Architecture Without Architects: A Short Introduction to Non-Pedigreed Architecture (Paperback)

by Bernard Rudofsky (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
In this book, Bernard Rudofsky steps outside the narrowly defined discipline that has governed our sense of architectural history and discusses the art of building as a universal phenomenon. He introduces the reader to communal architecture--architecture produced not by specialists but by the spontaneous and continuing activity of a whole people with a common heritage, acting within a community experience. A prehistoric theater district for a hundred thousand spectators on the American continent and underground towns and villages (complete with schools, offices, and factories) inhabited by millions of people are among the unexpected phenomena he brings to light.

The beauty of "primitive" architecture has often been dismissed as accidental, but today we recognize in it an art form that has resulted from human intelligence applied to uniquely human modes of life. Indeed, Rudofsky sees the philosophy and practical knowledge of the untutored builders as untapped sources of inspiration for industrial man trapped in his chaotic cities.

Product Details

• Paperback: 157 pages
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press (July 1, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826310044
• ISBN-13: 978-0826310040
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 8.7 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #343,175 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic Presentation, March 11, 2002

By	Dr Lawrence Hauser (NYC, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Originally published in 1964, concurrent with the exhibition Architecture Without Architects shown at MOMA, this slim volume of text and photographs radiates heat and light when reviewed almost forty years later. In fact, Rudofsky's introductory essay is so fresh today it is almost inconceivable it was written the better part of four decades ago! Offering a scathing attack on modern approaches to the landscape and to problems of living more generally in a time of rampant population growth, Rudofsky shrewdly pointed to the fact that "part of our troubles results from the tendency to ascribe to architects-or, for that matter, to all specialists-excessive insight into problems of living when, in truth, most of them are concerned with problems of business and prestige." But what transpires when the focus can be maintained on functionality, efficiency, ease of use, and a design aesthetic that remains humbly in tune with and loyal to the mood and visual imperative of the land under development? To answer these crucial questions Rudofsky takes us back a few thousands of years to the origins of architectural strivings (even preceding man's earliest efforts) and the material results thereof.

The essential point Rudofsky cares to make in these pages is that "vernacular architecture does not go through fashion cycles. It is nearly immutable, indeed, unimprovable, since it serves its purpose to perfection." Rooted in a practical, harmonious relationship with its setting, 'primitive' architecture exemplifies the art of living well through its consistent use of frugality in construction, cleanliness in line and detail, and a general respect for "creation." Further, its impetus is aligned with a human dimension fundamentally as opposed to an excessively hubristic predisposition to conquer nature at whatever cost. Finally, from Rudofsky's vantage, these principles are usefully to be understood as timeless guidelines for the future as well as descriptions of the past.

According to Rudofsky, sophisticated people seek rugged country where what is intrinsic holds sway. His search for the origins of a humanistic architecture was always in rugged terrain where people's lives must necessarily challenge the difficulties of topography and the vicissitudes of climate. His primary heuristic interest was in elucidating the solutions creatively and spontaneously generated by these people in order to make such rugged locales inhabitable AND livable. Architecture Without Architects demonstrates the way in which basic solutions to complex problems were developed historically and why those solutions are so important to remain cognisant of today.

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a fascinating and challenging book, June 18, 2000

By	Jeremy P. Bushnell (imaginaryyear.com) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a wonderful book. Nearly every page introduces me to something new, and thus broadens my conception of what it means to be a human being. Flipping through it at random reveals photos of gigantic Syrian water wheels, Dogon granaries, Spanish arcades, desert fortresses in Morocco, Italian hill towns, and hollowed-out baobab trees used as homes. The book is far more than a mere collection of curiosities, though: it is a challenge to our narrow conceptions of what makes a building or a city "legitimate." The book goes on to challenge us on even more fundamental levels: it radically expands one's exposure to alternate forms of living/urbanism/social networks, and exposure to the different social forms of the past always causes me to think heavily upon the ways in which the ones of our own time might be deficient (The incredible diversity of building styles depicted in this book are jeopardized and in some cases destroyed by the rise of tourism and the global marketplace; a trend that has already done irreperable damage to some of these cultures at the time the text was written.) A slim but important book, a celebration of human diversity, and a call for increased attention towards both our own lifestyles and the ones we endanger.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GREEN DESIGN FROM THE EXOTIC PAST, November 16, 2006

By	Jane Thompson "Joy Design" (Boston MA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Architecture Without Architects by Bernard Rudofsky demonstrates
that anonymous builders achieved great form based on function.

