The utility and aesthetics of landscape a case study of Irish vernacular architecture D1 (original) (raw)

This paper investigates the utilitarian or everyday relationships to landscape evident in the interlocking of land use practices, spatial strategies and built structures in the context of rural Ireland. Primary research in the form of spatial documentation of landscape strategies deployed in farm buildings, marine structures, mill buildings and limekilns are presented and analysed, revealing land-scape's role as an instrumental element in these configurations, not merely a setting. Generally, aesthetic interpretations of these structures and configurations are concerned with the qualities of their vernacular form as typology and their scenic relationship to landscape. A performative reading of vernacular architecture/landscape configurations presents a counterpoint to this discourse, and informs a re-articulation of their aesthetic/ethical interpretation. rural Irish landscape / vernacular structures Over many years of travelling through diverse areas of rural Ireland, our curiosity has frequently been stirred by configurations of structures, landscape artefacts and layers of human habitation and action that appeared richly woven into the texture of the landscape. The decision to pull over and shift our view from the scene framed by the car window to closer investigation and sketchbook documentation began to reveal how the apparent visual integration of these structures in their landscape context was manifestly generated by an economic and resourceful use of landscape elements including topography, geology, landform, vegetation and watercourses to create spatial definition, shelter, containment, access and agricultural function. We wish to contribute to a parallel shift from the aesthetic view of these structures as vernacular typologies, sitting scenically in a landscape, to an understanding of them as sites of human ingenuity that reveal the agency, resourcefulness and adaptability of their creators. The case studies described here reveal that this agency is situated not so much in the broadly generic construction techniques, materials, forms and typologies generally used to describe vernacular architecture but in the highly specific liaison between structure and landscape that utilizes landscape as an instrumental device in a design strategy. This offers the potential for an aesthetic reading of these structures based on the ethos of this intellectual input and agency rather than solely their value as sites of scenic consumption. Vernacular structures and landscape: typology or specificity Although the structures we examine in the case studies tend to fall into the category of vernacular architecture, the aspect that drew our interest to these configurations (i.e. a highly specific relationship to landscape) is often neglected in any discourse on the vernacular architecture of Ireland and the British Isles, with studies concentrating on style, typology and broad regional variations. Although the scope of vernacular architecture studies is the subject of debate, 'vernacular' originally referred to 'traditional rural buildings of the preindustrial era […]