ARCHITECTURE.
Let’s prove adobe to be a superior technological building material for the climate of Arizona. Let’s make it economically strong and protect its use with legal means, and keep it at the understandable sophistication level of hands for now. Bring the youth back home with rehab. Show families can build their own homes. Bring outside private money in, and circulate it internally. Promote self-determination, motivation, plus…. P. 509 (Economy. Culture. Family.)
- 183
The old houses had melted and washed away by the rain. Four lots had walls in different stages of deterioration… vacant structures…capillary action… zoning… taxes… historic denomination…
Through a hole in the wall where a window had been, I entered into a dilapidated building feeling the earthy smells of exposed mud, caressing the walls to the cold touch in a hot day, the loose dirt under my fingernails…
Unbeknown to me at the time, I was behaving just like the Spaniards or the Mexicans who came and displaced many the Indians from the land. P. 25 Displacement is no different in the world arena.
Within twenty years, if nothing significant was done, the Barrio would lose its people cohesiveness. We could only delay the day. Its strength; adobe architecture, would become its weakness by becoming mostly an investment and tourist attraction. P. 242 “Is the erosion of the architecture following the erosion of the Hispanic culture, or vice versa… p. 166
I had a bit of influence in the design, which was not of my own, but the result of my training in architecture and psychology. P. 263.
…centuries of unplanned growth, generations of families multiplying and growing organically following a vernacular architecture with no formal original plan, but with an intrinsic value, around family interaction, giving the Barrio its unique and powerful cohesive character. 247
Architecture = shaping the physical environment. Housing, parks, centers. along with
Psychology = innate pride shaped by shaping the physical environment.
Empty spaces in between, family strength, social rather than ecological environment, hidden agendas, reading between the lines, a place to worship, connecting all these dots is all part of Architecture in the reshaping of physical surroundings. People who think ecology is what affects the “poor” are barking up the wrong tree.
As much as many of us would like to maintain the purity of the vernacular architecture, absolute purity is not advisable, you cannot freeze daily activity in a time protected capsule, except in a museum. 451
…the ‘historic” value due to the original function could best and maybe only be truly preserved in valid form by those of the same culture, and made adaptable to today’s living needs, because culture will affect architecture. P. 453
When I went to school, there was a faulty way of studying archeology, and as an extension, the History of Architecture. P. 460
Adaptation is not the same as assimilation. Since two cultures can adapt alike or differently dependent on how each ‘partakes’ in its surroundings. P. 468
Is architectural historical preservation a help or a hindrance to cultural continuity? How does poverty play a role in this, pros and cons? P. 163
Connecting the dots: I concur with what Booker T. Washington said: “At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence.” Here is where our emphasis should be. Architecture and economics.
How do cultures measure the sensation of space, movement, time, cause and effect, fate and free will? Family and space is critically different in many non-Anglo cultures, and Anglos fail to comprehend that. This understanding could lead to better coexistence. P. 150. (Culture. Architecture. Family.)
Connect the dots: In the world map, the forces of globalization, – displacement of previous norms, – follows the same patterns as the displacement of India tribes from their lands.