Built by Hand: Vernacular Buildings Around the World - Hardcover

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This stunning and truly amazing collection of photographs by Japanese photographer Yoshio Komatsu celebrates traditional/vernacular architecture around the world. Komatsu's photographs tell the story of a disappearing world of buildings that have been constructed by ordinary people who, as builders and homesteaders, have given artistic, modest and sensible form to their daily needs and dreams. Sometimes accidental, often asymmetrical, and utilizing materials that are naturally close at hand, these buildings with their molded curves and softened lines convey a beauty that is both personal and human. Quietly and almost without notice, they outwit the might of modern machinery with simple tools and materials that welcome, encourage and amplify use of the human hand. Shelter the Human Family is a celebration of what is so uniquely diverse and yet similar in the buildings of different cultures around the world.Beginning with the most basic ways that human beings have sought shelter-beneath the trees and stars, under the protection of a rock cliff or cave-this book traces the transformation of materials such as earth, stone, wood or bamboo into shelters that are both stationary and moveable.The final chapter takes a look at the need for a modern vernacular. Not the type that seeks to duplicate and imitate the examples in this book, but rather one that is inspired by finding a responsive and sensitive balance between the know-how and wisdom of the past with that which is sustainable and modern.The text is a combined effort of Yoshio's wife Eiko, who is his regular travel/work partner, and Athena and Bill Steen.