Vernacular building critique The Weathermen Townhouse .docx

Vernacular building critique: The Weathermen Townhouse
Please write a short paper (approximately 1000 words)
providing a critique of the building or
design. The critique must make explicit reference to the
readings (PDF attached) and web articles
(links in description and below), using examples and principles
from the readings to analyze and
critique the design of the weatherman townhouse.
Citation format: MLA
Web Articles:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/msolomon/2014/08/20/the-history-
of-the-weathermen-town-
house/#4282de1f5507
https://observer.com/2008/10/the-local-the-weathermen-
townhouse/
https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/03/weather-
underground-bomb-guru-burrough-

excerpt
PDF readings:
**Please look at attached PDF files**
Thanks!
of-the-weathermen-town-house/#4282de1f5507
of-the-weathermen-town-house/#4282de1f5507
https://observer.com/2008/10/the-local-the-weathermen-
townhouse/
underground-bomb-guru-burrough-excerpt
underground-bomb-guru-burrough-excerpt
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Just Folks Designing: Vernacular Designers and the Generation
of Form

Author(s): Thomas Hubka
Source: JAE, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Feb., 1979), pp. 27-29
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JUST FOLKS DESIGNING

VERNACULAR DESIGNERS AND THE
GENERATION OF FORM
Thomas Hubka teaches at Oregon, where he got
his masters. He did his undergraduate work at
Carnegie-Mellon and recently enjoyed a faculty
grant to study the urban environment of Kracow.
For a more specific and applied view of his interest
in vernacular architecture, writefor a copy of his
article "The Connected Farm Buildings of
South-Western Maine"from Pioneer America,
Box 22230, Baton Rouge, LA 70893.
Folk builders are not often given the
status of architectural designers. This is un-
fortunate because the folk builders have
rigorous, highly structured design
methods for generating and refining spatial
form. Although folk design methods differ
from those employed by modern architec-
tural designers their object is the same-
the conversion of ideas into spatial form.
The fundamental principles of folk or
vernacular design methods are embodied
in tradition. In order -to understand the
folk design method one must understand
how architectural forms are generated
within a system of thought dominated by
tradition. By working within tradition the
folk designer explores a much narrower
design field than a modern designer, but he
is no less creative than his modern coun-
terpart. His creative method' however, is
different.

The intent of this paper is to outline the
general strategy by which folk builders de-
sign structures. It is my hope that an
understanding of the design methods of
these architects will provide a valuable
means of enriching our own methods of
form generation in architecture. The
hypotheses of this paper are an extension
of my research of folk builders in northern
New England.I
Misconceptions About Folk
Design Method
Folk builders are also folk designers. Since
most vernacular architectural scholarship
tends to focus attention on buildings (of-
ten because the designers are either
anonymous or deceased) it is not surpris-
ing that the design skills of these architects
should remain largely unrecorded. When a
design method is allowed to folk builders,
it is often couched in explanations amount-
ing to naturalistic determinism-as if these
people, like birds, naturally make shelter.2
Although no serious study of folk architec-
ture could negate the design role of folk
builders, the myth of the spontaneous ver-
nacular builder seems to be an idea with
wide acceptance in our culture, especially
among architectural designers.
It seems important to begin this study by
outlining a group of pervasive misconcep-
tions about folk architecture before analyz-
ing the design method of its builder.

Mystical Causation and Folk Architec-
ture: The myth of naturalistic determinism
is sometimes perpetrated by the strongest
advocates for vernacular studies. Bernard
Rudofsky's charming and energetic books
are typical of many surface investigations
of vernacular architecture3-strong on ex-
otic images and weak on critical analysis of
building and design method. While studies
like these are well-intentioned, they ac-
tually serve to delimit the real ac-
complishments of vernacular builders by
ascribing to their designs and buildings
misconceptions about their purpose and
method; such as the exaggerated notion of
intuitive (divine?) genius and method-
ologies amounting to mystical causation.
Consequently the reader is left with pretty
pictures but no explanation for how ver-
nacular buildings were designed.
Historical Elitism and Folk Architec-
ture: Vernacular architecture examples
have always suffered the neglect of the ar-
chitectural history establishment, and it is
no surprise that the design method of ver-
nacular builders would also go unnoticed
and unrecorded. Even when scholarship is
directed at vernacular examples, it usually
assumes the elitist metaphor: high style
leaders and folk followers.4 This platonic
model hypothesizes that folk designers
merely copy, often crudely, the forms of
high style or elite architecture. Although

