Skip to main content.
Historic Preservation Home > Syllabi > 300 Level Courses > HISP 325 Vernacular Architecture in America

UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORIC PRESERVATION
HISP 325-01 VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE IN AMERICA
Spring Semester 2008

Mr. Stanton
MWF 11:00 -11:50
Combs Hall Rm 112

“Vernacular, adj. 1. native, or originating in the place of its occurrence or use, as language or words. . .native or peculiar to popular taste, as a style of architecture.” The American College Dictionary

COURSE DESCRIPTION
Vernacular Architecture in America is a seminar that explores the theoretical basis and methodological conventions used when studying the built environment as a product of vernacular design processes. Commonplace buildings are investigated as complex historical resources that can be read for information about intentions, attitudes, and needs of past generations. Ultimately any architecture can be studied as vernacular and it is an approach, rather than a delineation of subject matter, that distinguishes vernacular architectural research.
 The study of vernacular architecture is a interstitial scholarly pursuit. The recognition of its potential has drawn researchers from many diverse fields. Each researcher has brought his or her own background to vernacular architecture, coloring through assumptions and methodologies how the research is conducted and what conclusions are reached. One of the principal aims of this course is to develop or heighten the skills of critical close reading of texts, whether they are books or buildings.
 This is not an easy course, but the breadth of the subject matter and the freshness of the approaches that researchers bring to their work can be exhilarating. The seminar is a combination of discussion, field trips, in-class exercises. You should expect to come away from this course with an enhanced ability to evaluate architecture for evidence of function and use, your ability to read critically will be enhanced and you will have an understanding of what separates the study of vernacular architecture from standard academic architectural research.

CLASS REQUIREMENTS

TEXTS
The following books are required and will be available in the UMW Bookstore:
Carter, Thomas and Elizabeth Collins Cromley. Invitation to Vernacular Architecture. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2005.
Upton, Dell, and John Michael Vlach, eds. Common places: Readings in American Vernacular             Architecture. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986. Hereafter [CP]
Reserve Reading. All other reading will be provided.

EXPECTATIONS

Each student is expected to come to class prepared to discuss the readings assigned for that day both in terms of the subject and the theoretical framework used by the author. Your participation in class is part of the evaluation criteria. Your preparation should include reading the critical reviews that are posted on the course web page. You will need to be able to access the class web page to prepare for classes, find expanded explanations of assignments, and obtain some required reading.

TESTS

There will be a midterm examination covering theories of analysis as well as the structural and stylistic features of American vernacular buildings on Monday, February 25th and a comprehensive final examination, Friday, May 2nd.

OUT-OF-CLASS ASSIGNMENTS

No Collaborative Work is Allowed on Any Written Assignments!!
1. Examine and describe the addition to the store at the northwest corner of Caroline and George Streets. Be sure to describe the physical evidence of reuse. The assignment is due Monday, February 18th.
2. Describe in no more than two pages, a hypothetical hypothesis for a vernacular study of a material, structural type, or landscape feature. The assignment is due Wednesday, March 23rd.
3. Write a two-page essay that critically examines one of the assigned readings. Selections may be made from the readings beginning with January 28th through April 18th. The essay is due to me as an email attachment on the day of the class prior to the day your chosen reading is to be discussed in class. Only one person can select a particular reading. The reviews will be posted on our class web page and are part of the assigned readings for that class.

MY OFFICE HOURS:
Monday           1:00-1:45
Tuesday          2:00-2:30
Thursday         2:00-2:30
Wednesday   1:00-1:45
Friday              1:00-1:45
OFFICE
Combs 128
Phone: 654-1313
I am happy to make an appointment to see you at some specific time that suits your needs--ask me in class, or write me an email message at <gstanton@umw.edu>

GRADING

FINAL GRADE
Please note: No passing grade can be achieved in this course without completion of all tests, final examination and out-of-class graded assignments. Your final grade will be based on the following scores--Class preparation and participation 15%, Test I, 25%; Out-of-Class Assignment #1 10%, Out-of-Class Assignment #2 10%; Critical Review 15%; Final Examination 25%. The Out-of-Class Assignments will be marked down by a letter grade (10 points) if handed in later than the beginning of class on the date due.

SCHEDULE OF CLASS MEETINGS, TOPICS AND ASSIGNMENTS

1. Monday 14 January 2008
Course Introduction: What is the difference between HISP 305 and HISP 325
Required Readings: Camille Wells, “Reading Critically”

2. Wednesday 16 January 2008
In Conclusion: categories and critiques of vernacular architecture
Required Readings: Upton, Dell, and John Michael Vlach, “Introduction.” CP, xiii-xxiv.
Carter, Thomas and Elizabeth Cromley. Invitation to Vernacular Architecture, xiii-xv.
Camille Wells, “Old Claims and New Demands: Vernacular Architecture Studies Today.” PVA-II, 1-10.
Thomas R. Carter and Bernard Herman “Introduction.” PVA-III, 1-6.

