Vernacular | 乡土建筑的回归

从马里多贡人修建的泥屋到意大利五渔村的干石建筑（均已入选联合国教科文组织世界遗产地），从芬兰木屋“mökki”到穴居建筑，乡土建筑无处不在。这类建筑闻名于世，是由于工匠具有高超技艺、施工方法简易便捷、建筑展现了对环境的尊重，以及人们普遍认为乡土建筑中蕴含着惊人的智慧。

鲁道夫斯基的贡献不仅让乡土建筑成为万众关注的焦点，还丰富了世界各国建筑领域的思考和创作。芬兰建筑师阿尔瓦尔·阿尔托（Alvar Aalto）、印度建筑师查尔斯·科雷亚（Charles Correa）和斯里兰卡建筑师杰弗里·巴瓦（Geoffrey Bawa）等人都在各自家乡的传统中找到了灵感。

《为穷人建房：埃及农村实验》（Architecture for the Poor, An experiment in Rural Egypt）（1969年）一书的出版而享誉全球。书中以激动人心的文字记录了尼罗河西岸的卢克索示范村庄古尔纳村（Gourna）的建设过程。哈桑·法蒂自称哈特谢普苏特女王的后裔，十分擅长埃及的各种古老技艺。他还是一位高产的建筑师，他恢复使用了价格低廉的泥砖，鼓励上埃及地区的农村居民自己动手盖房子。

哈桑·法蒂创作过一部讽刺剧《钢筋混凝土地狱》（The Hell of Reinforced Concrete）（1964年），他在剧中描述了建筑和城市规划的趋同化发展，同时批评了在撒哈拉地区的极端气候条件下使用钢筋混凝土这种不合时宜的做法——巴里斯新城因此变成了不宜居的火炉。与之相反的是，哈桑·法蒂对古老的泥屋村庄赞不绝口，称赞这些泥屋排列紧凑且紧邻盖有顶棚的窄巷，这就可以防止居民遭受炎热和沙尘暴的侵袭。法蒂认为，最重要的莫过于回归传统经验。

与单薄的钢筋混凝土墙相比，厚实的土墙或石墙的隔热效果更好。同时运用moucharabieh（饰有木雕格栅的悬窗）和malqaf（伊朗人称之为badgir）（字面意思是“捕风塔”），可以在房屋内部实现自然冷却和通风，效果比空调好得多，能源消耗却比较少 。

阿拉伯式住宅采用内向型布局，以内部庭院和花园作为建筑的核心。受此启发，哈桑·法蒂在开罗南部的萨卡拉路沿线修建了一系列漂亮的度假别墅（例如，Mit Rihan），生动地诠释了他关于适宜建筑的构想。1980年，哈桑·法蒂获得了阿迦汗奖，以表彰他的终生成就，他也成为这一地区许多建筑师的榜样，其中包括拉美西斯·维萨·瓦塞夫（Ramses Wissa Wassef）、阿卜杜勒·瓦希德·瓦基尔（Abdel Wahid el-Wakil）和奥马尔·法鲁克（Omar el Farouk）。

从20世纪60年代开始，恢复使用生土技术的实验从马格里布地区发展到了马什里克地区，并且最终创建了“努比亚拱顶建筑协会”等机构，“努比亚拱顶建筑协会”为撒哈拉以南非洲的最贫困地区提供泥屋，让当地居民可以重新建造自己的家园。

人们对生土的这种热情已经远远超出了地域边界。位于法国格勒诺布尔的国际生土建筑中心成立于1979年，这家实验室体现了西方世界对生土技术的关注，并为在全球范围内推广这项技术做出了贡献。

竹制结构

传统形式的生土技术如今拥有了许多热情的支持者，安娜·赫林格（Anna Heringer）就是其中之一，她在2016年“威尼斯双年展”上展出的蛋形生土建筑让人想到了印度中西部马哈拉施特拉邦那些覆盖着茅草的小泥屋。位于日内瓦的Terrabloc公司等新一代公司已经开发出了含有部分水泥的稳定土块，它们改进了泥土的强度和耐用性，使其符合瑞士标准。

木材等其他类型的建材同样再次受到关注。这也难怪，毕竟木制建筑可以捕获二氧化碳。各大公司纷纷重新使用木材，甚至出现了木制高层建筑。2019年，奥伊斯坦·埃尔格萨斯（Øystein Elgsaas）在挪威的布鲁蒙达尔建起了一座18层高的木制大楼。

“将竹制结构与现代原理结合起来，

创造出轻巧耐用的建筑”

源自亚洲和拉丁美洲的传统竹制结构也越来越受欢迎。哥伦比亚设计师西蒙·贝莱斯（Simón Vélez）称赞竹子是“植物界的钢铁”，他将竹制结构与现代原理结合起来，创造出了轻巧耐用的建筑，例如，哥伦比亚卡塔赫纳的“无名”教堂。其他人也开始纷纷效仿。

关注点的这种转移促使业界人士对建筑设计和建筑过程采取了更加负责任的态度。我们不妨从可持续发展的角度来重新审视以往的种种经验教训：利用日光和盛行风条件来确定地点和朝向的科学方法；使用取自当地物产的生物质材料；采用技术要求不高的手工技能；认真研究地方特色和古老建筑，从中获取常识。

今天的我们应该恢复回收再利用的习惯，这种做法看起来或许缺乏创意，其实却是更加激进的。为了避免浪费资源，必须继续使用各种材料乃至大多数现有建筑物——当然，需要适应新的用途和新的需求，这在过去是不可想象的。

The vernacular's return to favour

The reign of all-concrete construction has tended to overshadow the merits of vernacular architecture. In recent years, visionary architects have been drawing on traditional know-how to design buildings that are naturally resistant to climate change.