there are good folk architectural investiga-
tions to suggest otherwise,s the general ac-
ceptance of this model has often prevented
a serious appraisal of folk design method.
(Folk and elite architecture overlaps on
many levels and influences occur both
ways, but certainly not only one way.)
Folk designers have seldom been
granted design method because most re-
searchers have failed (or never attempted)
to place a human designing mind behind
these structures and failed to see folk ar-
chitecture as the product of real people
making real design decisions. Frequently
this neglect can be traced to a contempo-
rary desire to perceive folk architecture
through a narrow aesthetic or moralistic
filter; ie, looking at folk architecture to
confirm hypotheses about simple life
styles, pure unadorned forms, or whol-
istic/naturalistic environments.
Primitive Societies and Folk Architec-
ture: In most architectural definitions,
primitive architectural examples would be
placed at one end of a vast folk/vernacular
architecture scale. Although today primi-
tive buildings make up only a very small
and exotic portion of vernacular architec-
ture examples, they are usually given a dis-
proportionate emphasis in the total spec-
trum of vernacular buildings world wide.
Vernacular architecture is found in all

the world's cultures; ancient and modern,
and, most importantly, it continues
throughout the world today in various rela-
tionships to modern world culture-cer-
tainly not only the most primitive relation-
ship. Many vernacular cultures exist in
some relationship to a larger, or dominant
culture-as do all American folk cultures
today.
The application of the word "primitive"
to vernacular architectural studies is unfor-
tunate because it tends to imply that ver-
nacular cultures are stagnant and unchang-
ing. This is particularly unfortunate be-
cause it tends to mask and fossilize the
generative design method of its builders.
Unself-conscious Designers and Folk Ar-
chitecture: Most contemporary architec-
tural writers have used or implied the term
unself-conscious to describe vernacular
design and building practices. (Christo-
pher Alexander's book, Notes on the
Synthesis of Form has been one of the most
influential in this respect.) While the term
is a productive means to exaggerate the
weaknesses in contemporary design pro-
cess (the gap between design method and
building practice today) it has come to
imply a naive spontaneity about the work-
ing method of vernacular designers and
tends to conceal the thinking and design-
ing mind behind the architecture called
vernacular.

Vernacular building method is only un-
self-conscious to the degree that the design
system is not articulated in drawings or
written words, and is not continuously
analyzed by its practitioners. It is, how-
ever, a systematic method of design facili-
tated by a highly structured, traditional
mental language (or architectural
grammar). The tacitly accepted notion of
the unself-conscious designer is a major
stumbling block in the path toward under-
standing vernacular builders as designers
with real methods of going about designing
and building.
The Owner and the Designer in Folk Ar-
chitecture: One of the most pervasive mis- 27
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Generative process in vernacular design method
conceptions about folk architecture is the
myth of the spontaneous owner-builder.
In the majority of Indo-European vernacu-
lar societies, where information is avail-
able, the frequently complex building tra-
ditions are maintained by highly trained
individuals in their societies (called ar-
chitects by our own standards). It is easy to
misinterpret the role of folk builders be-
cause in many societies the owner or occu-
pant is also an active participant in the
building process. Unfortunately this col-
lective building practice tends to conceal
the fundamentally important role of the
vernacular builder as designer. The wide-
spread acceptance of this notion has the
obvious side effect of belittling the creat-
ive design abilities of folk builders by mak-
ing their contribution seem insignificant or
available to just about anyone in the soci-
ety.
Purpose and Method in Folk
Design
Folk design method is circumscribed by
habit and tradition. In order to understand
this method, folk design process must be
analyzed according to the way "thinking
traditionally" structures the designer's ap-
proach to problem solving. From a modern
perspective, a design strategy relying on
tradition and habit might seem like a poor
method for creative problem solving and

