The traditional architecture in Palestine has been developed as the fruit of interaction betweenthe general Middle Eastern concepts and the specific character of Palestine. This interaction hasproduced very strong expression on the vernacular level where people respond directly to theexisting environment (A'rraf, 1985). Land was the main source of livelihood and status, with verylimited transactions with the regional or world market. The Palestinian community retained asystem of agricultural subsistence, employing simple agricultural technology. The village as awhole and not the individual was considered the unit of taxation by the state, the communityhad patriarchal households, the extended family acting as the main unit of production andconsumption and labour was divided along clear gender lines (A'miry, 1986).By the turn of this century, the Palestinian built space experienced dramatic transformations inthe socio-economic conditions as well as the cultural values of the Palestinian society. Thesimplest form of the dwelling house -the shepherd's house has been transformed into newpatterns of housing dwellings: peasant's house, village house, isolated residences and therelatively luxurious dwellings of the upper classes. A chain of interdependent structuraltransformations involving privatization of the land tenure, changes in the organization of theagricultural labour process, marginalisation of agricultural activities, emigration of male familymembers and nucleisation of the extended land has brought about the critical changes in theexisting patterns of spatial relations.All these changes have proved that architectural systems, i.e., new methods of constructions,the use of new building materials and the adaptation of new building forms, would not beappreciated by the traditional Palestinian peasant society, unless this society was exposed toexternal forces that operated to undermine the conditions of its existence both at the socioculturaland material levels. These external forces are the Ottoman land reforms and the Britishcolonial policies.This study will aim to highlight the development of the Palestinian dwelling house during thenineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries. The reason for limiting the scope of thisstudy to this period is that few houses exist, which was built before nineteenth century andmore of them has been extensively restored that they can no more belong to any specificperiod
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