Beyond Global vs. Local: Tipping the Scales of Architectural Historiography

Abstract

In the introduction to his book Global Shadows anthropologist James Ferguson describes an encounter with a certain Mr. Labona from a village in Lesotho, who built his house in the “European style.” Coming from contemporary Western appreciation of local cultures (akin to what Renato Rosaldo has identified as imperialist nostalgia: “mourning for what one has destroyed”), Ferguson admired the vernacular architecture for its environmental sustainability, traditional craftsmanship, and aesthetic r...