Cultural Identity and Sustainable Architecture in the Anthropocene

Nathalia Edholm

What is the connection between environmental alienation and the loss of cultural identity in the age of the anthropocene--and how are both reflected in the buildings we make today? This essay criticises the constructed dichotomy of “architecture” and “vernacular”, and how it reflects a wider ideological break characterised by the wake of the anthropocene. Through the comparison of the ideology behind the homogenisation of architecture in modern cities and a vernacular approach to buildings that includes inter-species cooperation, we might have to let go of the idea that built environments are unique to humans. Through the recognition of non-human agencies as architectural colleagues, we can emancipate ourselves from capitalist standardisation and re-discover our local identities in sync to the unique ecologies surrounding us.

Introduction: buildings as our mirrors

Winston Churchill once said that, “we shape buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.” (Lounsbury, 2010) The claim is not a very controversial one - perhaps it is the underlying knowledge that buildings do in fact affect us that has provoked the great variety of buildings throughout human history. Never has a building been only a functionalist shelter against the elements of the world, but also a vehicle from which we tell a story, whether it is a story of our past, or of our future. A building’s relative permanence and its visibility to the public make it an excellent vehicle for cultural transmission, of a society telling a story about itself. The built environment, along with its materials, sounds, light sources, create a certain ambience which draws the mind to certain associations. With these ideas in mind, what can we make of the global tendency of the past half century or so, where buildings are becoming increasingly homogenous[1] —essentially rendering countless of cities aesthetically anonymous in terms of local identity and culture (or rather, exposing a reductionist version of the local culture, as members of a more or less global culture of capitalism)? 

Parallel to the standardisation and homogenisation of buildings in cities around the world has been the gradual shift to the era of the Anthropocene, i.e. the term for the geological era succeeding the Holocene, characterised by its unprecedented influence by humans. The human appropriation of land and natural resources, resulting in increasing CO2 levels and mass extinction is old news for many, but the term Anthropocene is nonetheless argued to give further weight to the issue in scientific, political and other public communications. So, how is the story we are telling ourselves through our buildings connected to the wake of the new geological era that we, as a species, have induced? Perhaps even more importantly, how are the methods which we build connected to the Anthropocene? Understandably, as a reaction to the impending climate disaster, many architects have once again turned to the concept of vernacular architecture with the hope of finding energy-efficient and sustainable designs. Yet, how much is the revisit of vernacular architecture influenced by conventional, Western, or dualist conceptualisations of architecture and design, which could potentially prevent the finding of valuable and/or useful insights? This essay critically explores the histories of architecture, the built environment, as well as the conventional conceptualisation of the “vernacular” and how it is often unintentionally influenced by a modernist ideology. Furthermore, this essay discusses the importance of recognising the influence of Western dualisms of nature and culture and how it prevents the recognition of various vernacular methods, in particular that of inter-species cooperation. Finally, using a case study involving beavers and the building of dams, I demonstrate how one of the biggest faults is the idea that built environments are unique to human, and how such a recognition is one step towards truly sustainable buildings.

The ideological separation between ‘vernacular’ and ‘architectural’

For a long time, there has been a virtual disconnect between the architectural and the vernacular—the latter being regarded as a remnant of past, primitive societies. Only in the latter half of the 20th century did vernacular architecture become relatively more recognised in the same way academic architects were, along with becoming recognised sources of influence, serving as models for elite building forms. Yet, “vernacular, like other building taxonomies, reveals as much about modern (largely Western) classification values as about the salient issues addressed by the structures themselves” (Blier, 2006). In other words, the use of “vernacular” still implies a dichotomy between the so-called academic, “polite” way of thinking about buildings and the “primitive”, pre-modern way; to put it differently, the alienated, rational, and distanced architect versus a more embodied and intuitive vernacular builder. In extension it lays bare an enduring Western dichotomous thinking of nature and culture, the self and other, and so on. The very same tendency to think about the vernacular is reflected in early anthropological work that focused on the built environment. In his account of Native American houses, Lewis Henry Morgan makes the argument that one can see a group’s stage in the social evolution through looking at their buildings, i.e. that buildings were the result of an unreflected, subconscious intuition rooted in their relative level of primitiveness. (Morgan, 1965). In a similar fashion, Pierre Bourdieu argues that the Kabyle house is heavily infused by its culture’s cosmology, essentially leaving very little room for the builders’ individual agency or creativity (Bourdieu, 1973). Either way, the act of building is depicted as unreflective, intuitive, and subconscious, rather than the result of creativity and analysis. In fact, before the modernisation of the architectural profession, most buildings were in fact characterised as “vernacular”—architecture made without architects. (Blier, 2006) So, why render it a sub-category of architecture when “by dictionary definition and popular use, ‘vernacular’ and ‘architectural’ suggest a semantic differential that may imply some kind of logical contradiction” (Güvenç, 1990:285)? Despite the evident diversity of vernacular architecture globally, there is surprisingly little research being done on its uses today. (Rashid & Ara, 2014:47) One of the reasons could arguably be due to a deeply-rooted foundational ideological dichotomy between the “modern” and the “traditional”.