form generation, but this is probably only
because contemporary designers have
often selected change or the search for new
form as a starting point for design study.
Folk designers start with the unchanging
and accommodate change. They are not
less creative than contemporary designers;
they just create differently.
Tradition in Folk Design: Folk design
method is carried exclusively in the human
mind and maintained within its culture by
tradition-the handing down of informa-
tion by word of mouth, observation, repli-
cation and apprenticeship. It is distin-
guished from modern design process be-
cause it is a non-literary method of design
which stores its complex traditions, not in
treatises and drawings, but in the minds of
its builders. To understand this method
one must be prepared to hypothesize
about the way the human mind works to
transform tradition into complex architec-
tural designs.
The folklorist Henry Glassie has de-
veloped several models for interpreting
the design methods of folk builders. By
borrowing theory from linguistic philoso-
phy, semiology, anthropology and
folklore, he has constructed models for
understanding the generative aspects of
the human mind within traditional think-
ing.6 In his interpretations an abstracted
mental language of basic rules and rela-

tionships is manipulated by the folk de-
signer according to cultural principles en-
coded in the traditional building method.
This system is transformed and manipu-
lated by the folk builder according to
generative rules similar to those of lan-
guage acquisition and creation (where fi-
nite means produce infinite variety). The
mental language which defines the folk de-
signer's rules of competence-the folk
building tradition-is seen as a kind of
highly abstracted architectural grammar,
or schemata, which codifies habitualized
responses or typical reaction to a situation.
The mental language or schema structure
used by folk builders should not be seen as
mental pictures or symbols of houses or
doorways, but ideas abstracted far beyond
representation and symbolizing funda-
mental ideas in culture. It is important to
empbasize that this explanation is no more,
but no less, than a model for understanding
how habit and tradition are reinforced and
manipulated in the human mind. Without a
model such as this one for understanding
traditional thought it would be difficult to
interpret folk design method, because folk
builders design in their minds.
Form Generation in Folk Design: Folk
builders share a common strategy for
generating design ideas which can be de-
scribed as a continuous process of compo-
sition and decomposition within a vocabu-
lary of existing building forms. Folk de-
signers operate in a narrow, culturally de-

fined field of possibility which is struc-
tured by tradition. This field consists
largely of the existing building examples
A comparison of the design ideas available to the
vernacular and modern designer.
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available to each builder and the design re-
pertoire contained within each builder's
particular tradition. (Of course, modern
designers also work within a limited per-
sonal and culturally defined field, but the
quantitative difference is significant.)
Folk designers solve design problems by
relying on past precedent, but it is inaccu-
rate to say that they merely copy old forms.
It is more accurate to say that they generate
design ideas by disassembling or decom-
posing existing forms and composing new
forms out of the abstracted ideas of bits
and pieces of existing forms (see diagram

above). The folk designer accomplishes
change by reordering the hierarchy of
ideas (schemata) contained within the
known grammar or tradition of existing
structures. In the folk system, new forms
are conservatively generated out of old
forms and old ideas, while in modern de-
sign practice new forms may be generated
from both old and new forms and ideas. To
use Levi Strauss' terms the "bricoleur"
(handyman) or folk designer works within
a severely limited field of pre-constrained
ideas derived from existing buildings while
the "scientist" or modern designer is free
to go beyond the constraints of the context
or building tradition and manipulate
theoretically unlimited design explo-
rations7 (see diagram below). The folk
builders' dependence on the existing con-
text and tradition for design ideas is what
fundamentally distinguishes this mode of
design from more modern or scientific ap-
proaches.
The distinction between the folk design
mind and the modern design mind extends
to the very nature of the ideas they con-
sider. To use Levi Strauss' distinction
again, the folk designer operates with a fi-
nite world of ideas and signs structured by
the physical world and pre-constrained by
the local building tradition. The modern
designer, however, operates in an infinite
world of ideas and abstract concepts which
have an unlimited capacity to hold new
forms and ideas. While both design minds

rely on abstract thought to manipulate
ideas, the modern designer's use of
abstracted concepts to stand for unlimited
associations is a qualitative difference of
great importance.
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29
Advantages to the Folk Design
Method
At first glance the benefits of the modern
design method seem overwhelming, but
the plodding folk turtle has some persis-
tent advantages over the quick modern
rabbit. One commonly recognized advan-
tage of the folk method of design is the

