Mud and soil

This chapter partly examines William Morris' ‘The Influence of Building Materials Upon Architecture’ which makes the case not only for vernacular architecture but also for localised ‘nature-based’ building materials that avoid industrialisation and globalisation. Despite this clear ethos, Arts and Crafts architects in the Cape lauded settler vernacular architecture and disparaged African vernacular architecture despite both being made of mud and soil. The denigrating of the circular and spatial ‘misuse’ of ‘native huts’ resolved the contradiction, especially when earth materials were considered for the housing crisis at the end of the First World War. Ironically, African vernacular architecture, and mud in particular, were given more laudatory acclaim after the Nationalist government implemented apartheid in 1948. The banning of mud as a building material in South African schools at the beginning of the 21st century and yet its use in philanthropic ‘design-build’ or ‘live’ projects demonstrates its conflicted nature, ambivalence and valency. The inherent volatile qualities of mud and its disturbing un-becoming potential as best signified through the Golem are pointed to as a possible explanation for its continued resistance as a building material.