Hearth and cloth: dwelling practice and production in Eastern Tibet

Abstract

In the context of rapid contemporary shifts of migration, modernisation, urbanisation and Sinification in Eastern Tibet, a significant impact on the inhabited environment of the 'everyday' is evident, manifest in the use of new materials, new work and building practices, the impact of new neighbours, and the appropriation of new media. Within a critique of attitudes to the primitive (vernacular) and modern, practices related to dwelling in terms of the material realisation of the house and tents are shown to be related. A sophistication of sBra-gur, the black tent of the nomadic pastoralist, is revealed, with symbolic ordering and spatial relationships related to Tibetan dwelling houses. Through examining the spatial role and production of the Semperian archetypes of 'hearth' and 'cloth' in the tent in particular, it is shown that settlement and fabrication are interdependent. It is argued that understanding patterns of 'everyday' dwelling practice should be the basis for potential judgements concerning continuity and future adaptation and change. The origin of this work was architectural consultation on the adaptation of traditional Tibetan houses, an approach in which inherent dilemmas soon become evident - the potential to participate in shifting balances of making, inhabiting, developing, communicating.