Neo-Vernacular Architecture In The Globalized World

Though "Vernacular" is becoming a topic discussed more and more domestically, people still have very limited understanding of it. Since the very beginning, the Chinese architects' understanding of Vernacular has been based on the opinions and practice of very few individuals overseas. It is lack of the recognition of the overall picture, particularly lack of understanding of Vernacular's current status. On the perception level, people often interpret "Vernacular" as "the National Style" or "the Regional Style". On the discussion level, most people just focus on "Style" or "Form". The enthusiasm with Vernacular has always been more prominent than the promotion of Vernacular after serious consideration.While reading current opinions and practice on Vernacular, the author can not avoid noticing the conflicts and differences existing amongst them. On one hand, this could prove its fundamental status as cluster concept. On the other hand, it leads us to think how to treat and distinguish these opinions and how to understand a more and more important issue, current status of Vernacular. Therefore, in this paper, the author focuses on grasping a realistic and complex picture of current Vernacular and seeking the direction of Vernacular future development. This means that this paper is a crosswise analysis and digging of the polysemousness of Vernacular. The main body of this paper consists of four parts, with the introduction and the epilogue. The first part introduces the birth and the evolution of Neo-Vernacular Architecture. The second part defines the concept of "Vernacular", and differentiates "Vernacular" from other concepts interrelated. The third parts analyses the principle and methods of Neo-Vernacular Architecture design. The last part describes the Neo-Vernacular architecture practice of the author.