3. Friday 18 January 2008
Examining a building
 Readings: Carter, Thomas and Elizabeth Cromley. IVA, 19-43.
Edward Chappell, “Architectural Recording and the Open-Air Museum.” PVA-II, 24-36.

4. Monday 21 January 2008
Reading Sequence
Readings: Edward A. Chappell, “Looking at Buildings,” Fresh Advices (November, 1984), i-vi.

5. Wednesday 23 January 2008
Object-Oriented Approaches to Vernacular Architecture
Readings: David Murphy, “Building in Clay on the Central Plains.” PVA-III. , 74-85.

6. Friday 25 January 2008
Socially-Oriented Approaches to Vernacular Architecture
Readings: Robert Blair St. George, “‘Set Thine Own House in Order:’ The Domestication of the                                        Yeomanry in Seventeenth Century New England.” CP, 336B364.
Dell Upton, “The Power of Things: Recent Studies in American Vernacular Architecture.” American Quarterly, 35:3 (1983), 262-279.

7. Monday 28 January 2008
Culturally-Oriented Approaches to Vernacular Architecture
Readings: Kenneth L. Ames, “Meaning in Artifacts: Hall Furnishings in Victorian America.” CP, 240B260.

8. Wednesday 30 January 2008
Symbolic Approaches to Vernacular Architecture
Readings: Barbara Rubin, “Aesthetic Ideology and Urban Design.” CP, 482B508.

9. Friday 1 February 2008
Matters of Style
Readings: Clay Lancaster, “The American Bungalow.” CP, 79-106.
Fred  Peterson, “Vernacular Building and Victorian Architecture: Midwestern Farm Houses.” CP ,433B446.

10. Monday 4 February 2008
            Vernacular Place of Space
Readings: Joseph Sciorra, “Yard Shrines and Sidewalk Altars of New York’s Italian-Americans.”      PVA-III, 185-197

11. Wednesday 6 February 2008
            Looking for Change in a Building

12. Friday 8 February 2008 Fieldtrip #1: Meet at the corner of Princess Anne and George Street.

13. Monday 11 February 2008
            Structures and materials: Wood
Readings: Warren Roberts, “The Tools Used in Building Log Houses.” CP, 182B203.

14. Wednesday 13 February 2008
Structures and materials: Stone and Brick
Readings: Norman Morrison Isham and Albert F. Brown, “Early Rhode Island Houses.” CP, 149-158.
Pamela H. Simpson, “Cheap, Quick, and Easy: The Early History of Rock-faced Concrete Block Building.” PVA-III, 108-118.

15. Friday 15 February 2008
Using Techniques of Construction and Materials to Plot Cultural Process
Readings: Fred B. Kniffen and Henry Glassie, “Building in Wood in the Eastern United States: A Time-Place Perspective.” CP, 159-181.

16. Monday 18 February 2008
History and the Vernacular Landscape
Readings: James Borchert, “Alley Landscapes of Washington.” CP, 281-291.

Assignment #1 due

17. Wednesday 20 February 2008
Doing History with Architecture
Readings: Fraser D. Neiman, “Domestic Architecture at the Clifts Plantation: The Social Context of                     Early Virginia Building.” CP, 292-314.

18. Friday 22 February 2008
            The Classification of Buildings by Typology
            Readings: Fred B. Kniffen, “Folk Housing: Key to Diffusion.” CP, 3-26
            Henry Glassie, “18th-Century Cultural Process in Delaware Valley Folk Building.” CP, 394-425.            .

19. Monday 25 February 2008             MIDTERM EXAMINATION

20. Wednesday 27 February 2008
Analyzing Buildings as Forms: Generating the Grammar of Architecture
Readings: Henry Glassie, “Structure and Function, Folklore and the Artifact.”

21. Friday 29 February 2008
            Assigning Meaning to Classification in Vernacular Design
            Readings: Thomas Hubka, “Just Folks Designing: Vernacular Designers and the Generation of Form.” CP, 426-432.

*****Spring Break March 1—9********

22. Monday 10 March 2008
Buildings as Domestic Space
Readings: Dell Upton, “Vernacular Domestic Architecture in 18th-Century Virginia.” CP, 315-335.
Mark R. Wenger, “The Dining Room in Early Virginia.” PVA-III, 149-159.

