VIETINĖS ARCHITEKTŪROS REIKŠMĖS: INDIVIDUALUS ŠIUOLAIKINIS GYVENAMASIS NAMAS VILNIAUS APSKRITYJE
Authors:   , Serbentienė Viktorija 
Published: May 2023

The characteristics or problems of the human and society are revealed by local, so-called vernacular, architecture. Different economic, social, political, cultural, and climatic conditions in different areas have led to the development of construction practices that are specific to that area, culture, and ethnic group. These conditions have never been static, but industrialisation, modernisation, and globalisation have caused the strongest and most rapid weakening of architectural traditions, alignment of cultures, and the disappearance of local peculiarities, which had been developing quite consistently over many centuries. Brought about by the scale of these processes, these changes must not only be seen as losses: local phenomena of globalisation have emerged as a response, often drawing on the values of local cultural traditions and heritage in the process of identity building. These are just a few examples that show that the world has not become a global village. Contemporary research is moving away from analysis limited to the collection of data on physical material. This methodological shift was strongly influenced by the structuralist ideas and research of Claude Lévi-Strauss, who saw the house as an object creating a human social organisation (Lévi-Strauss 1988[1979]); in research, architecture has come to be seen as a parallel of language and the human body (Norberg-Schulz 1985: 111; Carsten, Hugh-Jones 1995: 2; Daujotytė-Pakerienė 2019: 17). Since the late 1960s, the world has begun to explore local architecture as the (utilitarian) architecture that best suits the human’s needs and reflecting their cultural and ethnic belonging. In Lithuania, such research best corresponds to the widely studied folk, traditional architecture. The concepts of vernacular and folk architecture are close not only linguistically, but also in terms of being created ‘of and for the people’ (Oliver 2006: XXVI): emphasis is placed on the possession of construction know-how sufficient to enable people, households, or communities themselves to build the buildings they need (Oliver 2006: XXIII, XXVII-XXVIII). The transmission of construction knowledge in this way refers to traditions handed down from generation to generation, which raises the question of how vernacular architecture can be defined in today's post-traditional, technocratic society. The image of the detached house as a good standard of living is widespread in Western society. The recent experience of the pandemic in society highlighted the importance of the house and home as a personal, private human space. In a time of an ecological crisis, the importance of the house as a safe place should only increase, but, according to Sigurd Bergman, the house and the sustainable architectural solutions that go with it can at the same time contribute to the transition from the Anthropocene to the Ecocene (Bergman 2021: 178).1 This is also supported by research in Lithuania, which has examined traditional, ethnic architecture in the context of the contemporary climate crisis and has searched for environmentally friendly solutions (Parasonis, Keizikas et al. 2012; Keizikas, Andriušytė, Šiožinytė 2012; Varanauskaitė 2014b; Andriušytė 2018).Vilnius County was chosen for the study because its architecture has never been seen as a homogeneous vernacular architecture due to the historical and political events and, consequently, cultural dynamics. Globalisation has only exacerbated these dynamics. After the restoration of independence, such processes as economic migration from various parts of Lithuania to the capital city, market conditions creating opportunities to build houses that meet people's wishes and possibilities, and, as a consequence, the expansion of the city boundaries, the increasing density of construction and the increasing cost of land in the city and its environs have begun to draw the contours of a distinctive, cityspecific form of individual housing construction. The research problem: local features of contemporary architecture and construction practices of individual detached housing in a location actively affected by globalisation and modernisation processes. The object of research: contemporary detached dwellings built within the boundaries of Vilnius County after 1990. The aim of research: exploring the forms and meanings of contemporary individual residential architecture.