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ARCHITECTURE WITHOUT ARCHITECTSFranco Frescura Designers have long been fascinated by the concept of an architecture without architects". Ever since 1753 when Marc-Antoine Laugier proclaimed that "All the splendours of architecture ever conceived have been modelled on the little rustic hut", the profession has attempted to discover the secret of how a layman could take a variety of common materials and convert them to buildings of consistently high quality - all without the benefit of having first completed six years of university study. The ensuing search has not been fruitless and the publications on vernacular architecture by Paul Oliver, Rene Gardi, Labelle Prussin, Ronald Brunskill and our own James Walton stand as important markers in the study of man and his built culture. Today a generation of young graduates, sensitised by the writings of Rapoport and Papanek, have come to realise that a designer is an expensive and overrated commodity in a developing economy. As a result of their work, we are now witnessing a growing diversification of our professional activities. It is true that some architects are still treading the conventional and well-worn path to success through a partnership in the larger and more commercial practices. Many others however are turning their skills to the resolution of such sensitive issues as community design, cultural conservation and environmental control. These young designers are also reshaping the way in which architecture will be practiced in this country well into the next century. By entering into loosely organised multi-disciplinary cooperatives with a variety of skills available to them, they feel better equipped to handle the social issues surrounding architecture, which older members of the profession have ignored for too many years. Although they have not ceased their work as designers, they are no doubt mindful of Victor Papanek's warning, made in 1974, when he stated that: "In an environment that is screwed up visually, physically and chemically, the best and simplest thing that architects ... could do for humanity would be to stop working entirely." More importantly many of these young professionals have retained their links with the universities and their published research is beginning to make an impact on the public perception of our own built environment. Inevitably some of these researchers have also been led to question the tenets established by earlier generations of academics. The result has been a more rigorous and critical approach to research, which has followed a strong revisionist line, and has thus spared few sainted bovines. This revisionism comes at a time when South Africans as a whole are taking stock of their history over the past five hundred years and are reassessing their options for the future. Much of our previous architectural history was written from a strongly eurocentric standpoint and often reflected views best suited to a colonial era. Fortunately these find little relevance, or indeed sympathy, in the new social order which is emerging, slowly and ever so painfully, in our country today. This edition of Architecture SA is dedicated to the artifacts of a society without specialist designers. True to form very few of the contributors practice architecture in the conventional sense of the word, and some are not architects at all. The subjects they have covered include a wide range of interests, spanning from headrests and burglar bars through to Cape Dutch and Voortrekker architectures. It is not expected that this issue will meet with universal acclaim. Vernacular architecture is, after all, something of an acquired taste. However it does reflect some aspects of our local built culture which normally fail to find a place in this country's building journals. I, for one, am grateful to have been given the opportunity of redressing this imbalance to a small degree. POSTSCRIPTIn 1989 I was invited to be the guest editor for an issue of Architecture SA on the subject of “Architecture Without Architects”. (Architecture SA: Guest Editor, July/August 1989. Special edition on Architecture Without Architects)
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