Modernism has a multi-faceted relationship to the Western, dichotomous way of thinking. Modernists attempted to emancipate themselves from previous architectural forms and ideas, seeing them as obstacles in their traditionalism and localism in their goal of making buildings which would adhere to more universal human values (ibid.) Instead of the Kabyle house, engrained by local cosmology, as described by Bourdieu, the modernists believed in timeless ideals as well as designs, thus relying on simple forms, functionality, and abstract, “rational” ornamentation (Lounsbury, 2010). While attempting to transcend history, and in extension the dichotomies that defined history, an unreflective modernism ends up reflecting those very dichotomies, even perpetuating it. Modernisms undoubtedly comes with good intentions, a utopian vision unbounded by the divisions localism and multiculturalism can entail. However, arguably, the notion of “universal human values” can be quite arbitrary, which made modernism an (more or less conscious) ideologically infused architectural style, often pointing towards a desired future. It comes as no surprise that many socialist regimes embraced modernism and its ideology of universalism.

Brasilia as a modernist city

Although “our buildings shape us”, the universalism radiating from the structure of modernist buildings was often not translated to the people living in them. A vision of a modern future built on universal values often remained purely theoretical, whereas in practice, residents were left with an alienated, cold city. An example of this is the city of Brasilia, as described by James Scott in his ethnography “Seeing Like a State” (1999). Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, was a planned city founded in 1960. The aspirations around the city were centred around the question: how can we modernise Brazil, and emancipate itself from its traditional past? Following a national competition of different architects, Lúcio Costa (who was influenced by Le Corbusier, modernism’s most pivotal figure) designed the infamous airplane-shaped city, a possible homage to Le Corbusier’s own enchantment with the aircraft and its symbolisation of the new modern era. The simple forms, clean aesthetics and the city plan’s commitment to rational structuralism oozed modernistic ideals, a city with no visual cues to its local history but instead aims towards the future. Yet, it was the very commitment to a theoretical modernity that made it difficult to live in—Brasilia’s residents had no sense of organic embodiment with its city. There were no plazas where people could socialise organically, the aesthetics of the modernist church failed to resonate to the embodied faith of the churchgoers, and the streets followed a seemingly never-ending, monotonous grid-like structure. The rational beauty of the city plan from above was not translated to the lived reality as a resident in the city.

Similarly, modernism’s theoretical commitment to universal values, or even a universal truth, cannot nullify the practical reality of life which contains a multitude of ways of being in and perceiving the world. The macro-order of the city, as seen form above, ironically led to a micro-confusion among its inhabitants as it went against their own embodied sense of what constitutes a city. That which is often overlooked, or seen as unimportant in the formation of a city—such as casual plazas or cafes to gather in after work—can in fact play a huge social role and lead to confusion and alienation when absent. In time, Brasilia’s inhabitants did in fact transform into a different city, especially in the formation of favelas on the city’s outskirts. Through Brasilia’s rejection of localism and in the world-making capabilities that different buildings carry, one can see how modernism risks becoming an architectural equivalent to the belief of a universally applicable scientific model, and thus a rejection of multiple (non-Western) cosmologies, ontologies and epistemologies.

