Culture and Houses
Overview
Many studies have been published on this topic and much have been talked about it. In 1960s Rappoport published his book in an attempt to prove that the culture was the main determinat of the form of the house. He studied numerous houses that belong to different cultures world over and did a good job in establishing relationaships between culture and the Houses, mainly in relation to traditional societies. Such a relationship of houses with culture ensured that an individual lived in harmony with the society and with the nature. However, the traditional societies lived and still living in many places in enitrely a different context compared to modern, particularly urban societies. Are there any relevance of individual cultures to the houses built in modern societies?
In fact culture is not static. It is changing all the time. Internal as well as external pressures continuously driving cultures to change. Some societies change very slowly and some others very fast. Societies which live in one place for long time with less external interference tend to have continuity in their cultural change. Therefor there are more chances to retain more elements of their house forms. Some conservative societies even when they change considerably, certain aspect of culture such as religious behaviour or some belief system do not change much. This keep some core elements of house design continue.