After the 1970s, the Chinese rural area has been shaping by two forces，One is from the rural community, which is internal and reflected in the inheritance of traditions and old habits ; the other is from outside the community, which is external and manifested in the penetration of urbanization and the intervention of the strong government. Under the influence of internal and external forces, contemporary Chinese rural community presents a complex and fluid state, and can directly be observed on the vernacular architecture, which is regarded as the materialization of social relations. This paper examines the self-built Housing in rural community with profound traditional culture in Southeastern China and uses “spatial ethnography” as the main research method. “Spatial ethnography” enriches the level of investigation of social facts by coupling the classical anthropological ethnography with architectural mapping and space analysis. The research is organized by three dimensions of time as clues，which are historical time, everyday life time and immediate time. Historical time dimension examines the evolution of space forms under social and historical changes; Everyday life time dimension shows the redevelopment of the space under people’s everyday activities; Immediate time dimension shows the process of the space being constructed in the actual building site. The intervention of multi-level time dimensions helps to reveal the different levels of fluidity shaping process behind the static form and space of vernacular architecture, and to understand the complexity and contradictions of the decisions made by the rural people during these processes.

Authors:
Naifei Liu, Tsinghua University, China

About the Presenter(s)
Ms Naifei Liu is a University Doctoral Student at Tsinghua University in China

See this presentation on the full schedule – Sunday Schedule

Bookmark