ABSTRACT
A score of years ago, there were very few schools of architecture in Europe or the United States where it was possible to study the buildings of tribal, folk or peasant cultures. Today a number of colleges include studies in vernacular architecture in the curriculum, and some schools in Africa, Latin America and the East are encouraging serious investigation into the built forms of the indigenous peoples of their countries. If the colleges and the architects who staff them, have introduced the subject into the spectrum of studies considered appropriate to the education of intending architects, we can be justified in assuming that they have firm grounds for doing so. Yet, as I visit different colleges in various parts of the world I am by no means certain that they have good reason for including this work; nor do I see much agreement in the way in which it should be approached.
