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  • From: Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] build to last? was: preserving poles
  • Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2007 05:07:08 -0500

Sage:

I'm reading (so many pictures, if you can actually call it
that) Built by Hand: Vernacular Buildings from Around the
World, and I'm really blown away by the beauty, variety of
forms, and local materials use of ordinary rural people
everywhere.

Yoshio Komatsu's photography is superb. Text is superfluous.

You would also enjoy Home Work: Handbuilt Shelter, by Lloyd Kahn, who earlier brought us Shelter.

They have been doing for centuries what we are
only now talking about doing. How did we get so far away
from this?

Our resident sociologist and your fellow Texan, Jerry, will hopefully weigh in on that question.

In our evolution we have embraced the work of the specialist incrementally. For all the simple utility and beauty of vernacular buildings and living close to the land, only a motley few of us find it fulfilling to retreat to life as a generalist who manually performs most of the tasks associated with maintaining life.

There are basic reasons why the design of shelter has changed: we have become less nomadic; we prefer houses that maintain superior temperature control; we want safety from fire, we want life to be easier. Modern plumbing and electricity gives us machines that clean our clothes and entertain us. Those systems require a sound, stable structure.

There is great power in nostalgia: note the prices of old furniture that is less comfortable than modern stuff. I can now reliably predict that each new friend who visits will ooh and ahh over my handmade cutting block, often eventually hinting that they sure would like to have one. We are drawn to what is organic; it speaks to our longing for authenticity.

Vernacular building styles and materials appeal to independent, self- reliant homesteaders for reasons of cost. We willingly pay great labor costs to avoid great purchased materials cost. Note the genesis of this thread: preserving poles; poles that many of us can cut on our own land.







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