cob houses, cave dwellings. With plan drawings, elevations, cross sections, and some color pictures.

Makes you want to go out in the woods, mix up some mud, cut some saplings, and make yourself a little indlu of your own.

[Mikaela Robertson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great introductory book into traditional building designs around the world. However, I felt it lacked sufficient detail to be able to use any of the information in sustainable housing design, which was my personal goal in reading this book. It focuses on 'this is what they did' rather than 'this is what we can learn from them'.

[Hannah Silver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fuuuuun resource for designers. Love all the architectural drawings.

[Margot Carroll · Rating 4 out of 5]

I havent given it a 5 star yet, b/c i have not read it yet, i have flipped through it tho and it looks aMAYzing, and to divulge my super secret.... this was the book that i hoped to write one day, except mine was going to be larger format and younger reader focused. >sigh<

[EAL · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-produced book with well-chosen images. Fascinating subject. As I went on I started to skim the captions on the pictures because they were a procession of facts without much else interesting about them. I was kinda hoping for nuraghe, but the book's selection was so rich that I cannot complain.

[Monty Milne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful and fascinating, with judicious illustrations and excellent drawings. The wonderful exuberance of vernacular architecture is exhibited in all its mind-broadening abundance.