Dos Aguas: A study in the social construction of housing form in the colonias of the Texas/Mexico borderland.

摘要

This thesis explores the processes of invention and reinterpretation of traditional forms that produce contemporary vernacular housing that appears in colonias along the border between Texas and Mexico. The house provides a basic container for culture and for meaning. Its form will not be altered casually, and when people do undertake to change their houses, those changes will undoubtedly signify other changes in their cultural and social world.; Just as in the historical development of formal architecture, the vernacular house undergoes a constant process of transformation and reinterpretation. The use of cultural precedent, its modification and its abandonment all provide important clues to the socially structured realities that guide the construction of these houses. Since individual desires often conflict with group demands, the formal configuration of the house includes elements that represent these conflicts in disguised form--the mythology of form if you will.; Housing as a social and architectural problem has long been a focus of concern for the architectural profession, although the results have often been undistinguished and, at times, disastrously inappropriate. This is due in part to a lack of understanding about how housing forms interact with cultural values--critical dimensions that are not well understood either in schools of architecture or the profession. This thesis argues specifically: (1) that the formal expression of the colonia houses reflects the basic Mexicanidad (Mexicanness) of the builders, embedded in or collaged with an expression of their new cultural aspirations as Americans; (2) that, contrary to other interpretations such as Oscar Lewis's culture of poverty, the colonias exemplify a situation that is exactly the opposite of this--a dynamic and fluid cultural milieu based on economic aspirations, a sense of cultural identity and a willingness to adapt as necessary to achieve their goals; (3) that a structuralist (post-structuralist) analysis of the colonia housing reveals the mechanisms for this collage of cultures--a process that has implications for the discipline of architecture as it attempts to find appropriate forms for a rapidly changing and pluralistic culture, not only in the United States, but around the world.