Fifteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

Architecture is one of the ultimate cultural containers; it both represents and binds together a society. It is an absolute expression of who they are, demonstrating value system, ideals, and aspirations through built form. Architecture straddles the line between the practical necessities of life and the ornament of existence. It embodies the practical knowledge necessary to create buildings, but it also contains the beauty that pure engineering lacks. In short, it is possible look at architecture and determine a large amount of information about the culture that built it. This paper examines how culture becomes embedded and represented in architectural narrative through an analysis of domestic architecture since 1900. It charts how shifting cultural values and patterns of behaviour have changed the design of the home, by layering both longstanding beliefs and emerging social trends onto the form of the house and demonstrating how built form contains lager belief systems.