ARCHETYPES VS. PROTOTYPES: CULTURAL AND ECOLOGICAL PATTERNS OF HOUSING ARCHITECTURE

Ada Kwiatkowska

Abstract

The future challenges of shaping the housing architecture relate to the problem of defining of the conditions of sustainable development of habitats in the aspects of preservation of the cultural heritage and reliability of life-supporting natural systems. The sustainability signifies the necessity of creation of such patterns of housing architecture, in which the ecological values of environmental protection are of the same importance as cultural worth of the beauty savings. Eco-technologies generate new housing patterns in form of the prototypes, that can be built all around the world, mostly in opposition to the cultural archetypes of the houses. The cultural and environmental roots of the housing architecture are presented in the following cultural zones in Europe: Mediterranean region - spatial archetype of the courtyard-housing, Scandinavian culture - pattern of the wooden housing, Germanic and Romance cultures - the social housing for low-income groups, English culture - the suburban housing and utopian visions, Dutch culture - dense row-housing based on traditional and modernistic patterns of housing architecture.

Article:

Kwiatkowska, Ada, Archetypes vs. Prototypes: Cultural and Ecological Patterns of Housing Architecture , Architectus, 2008, no 1, pp.67-72 (photos by Ada Kwiatkowska)

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