Modernism, despite its intentions of unification, often led to a sense of alienation and the loss of relatedness to one’s built surroundings, as exemplified by the planned city of Brasilia. In its quest of emancipation from ideology, localism and tradition, it in fact further entrenched a particular Western dichotomous thinking that exists across disciplines. Yet, how is modernist ideology relevant to sustainability and the vernacular? I would argue that in order to fully understand the problems facing us in the present, it is useful to get an understanding of the past, and modernism in particular as it embodies many of the obstacles we face today. Whereas the modernist aesthetics have since become a particular taste (an obvious example being the brutalist buildings in Barbican, London, which never seizes to divide opinions), the ideology of modernism continues to influence contemporary architecture, and the ideologies behind current buildings. While modernists relied heavily on reinforced concrete as a unifying material (a material which today often meets resistance, perhaps due to its historical association with modernist and utopian buildings (Forty, 2012)), the skyscrapers that populate large global cities rely on an exterior mix of steel, concrete, and glass, reflecting a dominant ideology of sterility, rationality, and (market) logic (Simpson, 2016). Most of all, as described in the introduction, the attempted universalism of modernism has since translated into a one size fits all aesthetic and building structure globally. This, in turn, could potentially reflect a widespread scepticism towards the reliability of local and traditional materials and methods, aiming instead for the so-called universally applicable high-tech. Once again, contemporary buildings often reflect an idealised utopia prescribed by market capitalism.

Sustainable buildings reflecting local knowledge: Mru and bamboo

The one size fits all approach to architecture is not only an uncanny reflection of ideology, but also carries real consequences in terms of sustainability and the erasing of identity. Perhaps not surprising, sustainability and identity are interconnected as vernacular architecture is often unique to a region, and thus inherently sustainable. Maha Salman makes this argument in a case study on the Arab World, which in the last half century has been exposed to rapid modernisation, as seen in the contrast between high-rise buildings and traditional vernacular buildings. She writes, “Vernacular architecture is a sign of identity; it is the ‘mirror’ of nations that reflect place, time, and culture. /…/ Vernacular architecture was built on inherently sustainable principles such as resources limitations imposed by economic or natural facets, yet succeeded in offering rational solutions to harsh climates and human need” (Salman, 2018). In other words, as the ecologies of places differ from one another, the particular building methods and materials will naturally differ from place to place, which will in time take on cultural and symbolic meaning. For example, the convenience of brick made it a popular building material in the Arab World, and eventually gained symbolic meaning beyond functionality. This goes against both Lewis Henry Morgan’s functionalist claim that buildings are mere reflections of a group’s stage in the social evolution, as well as Bourdieu’s claim that buildings are shaped by the builders’ cosmological map. Rather, vernacular buildings were the result of plenty of trial and error, an intimate knowledge of the materials, as well as one’s surrounding ecosystem. Cultural notions were established after a period of proximity— perhaps, in the same way one grows fond of a particular cup/stone/house after spending an extended period near it. Through a group’s intimate entanglement with the materials around them, each part of the entanglement gain meaning that exists only because of it being a part of the entanglement.

Through the intimate entanglement with objects around us, not only do they eventually obtain a symbolic value (in addition to the very practical value), but they also become essentially known and familiar to their users. Mamum Rashid and Dilshad Rahat Ara write about the importance of bamboo among the Mru in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, in the south-eastern part of Bangladesh. Following Salman’s argument (as described above) that vernacular buildings are built on inherently sustainable principles, bamboo is virtually an unlimited resource as it follows an extremely rapid growth cycle, is lightweight, easy to transport, and produces no waste (Rashid & Ara, 2014:51). At the same time, it outperforms most other materials, even reinforced steel. Naturally, bamboo holds a special place among the people: “the bamboo is literally the stuff of life. He builds his house of bamboo; he fertilises the fields with its ashes; of its stem he makes vessels in which to carry water; with two bits of bamboo he can produce fire; its young and succulent shoots provide a dainty dinner dish; and he weaves his sleeping mat of fine slips thereof” (ibid., 2014:50). Evidently, bamboo infuses practically every part of Mru’s life, which is made possible because they have an intimate knowledge of the characteristics of bamboo. The Mru’s buildings are therefore not only sustainable in a very practical sense, but also reinforce a way of being—of truly knowing the materials used, and in extension, the ecological environment surrounding them and how they directly depend on it—that is ideologically sustainable. Meanwhile, professional architecture, in its common one size fits all approach, does not rely as much on the ecological sensitivity that the Mru embodies. Architects essentially become alienated as they outsource the material reality of buildings to building contractors, who in turn buy materials from a third party. The supply chain of buildings disconnects the architect from the “natural” material, as it comes pre-packaged as a “cultivated” material, ready to serve the architect’s and contractor’s needs. It seems therefore that whether a building is sustainable not only depends on the what it is made of, but rather the intimacy of which the builder knows the materials, as well as how a building is made—since that very principle of ecological familiarity then extends to other aspects of life: “if we understand why a thing looks the way it does, or why it works the way it does, then we understand the principle, and that principle, not the form it produces, is transferable” (Curtis, 1996).

