Vernacular E
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'er.nac'u.Iar (ver.nak'ti.ler), adj. 1. Belonging to, develope and spoken or used by, the people of a particular place, regio country; native; ind· • as, English is our ve 11 the native or indigen asopposedtothellle poetry; vernacular e 2. Of persons, that usCAROLINA DWELLINGlib language of a place; as vernacular poets; ve&t~&m 3. Characteristic of a locality; local; as, CAROLINA DWELLING :be Student Publication of the School of De ign: olurn -J"orth Carolina State University :laude McKinney, Dean )hun Kanda, Project Director ( \. Towards Preservation of Place: In Celebration of the North Carolina Vernacular Landscape Edited by Doug Swaim Copynght 1 7 by The Student Publication library of Congres Caral This publication ha be.,n fun the 1allonal Endowm n or 1 The nature of building is letting dwell. ... Only if we are capable of dwelling, only th en can we build. Let us think for a while of a farmhouse in the Black Forest, which was built some two hundred years ago by the dwelling of peasants. Here the self-sufficiency of the power to let earth and heaven, divinities and mortals enter in simple oneness into things, ordered the house. It placed the farm on the wind-sheltered mountain slope looking south, among the meadows close to the spring. It gave it the w1de overhanging shingle roof whose proper slope bears up under the burden of snow, and which, reaching deer down, shields the chambers against the storms o the long winter nights. It did not forget the altar comer behind the community table; it made room in its chamber for the hallowed places of childbed and the 'tree of the dead' . and in this way it designed for the different generations under one roof the character of their journey through time .. .. Our reference to the Black Forest farm in no way means that we should or could go back to building such houses; rather it illustrates by a dwel- ling that has been how it was able to build . The real dwelling plight lies in this, that mortals ever search anew for the nature of dwelling, that they must ever learn to dwell . .. -Martin Heidegger "Building Dwelling Thinking" Table of Contents Introduction: The Conservation of Place 10 Editor's Introduction 14 Toward a Theory of Pla e eanin 20 North Carolina Folk Housing 28 The Development of Dome ti in the Albemarle Region 46 North Carolina Coastal erna ular 62 6 The 1-House as a Carrier of Style Michael Southern is a native of Ra leigh, and h olds a BA in Art in Three Counties of the Northeastern Piedmont Hi story from the University of North Carolina. Since 1974 he has worked with the Survey a nd Planning Branch of the NC Division of 70 Archives and Hi s tory, wh ere he d irec ted a study of Eastern NC ar- chitectural resources. The Montmorenci-Prospect Hill School: Catherine Bishir is a na tive of Kentucky. She h old s degrees in A Study of High-Style Vernacular Architecture English from the Unive rsity of Kentucky (BA , ·1964)and Duke Unive r- in the Roanoke Valley si ty (MA, 1965). Since 1973 she has h eaded the S urve·y a nd Planning Branch of the NC Division of Archives and History. 84 The North Carolina Porch: Ruth Little-Stokes holds d egrees in Art History from the Unive r- A Climatic and Cultural Buffer s ity of North Carolina (BA , 1969) and Brown University (MA , 1972). From 1971 to 1976 s he worked as a n a rchitectura l h istorian at the NC Division of Archives and History and now teaches part-time at Pi ed- 104 mont Community College in C harl o tte. Carolina Tobacco Barns: Form and Significance Ligon Flynn is a registere d architect working in Wilming ton , NC. H e receiv e d merit a wards fro m the NC C hapter AlA in1969, 1970, and 112 1971. A 1959 graduate of NC State University, he taught in the School of Desig n from 1963 to ·1967 . Roman Stankus g radua ted from NC State University inl977 with a Bachelor of Environme ntal Design in Architecture. He now wo rks in the offi ce of Li gon Fl ynn, AlA. Carolina Tobacco Barns: History and Function Laura Scism is a n underg raduate journali s m major at the Unive rsity of North Carolina at Ch ape l Hill. She works on the staff of the Dnily Tnr 118 Heel a nd served as a summer intern with the Gree 11 sboro Dnily News in 1977. The Creation of a Vernacular Townscape: Bob Klute was bo rn in India na. He earned a BA in Anth ropology A Case Study of Spring Hope fro m the Unive rsity of Chicago, the n worked for the Ci ty of Raleigh Planning De partme nt. He co mple ted his Maste r of Landscape Ar- 128 chitecture at NC Sta te Unive rsity in 1977. 