Confess right now -- designers, planners, architects!! You don't have
this book? You don't even know about this book or its author, Bernard
Rudofsky? Verdict: You are culturally deprived, which means possibly
professionally challenged. Certainly missing chances for inspiration on the job.

This classic contains a sweeping revelation of universal traditions of
"vernacular" architecture -- structures and spaces built by untutored hands in
"primitive" cultures, many now destroyed. Their images remain as amazing
testaments to ingenious answers to survival issues and creature comforts
in remote locales which, we see, have considerable sophistication.

Today's higher education for the design professions, focused on formal issues
of a few recent centuries, may have turned you away from study of remote cultures
in distant times, viewing vernacular as "inapplicable" in a high-tech world.
On the contrary, these places and structural events (including whole mountainsides)
demonstrate the significant human act of building with nature-given materials,
for human needs and use, with sensitivity to innately purposeful form,
without a thought about the disruptive gloss of fashion cycles.

Bernard Rudofsky was a brilliant iconoclast and innovator. As a restless architecture
student in Vienna in 1923, he cut loose to undertake a wanderjahr exploring distant
places and forgotten world cultures. Backpacking across Europe, Middle East, Asia,
and Africa, he photographed what he discovered -- indigenous building
forms and construction methods that created real architecture, unburdened by
pretensions and formal imitations. He documented solutions that were
simple and direct, and elegantly ingenious in the interest maklng things work.

Today more than ever, "primitive" construction can amaze and instruct, and inspire
by addressing ever-present habitation needs -- climate conditioning by controlled air flow,
light control with roof and wall materials, floor heating, even lifts and elevators,
all achieved by design strategies unacquainted with modern mechanics
-- i.e."energy" powered by ingenuity.

In the early 1960's, after his exhibition "Are Clothes Modern?" for New York's MoMA,
Rudofsky prepared an exhibition on anonymous architecture, broadening his own photo
documentation with collectors' images from other distant realms, enriching the
theme of enduring historic form and purpose.

His exhibition "Architecture Without Architects" (1964-65) brought avant-garde insight
to the expanding horizon of modernist values, demonstrating that vernacular form and
purpose are indivisible, and usually immutable -- as they are serving their purpose
to perfection.

In this recapitulation of the exhibition, there are shelters, streets, and functional
enclosures crafted for the lasting use of whole communities. There are the "found"
habitations of rocky hillsides, underground villages safely recessed from climate and
predators; habitable hilltop fortresses, medieval streets lined with shady pedestrian
arcades; a city of roofs built as "windscoops" to direct breezes into each room; huts
made of decorative woven matting, some with vegetal roofs; decorative pidgeoncotes
to facilitate fertilizer production; aerated vermin-proof granaries; streets shaded by
mats and vines, high structures built of grass.

The know-how of the anonymous builder shown here presents the a major untapped
source of architectural inspiration for industrial man. The wisdom derived goes beyond
economic and esthetic solutions that press on our wasteful modern mechanical
solutions. In the author's words, It touches on the "increasingly troublesome problem of
how to live and let live, how to keep peace with one's neighbors" while dealing with
the diminishing natural resources we all must share.

Here is Green Design before it was invented -- again. Here is Civic Design
and indeed Urban Design when few except Rudofsky recognized it.
This book of arresting images and informed ideas may stir you to speculate:
What might simple ingenuity forge for us in our low-energy future?

Jane Thompson
Thompson Design Group Inc.
Boston, MA 02210