Inspired by the Historical Vernacular: Architect-designed Houses across three Eras in Ireland

Barry O’Reilly

Abstract

Housing has almost always been inspired by the historical traditions and vernacular until recently, when architects have begun to imagine entirely different concepts and models. Indeed, this has also been the case in Ireland. There, the 1880s-1940s is noted for the widespread construction of labourers’ cottages; the 1960s-1990s saw the appearance of the pattern-book Irish ‘bungalow’; and, since about 2010, the building of houses appears to bridge the conceptual gap between the two. Undeniably, there are lessons to be learnt from these evolutions. In this context, this paper examines the design of Irish rural houses in three eras of the past. The research explores the ideas behind these waves of housing and how the vernacular has or has not informed them. The research examines secondary sources relating to the labourer’s cottage and the bungalows: in particular, the pattern books and other published models, and commentaries on both these forms. For contemporary housing, the research involves field observations, a web search for houses purportedly modelled on the vernacular, and a study of some local authority development plans and policies. It reveals that the cottages of labourers were heralded as a housing upgrade, although, usually at the expense of the vernacular house. However, they generally reflect the scale, form, and often, the plans of the vernacular houses. Notably, there has been a recent tendency to alter and extend them, often unsympathetically. The research thus concludes that the ‘bungalow’ stands between the formal and the vernacular, with the simpler bungalows being at least superficially not unlike the latter, albeit with larger window openings. Architects and architectural historians tend to dismiss them, due to their pattern-book origins or, perhaps, professional snobbery. If one considers the bungalow as simply the typical rural house of the modern era, a more rounded view is attained. The housing of recent years is more heterogeneous, but with more consideration of setting and the local vernacular, and some projects break up the massing of large houses into ‘vernacular-sized’ units.

Keywords:

Social Housing, Bungalow, Pattern Books, Vernacular, Ideology, Contemporary Housing, Ireland

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