At the end of the sixties, in the course of the so-called 'crisis of modern architecture' a movement of architectural theoreticians greatly stimulated by Amos Rapoport's 'Built Form and Culture' (1969) began to widen their horizon into the ethnology of architecture. This movement has produced very valuable studies, but now finds itself confronted with methodological problems due to the accumulation of uncoordinated knowledge from all parts of the world (Bourdier/Alsayyad 1989, Saile 19../MORE

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At the end of the sixties, in the course of the so-called 'crisis of modern architecture' a movement of architectural theoreticians greatly stimulated by Amos Rapoport's 'Built Form and Culture' (1969) began to widen their horizon into the ethnology of architecture. This movement has produced very valuable studies, but now finds itself confronted with methodological problems due to the accumulation of uncoordinated knowledge from all parts of the world (Bourdier/Alsayyad 1989, Saile 1986). The main problem lies in the fact that architectural research has not yet developed its own method (with the possible exception of Cataldi's worldwide typology (1986, 1988) which, however, limits itself to construction and form). Most of the studies borrow concepts and approaches from established disciplines like religion, psychology, social anthropology, structuralism, semiotics etc. and thus import not only the theoretical difficulties that arise within these mother-disciplines, but also create new problems by adapting approaches from one field to another. In this context another field of research is gaining weight which concentrates on architecture itself. It interprets the term architecture as a generic term in analogy to 'zoon' in zoology and defines the field anew in the widest sense of anthropology. In this way two essentially new types of architecture have been discovered, which may make architectural research a valuable member of the circle of anthropological disciplines. Together with the conventional these new types have been grouped into a scheme of four types: subhuman architecture (nestbuilding behaviour of the higher apes: chimpanzee, gorilla, orangutan) semantic architecture ('non-domestic buildings' or buildings not related to the human body with semantic, social and ideological functions) domestic architecture (buildings which offer internal space for protection of objects, animals and humans) settlement architecture (higher, horizontally structured unity assembling several elements of semantic and/or domestic architecture) Semantic architecture refers to a dia- and synchronically widespread type of building which has conventionally been classified and described differently. What is implied by semantic architecture was historically termed 'life tree' and is widespread in ancient cultures. Over the course of Christianisation history 'semantic architecture' was called by ethnologists 'fetish', 'idol' (idolatry!) etc. in a derogatory sense, because the veneration of material objects, and particularly cult signs made primitively with vegetable materials at hand could not be understood from the theological standpoint of 'higher' religion. Accordingly it was thought to be an expression of 'primitive creed' or 'superstition', but the objects were not researched, neither in regard to form, nor from the perspective of social relations or spatial conditions. Recent ethnographic studies (Egenter 1980, 1982, 1995) show a quite different situation. Semantic architecture of this type appears within a semantic system handed down locally in stereotype form since prehistoric times. With the formation of sedentary agrarian societies it must have become important for its territorial, social and ideological functions. It has been preserved in favourable circumstances (e.g. non-Christianised regions of Asia, such as Japan) from protohistoric times to the present as a script-less 'archive' of traditional settlement history and politics. The 4 types are not meant to represent successive development stages, they singly characterize relatively well defined, resourceful types of construction, although they obviously are related both structurally and diachronically. If architectural theory is thus restructured from its base, the individual types and their relations can be clarified by obvious characteristics and priorities, e.g. by assuming the hand as primary 't
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