6,000 Years of Housing

by Norbert Schoenauer

Overview

The fascinating evolution of house forms from the Stone Age to the present.

[T]his fascinating survey...any designer or builder who deals with housing would find a use for this book.' —Fine Homebuilding

'This is as essential reference to anyone in the field of housing, beautifully illustrated in the hand of the author.' —Moshe Safdie and Associates, Inc.

Part architecture, part history, and part anthropology, this encyclopedic book limns the story of housing around the world from the pre-urban dwellings of nomadic, semi-nomadic, and sedentary agricultural societies to the present. Ancient urban dwellings were inward-looking, ranged around a courtyard. Until fairly recently, these dwelling types survived in indigenous urban house forms in the Islamic world, India, China, and the Iberian peninsula and Latin America. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, however, outward-looking house forms replaced the ancient form in most of Europe and the New World.

In the Middle Ages houses served both as homes and as places of work, but gradually the domestic and business lives of the inhabitants became separate. In the wake of the Industrial Revolution, profound changes in the residential development of the western world occurred: housing became segregated along socioeconomic lines and dwelling types polarized, with low-density, single-family houses at one extreme, and tall, high-density, multifamily tenements and apartments at the other. Side effects of America’s automobile-intensive suburban dream housing include inefficient land use, pollution, and urban decay. 6,000 Years of Housing chronicles how this came about, and suggests solutions based on a rich variety of historical precedents.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393731200
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	07/17/2003
Edition description:	Revised and Expanded Edition
Pages:	504
Sales rank:	977,250
Product dimensions:	8.10(w) x 10.50(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Norbert Schoenauer is Macdonald Emeritus Professor of Architecture at McGill University. He lives in Montreal.

Table of Contents

	Preface	9
Part I	The Pre-Urban House
	Introduction	11
1.	Ephemeral or Transient Dwellings	14
	African Bushmen Skerm	16
	BaMbuti Pygmy Hut	18
	Arunta Hut	19
	Prehistoric and Historic Ephemeral Dwellings	20
2.	Episodic or Irregular Temporary Dwellings	22
	Inuit Igloo	23
	Plains Indian, Tungus, and Lapp Tents	28
	Communal Episodic Dwellings	32
	Wai-Wai and Yanomamo Communal Dwellings	34
	Erigbaagtsa and Cubeo Maloca	36
	Prehistoric and Historic Episodic Dwellings	38
3.	Periodic or Regular Temporary Dwellings	41
	The Mongolian and Kirgizian Yurt	42
	Air-Tuareg Tent	44
	Bedouin Black-Tent	45
	Prehistoric and Historic Periodic Dwellings	47
4.	Seasonal Dwellings	48
	Navaho Hogan and Ramada	49
	Nuer Kraal	51
	Masai Boma	52
	Barabaig Gheid	54
	Pokot Dwelling	55
	Prehistoric and Historic Seasonal Dwellings	56
5.	Semipermanent Dwellings	57
	Luyia and Luo Dwelling	58
	Mesakin Quisar Cluster Dwelling	60
	Awuna Cluster Dwelling	62
	Gurunsi Compound Dwelling	63
	Dogon Cluster Dwelling	64
	Mayan Oval House and Mexican Jacal	66
	Pueblo	68
	Prehistoric and Historic Semipermanent Dwellings	70
6.	Permanent Dwellings	73
	Chinese Cave Dwellings	75
	Italian Trullo	77
	Slovakian Village Farmhouse	79
	The Hungarian Farmstead	81
	The Low German Farmhouse	83
	Bernese Farmhouse	85
	New England Homesteads	87
	The Traditional Quebec Farmhouse	89
	Summary	91
Part II	The Oriental Urban House
	Introduction	95
1.	Ancient Civilizations	100
	Mesopotamia	100
	Egypt	108
	Indus Civilization	112
	China	119
2.	The Greeks and The Romans	123
	Hellenic, Hellenistic, and Roman Cities	123
	The Greek Peristyle House	129
	The Roman Atrium House	136
3.	The Traditional Islamic City and its Urban House	145
	The al-Fustat House and the North African Dar	151
	The Urban House of Cairo	161
	The Baghdad House	168
4.	The Traditional Urban House in India	179
	Jaisalmer	181
	Jaipur	184
	Udaipur	188
	Ahmadabad	189
5.	The Traditional Urban House in China	193
	The City of Beijing	193
	The Beijing House	196
6.	The Japanese Urban House in Kyoto	204
	The City of Kyoto	204
	The Kyoto Merchant's House	205
	Summary	209
Part III	The Occidental Urban House
	Introduction	213
1.	The Dark Ages	217
	The Eclipse of Roman Cities	217
	The Emergence of Medieval Cities	223
	The Early Medieval Urban Dwelling	229
2.	The Middle Ages	234
	Medieval Fortress Cities	234
	Dubrovnik	240
	Rothenburg ob der Tauber	248
	Salisbury	254
	The Late Medieval Urban House	258
3.	The Age of the Renaissance	267
	The Impressive City	267
	Residential Squares and Crescents	270
	The Town House	282
4.	The Nineteenth Century	289
	Industrialism and Urbanism	289
	Back-to-Backs, Tenements, and Bylaw Housing	293
	From Villadom to Suburbs	302
	Nineteenth-Century Suburban Development	306
	Riverside, Illinois	307
	Bedford Park, London	309
	Parisian Apartment Buildings	311
	Apartment Buildings in Great Britain	323
	New York City Apartment Houses	332
	Studio Apartment Houses	339
	Apartment Hotels	341
5.	Twentieth-Century Housing (1900-1950)	344
	Domestic Revival in Great Britain	344
	Arts and Crafts in North America	356
	Avant-Garde Movements of Europe: Art Nouveau, Jugendstil, Secession, National Romanticism, and Nieuwe Kunst	369
	Housing Between the Two World Wars	382
6.	Twentieth-Century Housing (1950-2000)	413
	Decline of American Cities	413
	Court-Garden Homes	422
	Attached Town House Dwellings	426
	High-Rise Luxury Apartments	432
	High-Rise Tenements	437
	Point Blocks	442
	Mixed-Use Buildings	445
	Mid-Rise Housing	452
	Collective Habitation and Communal Dwellings	460
	Residential Conversions	466
	Neotraditional Dwelling Design and New Urbanism	468
	Conclusion	472
	Bibliography	475
	Acknowledgments	487
	Index	489

Editorial Reviews

"Accessible not only to the architectural community . . . but to anyone with a passion for housing . . . issues are expressed clearly, and details serve a larger context."

APT Bulletin: The Journal of Preservation Technology - Elizabeth MacKenzie

Accessible not only to the architectural community . . . but to anyone with a passion for housing . . . issues are expressed clearly, and details serve a larger context.--Elizabeth MacKenzie, MAIBC "APT Bulletin: The Journal of Preservation Technology"

From the Publisher

This compendium of world shelter<-->part architecture, history, and anthropology<-->moves from pre-urban nomadic structures to the fixed cubes of today's gridded cities. Schoenauer, town planner and emeritus professor of architecture at McGill University, discusses what he calls "Oriental" urban houses<-->of ancient civilizations and the Middle East, India, and China<-->and occidental urban housing from the Dark Ages through the Hot Ages of the 20th century. He writes that ancient urban dwellings were inward-looking, those built after the fall of the Roman empire were outward-looking, the Middle Ages saw work and living spaces combined, and after the industrial revolution housing reflected socio-economic disparities (high-density for those poorer, low density for those richer). The book is replete with simple architectural plans for the majority of the structures discussed. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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