Abstract
Accordingly to Wagner, “Dwellings stand as the concrete expressions of a complex interaction among cultural skills and norms, climatic conditions and the potentialities of natural materials”. This study, beginning with an enquiry into the way trans-national houses are the physical expression of interacting cultural factors, provides a theoretical framework grounded on cross-cultural studies for understanding the way cultural needs have influenced the form of the archetypal post WWII ‘house on a quarter-acre block’ built in Brisbane by Italian migrants. The findings reveal that while the architectural form of the Italian Trans-national houses built in Brisbane is influenced by the need to continue architectural cultural traditions in the host country, the spatial distribution of the artifact was influenced by socio-cultural factors and urban fabric, from both the native and hosting built environment, in the attempt of re-establishing and enhancing the native way of life.
Highlights
This research study builds upon the literature that seeks to explore the ways in which migrant groups influence the form of their vernacular houses in their host societies
The objective of this study is (1) to provide insight into the ways in which migrants shaped the physical environments of their host societies; (2) to help to bridge the significant gap between transnational houses and cross-cultural studies; (3) to capture the store of knowledge held by older Italian migrants, by their still standing artifacts before this knowledge is lost in time
In the 1950s, while the Italian government realized that a migration policy would relieve pressure on the Italian economy caused by overcrowding and unemployment, the Australian government adopted this policy in order to attract a workforce due to a chronic shortage of labor [28,29,30,31]
Summary
This research study builds upon the literature that seeks to explore the ways in which migrant groups influence the form of their vernacular houses in their host societies. Blunt [3], in his analysis of houses belonging to Anglo-Indians in McCluskieganj, Bihar, in the 1930s, highlights that this cultural group constructed and shaped their houses through nostalgic practice, where the house exposed a sort of attachment to both India and Britain. This means that the transnational house can be interpreted as a place of memory shaped through nostalgic practice whose purpose is to enhance a sense of familiarity. Young investigates the way of life brought from the native country which inevitably influenced the spatial configuration of their houses
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