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About

The “Vernacular Architecture on the Ancient Silk Roads” blog aims to open up architectural and urban research to themes linked to the major events of our time: the resilience of the structure and organization of the built environment to earthquakes, heat, drought, and rising sea levels; forms of habitat and ways of living in the face of today’s ecological and digital transitions; metropolises and the transformation of their urban and natural frameworks; the tourist and recreational aspects of crowd movements. We aim to understand the design of buildings, cities, and landscapes that shape today’s metropolises, by questioning their links with “vernacular” forms of habitat and urbanism. The blog focuses on research and dissemination of vernacular housing architecture and the timber framing structural system, reinforcing critical questioning of contemporary cities and territories. The fields of study are located along the ancient Silk Road (land and sea roads), from China to the Eastern Mediterranean, via Japan, Southeast Asia, India, the Persian world, the Bosphorus, and the Balkans. The ancient Silk Road was chosen for its internationality and for its having always been a crossroads between peoples and therefore a great laboratory of ways of inhabiting the earth. The underlying hypothesis of the research work is that vernacular housing architecture and associated materials bear witness to great resilience in the face of current events (earthquakes, drought, floods, overcrowding and density, health risks, …). Vernacular architecture respects the three criteria of sustainable development (social, economic, and environmental) and promotes social and professional activities within the city. Buildings are constructed by making use of the resources available in the region of construction. The greatest advantage is that these buildings are those that best withstand the weather conditions of the region in question. Vernacular architecture largely participates in the revalorization of heritage. The editorial line of the Blog will highlight those contributions that are concerned with mapping, making known, and popularizing vernacular architecture on the Silk Road, that architecture conceived in function of the territory on which it is developed and the inhabitants who inhabit it. The approach will favor interdisciplinary and transnational contributions with a particular focus on linking architectural theory and history, urban sociology, and anthropology because, among the various anthropological manifestations, the one that best records and preserves the signs of a transnational civilization is architecture. Not corporate or high-tech architecture, but rather vernacular architecture, an expression of building, repetitive, and choral techniques sustained by a collective culture of living that has been established over the centuries. The goals of the blog are to create awareness among the scientific community and anyone interested in the topic of resilience and the value of vernacular architecture as a housing system, even in the age of the Anthropocene. To achieve this, various contributions such as publications, calls, and results of conferences, seminars, workshops, podcasts, photographic material, field surveys, sketches and drawings, and anything else that may contribute to the narrative of vernacular architecture along the Silk Road will be uploaded to the blog. The blog is linked to the RéSOIE network, accredited by the French Ministry of Culture in 2024. It includes around fifteen cultural and academic establishments in Europe and Asia.