Leïla el-Wakil

In 1964, an exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) marked its era. Titled Architecture without architects, it featured a photographic compilation of vernacular buildings collected from all over the world, bearing witness to a collective know-how, localized and passed down through use. The exhibition, organized by Austrian-American writer and architect Bernard Rudofsky, fully rehabilitated architecture without an architect. The exhibition’s success is sufficient proof of the interest in this theme: Architecture without architects toured eighty museums around the world for eleven years. 

From the mud houses of the Dogons in Mali to the dry-stone constructions of Italy's Cinque Terre region, both UNESCO World Heritage sites; from Finnish wooden mökki to troglodyte houses, vernacular architecture is everywhere. This type of construction is renowned for the skill of its craftsmen, the simplicity of its means, its respect for the environment and the common sense of its genius. 

Rudofsky's contribution did not only put the spotlight on vernacular construction, it also fertilized architectural thought and creation worldwide. Architects such as Finland's Alvar Aalto, India's Charles Correa and Sri Lanka's Geoffrey Bawa drew inspiration from the traditions of their homelands.

The hell of reinforced concrete

A champion of architecture without architects, Hassan Fathy from Egypt made a name for himself worldwide with the publication of his book, Architecture for the Poor, An experiment in Rural Egypt (1969), a thrilling account of the construction of New Gourna, a model village on the west bank of Luxor. A fervent adept of his country's ancestral skills, he claimed to be a descendant of the female pharaoh Hatshepsut, a prolific builder, when he revived the use of mud bricks, a poor material that encouraged people to build their own homes in the villages of Upper Egypt. 

In a satirical play titled The Hell of Reinforced Concrete (1964), he describes the globalization of architecture and urban planning. In it, he also denounced the inappropriate use of reinforced concrete in the extreme climate of the Sahara, which turned the new town of Baris into an unlivable furnace. In contrast, he praises the old village of mud houses, clustered along narrow covered alleys, which protect the inhabitants from the heat and sandstorms. For Fathy, a return to the teachings of tradition is essential. 

“The combination of the moucharabieh and the malqaf, literally ‘wind catcher’, makes it possible to cool and ventilate house interiors naturally”

Thick earth or stone walls provide better thermal insulation than thin reinforced concrete walls. The combination of the moucharabieh (projecting window with carved wooden latticework) and the malqaf (called badgir in Iran), literally “wind catcher”, makes it possible to cool and ventilate house interiors naturally, infinitely better and at lower energy cost than air conditioning.

Hassan Fathy was inspired by the very layout of the introverted Arab-Muslim house, structured around its interior courtyards and gardens, to create remarkable holiday homes along the Saqqara road south of Cairo, such as Mit Rihan, which illustrate his conception of appropriate architecture. In 1980, he was awarded the Aga Khan Prize for his life's work, and set an example for many other architects in the region, including Ramses Wissa Wassef, Abdel Wahid el-Wakil and Omar el Farouk. 

As of the 1960s, experiments in returning to raw earth technology spread from the Maghreb to the Mashreq. They culminated in the creation of associations such as The Nubian Vault, which provides the most destitute in sub-Saharan Africa with mud houses, giving people back the possibility of building their own homes. 

This enthusiasm for raw earth has spread far beyond the region's borders. Founded in 1979, CRATerre, a laboratory based in Grenoble (France), has demonstrated Western interest in this technology. It has contributed to its expansion worldwide. 

Bamboo framework

Today, there are many devotees of raw earth in its traditional forms, such as Anna Heringer, whose egg-shaped raw earth structure built for the 2016 Venice Biennale evokes the thatched mud huts found in Maharashtra, in central western India. Young firms, such as Terrabloc in Geneva, have developed stabilized earth blocks with a percentage of cement that allows them to comply with Swiss standards by improving earth's strength and durability. 

Other types of material, such as wood, have sparked a similar resurgence in interest. This is hardly surprising, given that a wooden building is able to capture carbon dioxide. Major firms are returning to this material, and even high-rise buildings are springing up. In 2019, Øystein Elgsaas erected an 18-storey wooden tower in Brumunddal, Norway.

"Bamboo constructions combined with contemporary principles create lightweight, durable structures"

Traditional bamboo frameworks from Asia and Latin America are also increasingly popular. Colombian designer Simón Vélez, who vaunts the merits of this “vegetal steel”, combines his bamboo constructions with contemporary principles to create lightweight, durable structures, such as the “nameless” church in Cartagena (Colombia). Others have followed suit.

The current shift in focus is making professionals take a more responsible approach to the question of architectural design and its materialization. All the lessons of the past are worth re-examining from a sustainability perspective: the science of siting and orientation to take advantage of sunlight and prevailing winds; the use of biosourced materials drawn from the local environment; recourse to low-tech and artisanal skills; common sense linked to careful observation of the genius loci and old buildings. 

Even more radical, though it may seem less creative, is the culture of re-use that needs to be relearned today. In order to avoid wasting resources, unthinkable in the past, it is not only materials but most of all existing buildings that must continue to be used, by adapting them to new purposes and new needs.

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