Vernacular architecture education in the Islamic society of Saudi Arabia: Towards the development of an authentic contemporary built environment

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to expand the debate about the relationship between culture and architecture. The aim is to discuss a way of looking at vernacular architecture in a cultural context and to explain the value of teaching students of architecture about the concepts embedded in the built heritage of their society and how these concepts can be used in their problem solving. Our approach will be from the vantage point of architecture education, using vernacular architecture in Saudi Arabia as an illustration. In the contemporary architectural context of Saudi Arabia there is a problem of dichotomisation of cultural perception caused by the disassociation of the privileged business élite from their cultural roots. They express themselves in the built environment with images of progress that are borrowed from foreign, mainly Western, societies. The middle class desire to build houses and construct buildings that are comparable to those built by the business élite. As a result, Saudi Arabia's built heritage is identified with the past and thought to be backward. It is also associated with poverty. Increasingly, the contemporary built environment is failing to respect the inherited socio-cultural norms of the Islamic society of Saudi Arabia. Given the link between architecture and society, this presents a major challenge to architects and educators in Saudi Arabia. There is a need to develop an educational curriculum that will help students to understand the meaning and value of vernacular architecture and how to learn lessons from such settings that will enable them to design culturally appropriate built environments.