ABSTRACT
In the last 20 or 30 years anthropologists have contributed a great deal to improving our understanding of the role played by the house among the ethnic groups of Southeast Asia. Notably the dwelling house has become the subject of numerous studies dealing with spatial order, orientation, symbolism, and the importance of the origin house in kinship systems. What has as yet received comparatively little attention, are carpentry techniques and the material structure of the house as a built form, and generally as a work of architecture. Moreover, there is rather little in the way of studies that would treat the dwelling house also in its synchronic and diachronic relations to other types of buildings, such as meeting houses, temples, shrines and granaries. 1
