Tibet: A Provisional System of Function and Meaning in Vernacular Architecture.

1. Landscape

a) Mountains pushed up by continental plates. The entire Tibetan plateau has been pushed up by the drift of the indian sub-continent, making it the highest country in the world, with much of it above 4,000 metres. This location near the fault-line results in frequent tremors. The presence of the Himalayas to the south and west severely limits precipitation in the area. Tibetans consider the mountains holy, and the only structures to be found on them are religious in nature.

b) The flat parts of the plateau are the only arable areas, and even then, only barely. The altitude of the plateau means a thinner atmosphere, resulting in a strange climate where the nights frequently go well below freezing, while the intense sunlight during the day can bring temperatures up to 30 degrees Celsius, although it remains extremely cold in the shade.

c) Settlements are often located at the base of slopes, where the land is no longer particularly useful agriculturally, but is still flat enough to build on.

2. Buildings

Function:

a) Structures are canted inward to give added structural stability for earthquakes.

b) Emphasis is given to the corners by small pillars which reinforce the structure further.

c) Small blocks within the grouting between the large blocks in the outer course of stonework vary the resonant frequency of the structure, further protecting against earthquakes.

d) Fuel (timber, or in this case, dung) is left out to dry at the edges of the roof.

Meaning:

a) Prayer flags (along with the small pillars beneath them), typically located at the corners of buildings, ward off evil spirits.

b) White, because of its associations with snow and mountains, is considered a holy colour.

c) The trapezoidal form is believed to originate from the shape from the middle chest portion of a traditional buddhist stupa, or holy tomb, which is likened in the literature to the mountain ri, or tent gur. the shape is also symbolic of the descendency of the ancestral line, with generations opening out to generations. (http://www.transoxiana.org/Eran/Articles/heller.html#7sym)

3. Windows

Function:
a) Agar-infused mortar on slate tiles, supported on battens projecting from a timber lintel. This is necessary to keep rain and snow away from the opening, where frost action at night can cause serious damage. Like in Nepal, a timber lintel is necessary because the slate available has low tensile strength.
b) The white curtain partly modulates the intense sunlight entering the window during the day.

c) The black window surround performs two functions: by absorbing direct sunlight, it reduces glare inside, and the heat produced by this absorption helps maintain indoor temperature by forming a curtain of warm air at the window opening. The splay towards the bottom of the opening ensures there will be more hot air at the bottom where it is needed most.

Meaning:

a) The splay of the black surround is actually a representation of the buddhist deity 'Avalokiteshwara', meaning 'one who looks down on this world' in sanskrit. The trapezoidal shape is representative of his field of vision, looking down from above. He is also considered a protector deity, and the shape is like a protective charm for the building.

b) The white colour on the curtains is considered holy because of its associations with snow and mountains. Frequently, they will be topped with other colours such as red, yellow, green and blue, the colors said to have emanated from the Buddha once he attained enlightenment.

c) The black color painted around windows is used to ward off evil spirits. The protector god Gur-gyi Mgon Po (a manifestation of Avalokiteshwara) was said to have a black or dark-blue countenance.

As often occurs, these formal techniques become elaborated and exaggerated in important buildings such as temples, monasteries and palaces.

Tibetan architecture offers a particularly rich source of study, both because of its extreme environment (giving rise to unusual functional requirements not required elsewhere) and its isolation from other cultures (leading to a singular style relatively uninfluenced by other building traditions and religious beliefs).

Looking at these elements of construction technique with the detached eye of an external observer, a principle can be extracted which may apply equally to all vernacular details: that meaning exists to maintain a degree of uniformity so that functional requirements are satisfied. The coincidence of utility and cultural significance in specific building elements can be explained through its evolution - functional types are selected through a process of trial and error, where unsuccessful options (those that do not satisfy functional requirements) are weeded out. Simultaneous to this process is a second parallel operation where various cultural (religious) meaning is applied to building elements as they are developed.

Either function or meaning alone could explain something like the black border on Tibetan windows in a specific instance or building, but the pervasiveness of the element in all buildings, as a cultural element, is possible only because of the coincidence of meaning and function; meaning provides a vehicle for complex technical functions, not necessarily understood by designer, builder, or end user. (These mechanisms can be observed operating in tradition outside of architecture. For example, the tradition of a sabbath day in various religions can be construed as evolving in society to perform the important function of encouraging families to spend a regular day a week together, thereby strengthening the social bond of that basic societal unit; while the meaning attached to it differs from religion to religion, eg. the biblical day of rest on the seventh day after creating the world on the previous six).

A means of testing this theory can be observed in the contemporary collision of cultures occurring in Tibet (especially Lhasa). The People's Republic of China took over Tibet in 1950, and have been involved in a semi-organised erasure of Tibetan culture, from the destruction of 99% of the monasteries in the early years of the occupation, to the co-optation of the most important building to Tibetans (the Potala Palace in Lhasa) onto the fifty Yuan note.

An additional policy, contrary to the Geneva Conventions, is the swamping of the indigenous Tibetan population with Han chinese settlers from China proper, in an attempt to change the demographics of the country and ultimately wipe out the indigenous language and culture. A side-product of this policy has been the erasure of large tracts of Tibetan urban fabric, to be replaced with the typical 250m street block format of modern chinese cities, and large slab buildings set within them.

The collision between the two cultures is evident at all levels in the cities, from the modification of the urban grain right down to signage. However, for our purposes, an interesting condition occurs when vernacular phrases are used out of context, for example the widespread abuse of the black window surround mentioned earlier. The black surround is still used but is: a) is so thin it is useless b) made from a reflective surround which does not absorb heat, c) is painted a colour that is not black, and so does not absorb heat.

When complicated elements, whose function is not completely understood, are used without regard to their cultural meaning, the random mutations and morphologies which take place will vary so much from the archetype that it will cease to perform its original function. Tradition, when stripped of its meaning, ceases to perform its roles and duties in society. This performance is the inner subject of tradition, locked within an outer object of meaning.

Thanks to nevermore and sotthi at the archinect discussion forum for their insights on meaning in Tibetan architecture (http://www.archinect.com/forum/threads.php?id=47463_0_42_C).