7 Table of Contents Southern Mill Hills: De ign in 138 Guilford County: The Archite tural n in an Exclusively Vernacular Land 150 Continuity and Change in ll-aditi nat hi The Contmental Plan Farmhou in Middle North Carolina 160 The North Carolina Courtho qua Particularizing Time and Place 172 North Carolina Country Chur he : Explorations in the Mountains and H1 r 184 Site Selection of Pre-1940 Mountain H 196 8 The Architecture of the New River Valley Davyd Foard Hood is a survey specialist with th e NC Division of Archives and History. He atte nded the Unive rsity of North a rolina, earned a BFA in interior Design fro m Virginia ommonwealth Unive r- 202 sity, and in 1975 completed an MA in Arch itectural History at th e University of Virginia. Homeplace: Images and Impressions Charles Shook holds a Bachelor of Env iro nmental Desig n in Ar- of an Appalachian Settlement ch itec tu re from th e University of North Carolina at Cha rl ott e . He is pursuing a Mas ter of Landsca pe Arch itec ture degree at NC Sta te Uni- 216 versi ty, emphasizin g townscape and adaptive-use concerns. Highway 64, in Postcards Linda Dahl, 'fracy Segner, and Whitney Talcott a re curre ntly s tudying Landsca pe Architectu re at the School of Desig n , NC S ta te University. Tracy and Wh itn ey a re g rad uate s tude nts ; Linda is an 224 undergra dua te. North Carolina, A Guide to the Old North Sta te (1939): Jerrold Hirsch is a Ph D ca ndida te in American Hi s tory at the An Approach to the Vernacular Landscape University o f North Carolina, where h e is co mple ting a dissertation on the Federal Writers' Project. He has presented several papers a nd ha 238 co-ed ited a book on th e FWP. Illustration Credits Acknowledgments Staff The Student Publication Legacy 256 9 The Conservation of Place This book's ultimate goal is the conservation of things and buildings and places. It seems appropriate at the beginning of such a book to inquire why we should be interested in the conservation of buildings and things and places, especially in an age so characteristically devoted to growth and change and bigness that an urge to conserve anything would seem to be both ethically and intellec- tually irrational. The conservation and preservation of buildings and artifacts have always seemed to those in charge of our political and economic life to be an irrelevancy; at best a frill to be pursued and enjoyed by individuals of means, good education, and exquisite tastes. Concern about the conservation of place is a relatively new phenomenon lying principally in the domain of theorists and academicians-not yet even of general concern or interest to those groups and individuals who labor in the tradi- tional "preservation" vineyard. A shared characteristic of both groups, however, is a pervasive defensiveness and self-consciousness in speaking about why they even bother. Generally they can do no better than to speak vaguely about motivations having to do with patriotism, the importance of recreation or tourism, "economic bene- fits to the community," and the like. To the contrary, I believe that the aggressive pursuit of a firm public commitment to a new conservation ethic is no longer a matter of luxury or self-indulgence. In these closing years of the twentieth century, it has become a matter of urgent social necessity which is essential to the :as tern No rth Carolina : the survival of the human spirit and personality. 1e rnac ular la nd scape's o wn For most of us, there are obvious justifications for •loquent me mori a l. conservation that cannot be denied. The threshold level of understanding would be that no civilized person, educated or not, would wish that any object or place of beauty or significance should be destroyed for any reasons other than compelling ones-whether the thing be a painting, a beautiful landscape, or a bit of architec- ture. But we have arrived at a time when the need for Robert Stipe conservation has passed beyond mere civility or ap- mid-play that we drop our lines. Remove the buildings, preciation. The basic need springs from a fundamental artifacts, landscapes and places that provide th e memory human requirement to be able to reach out and to be able of our earlier lives and we pay a price. Sometimes it is a to touch and feel and see those things that provide hard small price and the inconvenience is a fl eeting one.