Imagining non-human co-creators of buildings: Khasi bridges

Once again we return to the Western tendency to create dichotomies, as architects become separated from others—even the word itself derives from the Greek archos, which means “ruler” (Blier, 2006). Anthropologists have in the recent years often endorsed an interdisciplinary approach in analysing issues in the world, stemming from the argument that the separation of disciplines was ideologically justified, and that we need to go beyond such separation in order to better understand the world we live in (Davis & Todd, 2016). I would argue that we need a similar inter-disciplinary mindset when it comes to the analysis, as well as making of, buildings. Tim Ingold clearly problematises the dichotomy between the humanistic and science-based approaches to materials, as it seems that the material, cultivated by humans, draws the matter away from the natural realm of growth and decay as it is no longer viewed as an ecological artefact—at least conceptually (Ingold, 2012). This tendency to divide natural and cultural artefacts extends to the separation of natural and social sciences—as if the natural forces have not, in fact, influenced the course of social and cultural history (e.g. Covid-19 may be a natural phenomenon, but with very much social and cultural effects and causes). It is easy to dismiss the recognition of this separation as superfluous, a non-issue—but it does in fact create classificatory confusion in practice. Caitlin DeSilvey writes about a farm that had been abandoned for the past decade (2006), and the complex of debris left behind, most of which had been colonised by rodents, moulds, insects and other organisms. Often times, when she found an infested artefact, she faced the dilemma of whether the object in question was a cultural artefact, or had been transformed into an ecofact: “I could understand the mess as the residue of a system of human memory storage, or I could see an impressive display of animal adaption to available resources. It was difficult to hold both of these interpretations in my head at once, though.” (DeSilvey, 2006:322) Just as she admits that “I like to think that the mice and I share authorship for this work” (ibid., 2006:334), buildings are not merely human “ideas that have been made material” (Ingold, 2012:432), but also the result of the agency of materials, essentially rendering them as cocreators.

The recognition that artefacts are not discrete entities but “bound into continual cycles of articulation and disarticulation” (DeSilvey, 2006:335) is essential—yet, the tendency for architects to use sub-contractors and/or outsourcing further alienates the architects from the ecology of materials as materials come pre-packaged as an already cultural artefact (e.g. consider the difference between handling clay at its source, and receiving a delivery of a box of bricks). Nonetheless, while many people are concerned about the environment, popular culture often turn towards green-washing instead of considering implementing structural changes, “a superficial rather than systemic approach to the environment” (Watson, 2019:27). Greenery and the aestheticism of organic materials offer momentary psychological comfort, a refuge from architectural standardisation, but serve little purpose beyond that of religion in capitalist society, as described by Marx: the heart in a heartless world, the opium of the people. The questioning of the border between the natural and cultural, as described by DeSilvey above, echoes the discussions surrounding the Anthropocene as a concept that induces a break between the separation of a natural and cultural history. In order to truly understand the age we live in, we need to go beyond these conceptual borders.

On a related note, there is a questioning of the anthropocentric conception of agency, hinting towards the possibility of material agency, or more generally, non-human agency. The knowledge of nonhuman agency is often reflected, and taken advantage of, in vernacular building methods. The Khasi people in Meghalaya, India, construct living bridges and ladders by guiding the root system of two adjacent trees. The building of these bridges takes intricate process, decades of preparation, and great sensitivity towards the trees’ agencies. Yet, the bridges eventually pay off, as a bridge can last for several hundred years, and “the living root bridge will naturally self-repair and grow stronger as the structural roots grow thicker.” (Watson, 2019:55) The Khasi’s familiarity, responsiveness, and understanding of the roots’ agencies result in a structure that provides an example of humans and non-human agencies working in symbiosis: the Khasi and the roots together become co-creators of the bridge.