23. Wednesday 12 March 2008
            Field Trip #2 The Berry Plain Slave Quarter

24. Friday 14 March 2008
            Domestic Space Form and Function
            Readings: Abbott Lowell Cummings, “Inside the Massachusetts House.” CP, 219-239.
            Leslie G. Goat, “Housing the Horseless Carriage: America’s Early Private Garages.” PVA-III, 62-72.

Assignment #2 is due

25. Monday 17 March 2008
            Changing Function in Domestic Space
            Readings: Mark R. Wenger, “The Central Passage in Virginia: Evolution of an 18th-Century Living Space.” PVA-II, 137-149.

26. Wednesday 19 March 2008
Buildings as Public Settings
Readings: Carl Lounsbury, “The Structure of Justice: The Courthouses of Colonial Virginia.” PVA-III,  214-226.

27. Friday 21 March 2008
            Buildings as Public Settings
            Readings: Kingston W. Heath, “False-Front Architecture on Montana’s Urban Frontier.” PVA-III, 199-213.

28. Monday 24 March 2008
Vernacular Religious settings
Readings: Dell Upton, “Anglican Parish Churches in 18th-Century Virginia.” PVA-II, 90-101.

29. Wednesday 26 March 2008
The Vernacular Landscape
Readings: Stewart McHenry, “18th-Century Field Patterns as Vernacular Art.” CP, 107-123.
Edward T. Price, “The Central Courthouse Square in the American County Seat.” CP, 124-145.
Richard Longstreth, “Compositional types in American Commercial Architecture.” PVA-II, 12-23.

30. Friday 28 March 2008
Buildings as Manifestations of German Ethnicity
Readings: Edward A. Chappell, “Acculturation in the Shenandoah Valley: Rhenish Houses of the     Massanutten Settlement.” CP, 27-57.
William Tischler and Christopher S. Witmer, “The Housebarns of East-Central Wisconsin.” PVA-II, 102-110.

31. Monday 31 March 2008
African-American Ethnicity in House and Home
Readings: John M. Vlach, “The Shotgun House: An African Architectural Legacy.” CP, 58-78.
Alice Gray Read, “Making a House a Home in a Philadelphia Neighborhood.” PVA-II, 192-199.

32. Wednesday 2 April 2008
            European Building Types in America
            Theodore H. Prudon, “The Dutch Barn in America: Survival of a Medieval Structural.” CP, 204-216.
            Christopher Martin, “Skeleton of Settlement: Ukrainian Folk Building in Western North Dakota.” PVA-III. , 86-98.

33. Friday 4 April 2008
            Class Distinctions in Housing
Readings: Catherine W. Bishir, AYuppies, Bubbas, and the Politics of Culture.@ PVA-III, 8-15. Carter, Thomas and Elizabeth Cromley. Invitation to Vernacular Architecture, 83-95.

34. Monday 7 April 2008
Tenants and the Working Class vernacular
Readings: Paul Groth, “‘Marketplace’ Vernacular Design: The Case of Downtown Rooming House.” PVA-II, 179-191.
Eric Sandweiss, “Building for Downtown Living: The Residential Architecture of San Francisco’s Tenderlion.” PVA-III, 160-173.

35. Wednesday 9 April 2008
            Progressive Movements and Vernacular Architecture
            Readings: Lizabeth A. Cohen, “Embellishing a Life of Labor: An Interpretation of the Material Culture  of American Working-Class Homes, 1885-1915.” CP, 261-278.

36. Friday 11 April 2008
            Modernizing the Vernacular
            Readings: Catharine W. Bishir, “Jacob W. Holt: An American Builder,” CP, 447-481.

37. Monday 14 April 2008
The vernacular study of ‘Life in the Fast Lane’
Readings: Paul Hirshorn and Steven Izenour, “Learning from Hamburgers: Architecture of ‘White Tower’ Lunch Counters,” Architecture Plus (June 1973), 46-55.

38. Wednesday 16 April 2008
            The Vernacular study of Leisure Time
Readings: Chester Leibs, “Miniature Golf Courses.” in Main Street to Miracle Mile: American Roadside Architecture, 137-151.

39. Friday 18 April 2008
Mass Culture and Vernacular
Readings: Allan D. Wallis, “House Trailers: Innovation and Accommodation in Vernacular Housing.” PVA-III, 28-43.

40. Monday 21 April 2008
            Project Reports Researching Vernacular Building

41. Wednesday 23 April 2008
            Project Reports Researching Vernacular Building
            Project #2 is due

42. Friday 25 April 2008
            Course Review: So What?

Friday 2 May 2008
            noon – 2:30 p.m. Final Examination