New Vernacular Architecture 

Creating Identity of Place - Research and Practice - by Jonathan Weatherill

Vernacular architecture and urban design can be used as a tool to help heal damage done to urban, suburban and rural space in the past 100 years. In badly planned places with little or no clear past identity, New Vernacular architecture can be created to become intrinsically representative of the identity of that place. The case in point is Rozzano, a suburban dormitory town built in Milan’s green belt in the ‘60s and ’70s, to house immigrant workers from Southern Italy. The basic principles behind the creation of Vernacular architecture are illustrated in a previous study that is the seed of ongoing research. These principles are then applied to the case of Rozzano. The results of this research and the resulting project could represent a new direction for architecture and urban design; a small step to resist the proliferation of anonymous and uniform building that continues to erase the identities of places worldwide

Jonathan Weatherill is an Associate professor of the Rome Program of the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture. He is a practising architect who has lived in Italy since graduating from the Architectural Association in London over 25 years ago. He runs his own practice and has also collaborated with 2014 Driehaus laureate Pier Carlo Bontempi since they met in Milan thirty years ago. His professional experience has spanned the genres of Modernism and Classicism, in a wide range of fields from industrial design to restoration and urban planning.

He is inspired by the timelessness of the rural vernacular and the elegant equilibrium of architectural language of the past. His work is the result of an eclectic education informed by his varied experience and the comprehension of local reality through investigation and on-site and archival documentation.

A recording of this talk can be found here.