benefits of a narrower field of design ex-
ploration (it may even be argued that what
designers primarily do is to impose limits
on the design field to make problems man-
ageable). By choosing to operate within
tradition, the folk designer's real problems
are small and manageable, but not insignif-
icant. Since the traditional buildings are
summaries of problems already solved, the
folk designer is free to focus design atten-
tion on areas which need repair or change.
This is the type of misfit problem solving
strategy that theorists like Christopher Al-
exander have in mind when they speak of
the repair of the existing environment.8
The structure of folk design method al-
lows for a significant degree of individual
interpretation and variety. Common to
most folk method is a strategy of focusing
attention on critical areas of design while
allowing a variety of individual interpreta-
tions in subordinate areas. This design
method is characterized by a primary (de-
pendent) and a secondary (independent)
design component in which the primary or
gross architectural arrangement is rigor-
ously structured while allowing the de-
signer a range of individual design in-
terpretations in the secondary systems. For
example, the basic room proportional sys-
tem and plan arrangement of English and
Germanic housing in the new world (the
key to the design replication strategy) was
steadfastly maintained for hundreds of
years in America while the same settlers

were relatively free to experiment in vari-
ous building materials (log, brick, heavy
timber and even sod). The stylistic trans-
formation of the Cape Cod house in north-
ern New England is another example of an
unchanging structural organizational sys-
tem freely interpreted in a wide variety of
architectural styles according to the latest
fashions and stylistic trends. The strategy
of ordered frameworks or grids for ac-
commodating individual variety is often
taken up by systems advocates but seldom
with as solid a basis for success as long es-
tablished folk design methods.
Folk designers are often perceived as un-
imaginative copiers because much of their
architecture appears to be simple repeti-
tion. It is often assumed that the con-
straints of traditional design emasculate
the individuality or creativity of the folk
designer. This is simply not born out in
documentation which suggests that proud,
individualistic, creative designers are folk
societies' rule-although the folk designer
manifests individuality in different ways
than contemporary designers. The folk de-
signer simply signs his signature much
smaller but by no means less forcefully.
This signature is in the details, in the care,
and in the craft of building (and while the
modern observer might not see this
signature you can be sure his contem-
poraries saw it.).

Folk architecture which appears unified,
homogeneous, even identical becomes, on
closer inspection, rich, diversified and in-
dividualistic. New England barns which
seem grossly uniform from the car be-
come, on closer inspection, so diverse that
it is risky to generalize about their struc-
tural system over even a small country
area. Without denying the strong collec-
tive uniformity of folk architecture, it is
possible to construct a strong case for in-
dividuality in the smaller scale based on
care, refinement and craft. The folk de-
signer offers a much needed interpretation
of creativity within an ordering framework
or established tradition.
Similarities Between Folk and
Modern Design Methods
Although the differences might seem ex-
treme, there are basic similarities between
the folk design mind and the modern de-
sign mind. The most important similarity
between these methods is that both have
their basis in tradition, although the mod-
ern debt to its traditional sources has been
seriously undervalued, especially in design
education.
Until quite recently contemporary re-
search into creativity and design was dom-
inated by models emphasizing new or
unique creation (often these models are
used as handmaidens to the contemporary
search for new form or uniqueness). This

research has not demonstrated the degree
to which architects actually rely on this
type of creative reasoning in design, nor
has it fundamentally addressed the role of
replication and tradition in contemporary
design practice. The study of folk architec-
ture design with its necessary emphasis on
the working of the human mind should
lead to a more reasoned assessment of the
modern design mind, especially its debt to
tradition.
What I find most exciting about the
study of folk design method is the relative
closeness of this "primitive" method to the
way architects actually think and work--
the way a modern designer must inter-
nalize vast amounts of complex informa-
tion into symbolic mental grammar; and
the vastly under-emphasized role of tradi-
tion, replication and examples in the ar-
chitect's creative process. Although the
development of this assertion is beyond
the scope of this paper, it is the model from
vernacular architecture which is most in-
triguing to me at the present time.
Lessons From Folk Design
Method
The folk design method is not a working
model of form generation for modern
times, nor is it an instant panacea for the
problems of contemporary design. It does
however offer a tough, thoroughly tested,
approach to design which has significant

