HANDOUT 3

• Vernacular


  Domestic, native (from Latin vernaculus meaning home-born slave)
• Vernacular architecture


  • Dwellings and all other buildings of the people, related to their environmental contexts and available resources, customarily owner- or community-built, utilizing traditional technologies, built to meet specific needs, accommodating the values, economies and ways of life of the cultures that produce them
• Vernacularization


  A general approach of localizing architecture by alluding to indigenous social, cultural, political and historical contexts, making a foreign concept understandable to the local audience by referring to familiar local materials and ideas
• Indigenous


  Relating to the people who originally lived in a place, rather than people who moved there from somewhere else
• Indigenous design


  • Embodies practices and principles that are informed by the culture of the community, rather than just evaluating on style, function, and form
• Folk art


  Predominantly functional or utilitarian visual art created by hand (or with limited mechanical facilities) for use by the maker or a small circumscribed group and containing an element of retention—the prolonged survival of tradition
• The ethnic tradition of houses and settlements in the Philippines refers to folk and vernacular forms
• Ethnic architecture


  • Draws inspiration mainly from the environment, responds to communal and social needs, created by different ethno-linguistic communities in the Philippines
• Types of ethnic structures

  • Dwellings
  • Places of worship
  • Granaries
  • Fortifications
  • Temporary structures
• Ethnic architecture


  • Informal and intuitive, usually designed by the owner and executed with human resources provided by the family and the community, multipurpose one-room structure, light and airy, comfortable and functional, yet durable and structurally stable, decoration is often a happy marriage between aesthetics and socio-politico-religious factors
• Considerations for categorizing ethnic architecture

  • Structure
  • Function
  • Cultural groups
  • Historical periods
• Oido


  The tradition of building through intuition or the builder/designer relies on aesthetic insight and chance by making adjustments as they go along
• Space within a space

  The interior of the archetypal Philippine house does not have walls, the partitioning of areas is based on the concept of "spaces within a space"
• Space surrounded by space


  The walls of the house are often extended outside the basic structural frame to the limit of the roof eaves, creating "space surrounded by space", territorial spaces are suggested by symbols rather than fences or walls
• Types of pre-Hispanic architecture by structure

  • Cave dwellings
  • Lean-tos
  • Elevated one-room huts over land or water
  • Multi-level houses
  • Longhouses
  • Tree houses
  • Houseboats
  • Land houses

  
• European chroniclers provided glimpses into 16th century Philippine houses, describing them as being built like haystacks, raised high on logs with rooms and space underneath for animals, with little furniture but some imported porcelain, storage jars, and bronze gongs

  
• European chroniclers: 'Provide a glimpse into 16th century Philippine houses'

  
• Pigafetta's description of Cebu chief's house

  Built like a hayloft, made of wood, planks and bamboo, raised high from the ground on large logs, entered by ladders, has rooms, and space underneath for animals

  
• Pigafetta's impression of Cebuano houses


  Little or no furniture, people sat on bamboo mats and slept on reed or palm leaf mats with pillows made of leaves, but had imported porcelain ware, storage jars, and bronze gongs

  
• Pigafetta's account of Butuan chief's house


  Some portions were made of gold
• Description of Manila ruler Raja Soliman's house


  Very large, contained many valuable things such as money, copper, iron, porcelain, blankets, wax, cotton, and wooden vats full of brandy
• In ethnic communities, pottery, weaving, carving, and metal craft are made for ritual purposes or for everyday use
• Early Philippine pottery


  • Displays a wide variety of shapes and decorative techniques, including incision, stippling, appliqué, openwork, and impression by rope and mat, with geometric and stylized nature motifs
• Manunggul Jar


  Large burial jar excavated in Palawan circa 8th century BC, showing high artistic level, with cover depicting two men rowing a boat and incised design of curved lines and dots
• Manobo Jar


  Limestone burial urn from Cotabato Province, Mindanao, for storing the bones of the deceased after decomposition of the bodies
• Objects for daily use

  • Palayok (clay pot) for cooking
  • Banga and tapayan (clay pot) for storing liquids
  • Burnay pottery in Ilocos
• Wood carving traditions in the Philippines

  • Cordillera groups carve anito figures called bulul, which double as ancestral spirits and granary gods, often found in pairs, signifying the value of fertility, human and animal motifs are also carved into the posts of Cordillera houses and into household objects
• Bulul


  Stylized sculptural representation of a human figure in wood into which a certain class of anito is said to incorporate itself when worshipped, used in rituals associated with rice planting, healing, and the resolution of inter-tribal feuds
• Hagabi


  A bench that provides status symbol for the rich Ifugao due to the cost of its construction and the ceremonies involved
• Kinabigat


  The roof's main vertical support, carved in the form of an upright human figure among the wealthiest Ifugao

  
• Pamandingan


  Walls of hardwood planks, sometimes with chiselled patterns
• Hogohog


  Shelf mounts over the hearth, carved with anthropometric and zoomorphic figures
• Halda or patie


  Open shelf for displaying luxury items like imported jars, with the underside having hooks in the form of animals, from which baskets and utensils are hung
• Po-kok


  Grain storage so large it is almost part of the architecture, consisting of floating large planks pegged and grooved to vertical supports, with a removable door sometimes carved with a human figure
• Dulong


  Sleeping platform, a massive plank of wood carved so that a narrow siding and a wide headrest are left raised and the foot open
• Dalapong


  Low stools, sometimes with base and stem-handles carved to suggest abstract animal feet, heads, and tails
• Pamahan


  Rice wine server for the upper class, adds prestige to festivities
• Pun-amhan


  Ritual box
• Wood carving in southern Philippines

  • Tagbanua of Palawan carve wooden figures of various birds and animals, linked to religion and ritual, blackened and incised with geometric designs, Maranao and Tausug of Mindanao are known for their okir, ornate curvilinear designs and motifs applied to wood carving
• Sarimanok


  Stylized design of a bird holding a fish in its beak and/or standing on a base in the shape of a fish, found in the panolong, the extended floor beam, and the interior beams and posts of the large sultan's house called torogan