Challenging anthropocentrism in the built environment: Beavers

This example brings me to my final point, which is the challenging of the anthropocentric monopoly of the built environment as a concept. Just as humans have built world of their owns through buildings, so have other species—Darwin even spoke of “the lowly creature” earthworms’ ability of reshaping landscapes as one of the most pivotal acts in the world’s history (Darwin, 1881:313). Lewis Henry Morgan’s study of the built environment extended beyond that of the human, as he critiqued the idea of nature being passive in The American Beaver, as he observed beavers engaging in activities that extended far beyond what they needed to survive. The book has since been described as anticipating “current understandings of multispecies ethnography, other-than-human sociality and sentience” (Feeley-Harnik, 2019). Beavers are particularly interesting to think with, as they keep food in an underwater “fridge”, strategically plan for the future, and dramatically alter their environment through their building of dams. In fact, their dams help create wetlands, slow flood water and reduce drought—which, in turn, create favourable conditions for micro-habitats and benefits biodiversity. Whereas dams are also built by humans to create reservoirs, they are often very expensive to build and upkeep and do not bring the same ecological benefits. Beavers have been extinct in the UK for half a millennia, but have been rediscovered by environmentalists as possible co-architects of dams, pointing towards their cost-effectiveness and positive effects on surrounding ecosystems (Barkham, 2020). This suggestion is interesting, because it points towards a recognition that species other than humans in fact build the environment, and it therefore challenges a Western dichotomy of nature and culture. Yet, the national reception has been mixed—e.g. the National Farmers Union’s (NFU) official stance is sceptical towards their reintroduction due to the difficulty in managing/controlling beavers, and the consequential risk of flooding in farmland. Instead, they point towards the further development of research on (high-tech) human structures as a means to mitigate climate change. Similar to a modernist ideology of standardisation (leaving traces in modern architecture globally), the NFU resorts to standardisation, and a reliance on human-controlled technologies. The aesthetics of beaver dams in themselves could potentially provoke cosmological disturbance, as they look in-orderly, irrational, “messy” when compared to human-made dams. When I spoke to one of the biggest proponents of the reintroduction, Chris Jones (founder of the Beaver Trust), he spoke of the ideology based on anthropocentric technology: “we need to educate people in the ways that nature actually works, rather than having some sci-fi dream about ‘well, in 50 years time we’ll be able to this and this’. Who knows, we might, or might not. But in the meantime we have a crisis and nature provides the answers for it.”

Conclusion: where do we go from here?

In the beginning of this essay, I spoke of the rejection of a dichotomy between vernacular and architecture, since the underlying logic behind the separation are the concepts of a modern architecture versus a primitive vernacular. Similarly, the past centuries have relied on the hierarchy of the mind over body and culture over nature—an ideology that has coloured Western thought from the enlightenment to post-modernity. Yet, as Bruno Latour famously wrote, “we have never been modern” (1991)—and the environmental crisis points to that, namely that we were never in control. Likewise, the modern sentiments of unification, rationalism and standardisation were also reductionist conceptualisations of the multiple worlds we inhabit. Therefore, to simply revisit vernacular architecture with the goal of finding sustainable materials and techniques is not enough, or at least superficial, barely scraping the surface of the whole spectrum of vernacular architecture. A more complete grasp of a vernacular method of architecture requires questioning some of the more foundational ideas we have internalised around natural and cultural dichotomies, questions of agency, material familiarity (both in its natural and cultivated state), and multi-species collaboration. As demonstrated in the examples of Khasi’s root bridges and beaver re-introductions, we might need to let go of the built environment as residing within uniquely human territory. When doing so, how can our frame of thinking around sustainable buildings expand, and possibly go to places it would otherwise lack the conceptual tools to go? When the world around us is recognised as being full of agency, we can let go of a standardised fit-for-all way of thinking, and instead practice the “art of noticing” (Tsing, 2015:37) the environment around us, and in extension, the agencies that we can co-create the built environment with. Perhaps in this manner, we can also emancipate ourselves from a capitalist standardised identity as we re-discover and re-create our local identities, a unique sense of home, as they become synchronised with the unique environments around us.

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