differences to contemporary methods.
The folk design method carries out de-
sign according to a non-literary method
based on tradition. It is worth considering
simply because it is a design model based
on different assumptions about the mean-
ing and purpose of architecture. Since the
role of tradition is especially emphasized in
folk method and seemingly de-emphasized
by modern designers, it is worthy of seri-
ous study in order to reevaluate the value
of traditional thinking for design. It is,
therefore, encouraging to report that ver-
nacular architecture method has no prob-
lem integrating tradition with design pro-
cess. Basic to all vernacular design method
is the dominant role of tradition-an entire
epistemological structure geared to repli-
cation and maintenance of tradition.
The tough message from folk architec-
ture is that its design method is no fluke;
it's not a flash-in-the-pan strategy. A case
can, and should, be made for folk design
method as one of the most pervasive and
well-conceived design methods in the his-
tory of civilization. The fact that it is not
studied by architects as a serious method is
indicative of essential differences in pur-
pose and method in folk and modern
strategies; but also because the folk design
method is simply not understood as
method. The study of folk design seems
worthy of careful study.

References
'Thomas C Hubka, "The Connected Farm
Buildings of Southwestern Maine," Pioneer
America, Vol 9, No 2(Dec 1, 1977) pp 143-179.
Also, "The Connected Farm Buildings of Northern
New England," Historical New Hampshire, Vol
32, No 3 (Fall 1977) pp 87-115.
2Although many books make this basic assumption
it is particularly evident in Amos Rapoport's widely
readstudy House Form and Culture (Engleuwood
Cliffs, NewJersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc 1969).
3Bernard Rudofsky, The Prodigious Builders
(New York: Harcourt BraceJovanovich, 1977), for
example, p 12.
4For Example, Wilbur Zelinsky, "The New En-
gland Connecting Barn," The Geographical Re-
view 48-4 (1958) pp 540-53.
SFor example, Henry Glassie, "The Variation of
Concepts Within Tradition: Barn Building in Ot-
sego County, Newu York," Geoscience and Man,
Volume V (June 10, 1974) pp 177-2325.
6Henry Glassie, Folk Housing in Middle Vir-
ginia (Knoxville, Tennessee: The University of
Tennessee Press, 1975).
7Claude Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1966)
p16.
8Christopher Alexander, Notes on the Synthesis
of Form (Cambridge, Mass..: Harvard University
Press, 1968) p 50.
2015 06:35:38 UTC

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jspArticle
Contentsp. 27p. 28p. [29]Issue Table of ContentsJAE, Vol. 32,
No. 3 (Feb., 1979), pp. 1-32Front MatterEpistle to Richard
Boyle, Earl of Burlington [pp. 8-9]Prologue [pp. 1-
2]Architectural Education in the University Context: Dilemmas
and Directions [pp. 3-7]Historic Preservation: A Survey of
American and Canadian Doctoral Dissertations, 1961-1976 [pp.
10-11]The Cranbrook TS: Old Albion Strikes Again [pp. 12-
13]Interdisciplinary and Multidisciplinary Correlations between
Aesthetics and Semeiotics [pp. 14-16]Comment: Snodgrass
Reconsidered [pp. 17-20]Careers in Architecture: Mr. Right,
A1A [p. 21]History from Practice to School [pp. 22-26]Just
Folks Designing: Vernacular Designers and the Generation of
Form [pp. 27-29]The Platform Builder [p. 30]BooksReview:
untitled [pp. 30-31]Review: untitled [p. 31]Review: untitled
[pp. 31-32]Review: untitled [p. 32]Review: untitled [p. 32]
Weathermen Townhouse
Architect: Hugh Hardy
Dates: 1845 (Original) ; 1978 (Hardy
Remodel) Address: 18 W 11th St, New York,
NY 10011
source: https://observer.com/2012/05/weathermen-house-

explodes-onto-market-for-10-9-m/#slide7
Image sources
p. 1-4 https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-weathermen-
townhouse-explosion-new-york-new-york
p.5 https://observer.com/2012/05/weathermen-house-explodes-
onto-market-for-10-9-m/#slide7
p.6 https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/nyregion/14about.html
p.7 https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/nyregion/new-life-for-
greenwich-village-site-of-weatherman-
bombing.html8-
underground-bomb-guru-burrough-
excerpt
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