All humans need a place to live. French geographer Jean Brunhes, a major contributor to the cultural landscape tradition, viewed the house as being among the essential facts of human geography. It is a product of both cultural tradition and natural conditions. American cultural geographer Fred Kniffen considered the house to be a good reflection of cultural heritage, current fashion, functional needs, and environmental conditions.

Folk Housing: Environmental Influences

Distinctive environmental and cultural features influence the provision of housing in folk cultures. The type of building materials used to construct folk houses is influenced partly by the resources available in the environment. Stone, grass, sod, and skins may be used, but the two most common building materials in the world are wood and brick.

The style of construction can also be influenced by the environment. For example, the construction of a pitched roof is important in wet or snowy climates to facilitate runoff and to reduce the weight of accumulated snow. Windows may face south in temperate climates to take advantage of the Sun’s heat and light. In hot climates, on the other hand, roofs may be flat, and window openings may be smaller to protect the interior from the full heat of the Sun.

Folk Housing: Environmental Influences

(a) In the desert in Oman and (b) In the winter in Haanja, Estonia.

Folk Housing: Cultural Influences

The distinctive form of folk houses may derive primarily from religious values and other customary beliefs. Some compass directions may be more important than other directions.

Houses may have sacred walls or corners. In the south-central part of the island of Java, for example, the front door always faces south, the direction of the South Sea Goddess, who holds the key to Earth. The eastern wall of a house is considered sacred in Fiji, as is the northwestern wall in parts of China. Sacred walls or corners are also noted in parts of the Middle East, India, and Africa.

In Madagascar, the main door is on the west, considered the most important direction, and the northeastern corner is the most sacred. The northern wall is for honoring ancestors; in addition, important guests enter a room from the north and are seated against the northern wall. The bed is placed against the eastern wall of the house, with the head facing north.

The Lao people in northern Laos arrange beds perpendicular to the center ridgepole of the house. Because the head is considered high and noble and the feet low and vulgar, people sleep so that their heads will be opposite their neighbor’s heads and their feet opposite their neighbor’s feet. There is one principal exception to this arrangement: A child who builds a house next door to his or her parents sleeps with his or her head toward the parents’ feet as a sign of obeying the customary hierarchy.

Folk Housing: Cultural Influences

(a) Houses of Lao people in northern Laos, such as those in the village of Muang Nan, face one another across a path. Their ridgepoles (the centerline of the roof) are set perpendicular to the path but parallel to a stream. People sleep in the orientation shown, so neighbors are head-to-head or feet-to-feet. (b) Houses of Yuan and Shan peoples in the village of Ban Mae Sakud, Thailand, are not set in a straight line because of a belief that evil spirits move in straight lines. Ridgepoles parallel the path, and the heads of all sleeping persons point eastward.

Although they speak similar Southeast Asian languages and adhere primarily to Buddhism, the Lao do not orient their houses in the same manner as the Yuan and Shan peoples in nearby northern Thailand. The Yuan and Shan ignore the position of neighbors and all sleep with their heads toward the east, which Buddhists consider the most auspicious direction. Staircases must not face west; it is the least auspicious direction and is associated with death and evil spirits.

Pause & Reflect 4.2.5

What factors were considered in the arrangement of the bed in your bedroom?

U.S. Folk Houses

Older houses in the United States display local folk culture traditions. In contrast, housing built in the United States since the 1940s demonstrates how popular customs vary more in time than in place.

Geographer Fred Kniffen identified three major hearths, or nodes, of folk house forms in the United States (Figure 4-30). When families migrated westward in the 1700s and 1800s, they cut trees to clear fields for planting and used the wood to build houses, barns, and fences. The style of pioneer homes reflected whatever style was prevailing at the place on the East Coast from which they migrated.

Folk Housing: U.S. Hearths

House types in the United States originated in three main source areas and diffused westward along different paths. These paths coincided with predominant routes taken by migrants from the East Coast toward the interior of the country.

Popular Housing

Houses built in the United States since the mid-twentieth century display popular culture influences. The degree of regional distinctiveness in housing style has diminished because rapid communication and transportation systems provide people throughout the country with knowledge of alternative styles. Furthermore, most people do not build the houses in which they live. Instead, houses are usually mass-produced by construction companies. Houses show the influence of shapes, materials, detailing, and other features of architectural style in vogue at any one point in time. In the years immediately after World War II, which ended in 1945, most U.S. houses were built in a modern style. Since the 1960s, styles that architects call neo-eclectic have predominated.

Popular Housing: U.S. Suburbs

Similar Tudor style house in (a) Chicago suburb and (b) New York suburb. Houses in the English Tudor style were especially popular in affluent suburbs during the 1970s.