Contextual Architecture Essay

What is Contextualism or context architecture?

In this modern days, contextual architecture is widely practiced in the urban city areas. “Context” is an English word borrowed from the Latin word “contexere” which means to merge together (El-Shorbagy, 2013). Contextualism also defined as the aesthetic position that a building or the like should be designed for harmony or a meaningful relationship with other such elements already existing in its vicinity (“Contextualism”, 2014). According to Curl (2000), it is also a term that suggests an architecture that responds to its surrounding by respecting what is already there, unlike Constructivism or Decontructivism which deliberately work against established geometries and fabric.

According to the etymological manner statement made by Johnson (as cited in Cizgen, 2012) about Contextualism that expresses the relationship and the architecture context, he said that:

“Derived from the Latin word “contexere”, which means weaving together, the word “context” can be described as “the setting of an event, composition, or text, in the sense of describing the spatio-temporal parts immediately preceding or following that determine its meaning." The word “contexture” which is no longer in use, can be considered to be more specific for the field of architecture as it has the following meaning: "the

Vernacular architecture, Vernacularism. It is an English word borrowed from the Latin word “vernaculus” which means domestic, native and indigenous. Besides, the word “verna” also defined as native slave or home-born slave. The building materials source used to build the architecture or the buildings in the village by the villagers (local inhabitants) can be found from the site itself. Even the building construction styles also can be found from the local area. The shapes and forms of the architecture will be affected by the surroundings climate, culture of the local people and the restriction of building materials from the