Abstract:
As understood popularly, vernacular is not
just a simplistic interaction between the
climate, culture and craft, but rather a
composite body of knowledge processes
developed over generations of experience
through trial and error in response to the
needs of people occupying them and to the
requirements of the changing physical
environment around them.
With the hegemonic advent of present global
monoculture, the evocation of sentimental
vernacular seems quite a natural response in
places with strong cultural traditions and their
unique craft expressions. I am referring to
that nostalgia for the vernacular which is
being conceived as an overdue return to the
ethos of popular culture. Rather than the
critical perception of reality and creative
synthesis, it rather evokes the sublimation of
a desire for direct experience through imagery
and rhetorical information. Its tactical aim is
to attain, as economically as possible, a
preconceived level of instant gratification in
behavioristic terms.
The aim of this paper is to explore the issue of
validating the vernacular and inherent
contradictions within it through two recent
projects in the Kutch region of Gujarat in
India. First project, Khamir Crafts Park, is a
nongovernmental institution working for the
development of craft traditions of Kutch
region while the second one, Sham-e-Sarhad
is an eco-resort built and run by local
residents of Hodka village in the desert of
Kutch. As the building craft and artisanal
traditions of this region are intrinsic to making
of both these projects, this paper will examine
the process of interpretation and
reinterpretation and the nature of the
resultant architectural synthesis
