Vlach an architectural historiographer is doing it his mission to rectify his equals understanding and clear up that the beginning of the scattergun house lies in African civilization. He wants to turn out that the scattergun house does non arise from New Orleans. but traces back farther. dating back to the 16th century. By utilizing the grounds of in-migration forms into the United States. rise of free black communities in New Orleans. apprehension of the Atlantic Slave Trade path. development of Architectural traditions. and acceptance of common architecture. Vlach will turn out his aim.
Vlach proposes that his counter parts in his profession have got it all incorrect. He uses Kniffen as an illustration. While Kniffen’s definition of the shooting gun house a. “ the one room breadth to three or more suites deep. with a forward confronting gable” . is right. he believes that the building concludes that scattergun was developed for the New Orleans water’s border is wrongly concluded. There have ever been similar building methods throughout the universe. foremost in the western part of Africa. One of the first hints that the scattergun house did non arise in New Orleans are the dashing statistical figures of more than 1. 000 Haitians migrating into the part of New Orleans in the early 1800’s.
This counters Kniffen’s claims that the encouragement in timber as a stuffs sparked a larger end product of shotgun house building in the 1880’s in the New Orleans country. In 1809. Haitian migration fluxed the figure of free inkinesss in New Orleans country to one ninth of the population. Free Blacks in the New Orleans country began to construct their ain communities based on traditions. The Shotgun house being one of traditional architecture to Haitians. became a symbol of the free adult male in the part. Vlach uses the illustration of many black designers. By Name Jolles. who constructed a house “fifteen pess in breadth and 40 five in length” in 1835. was a free black before the 1880’s timber roar edifice scattergun place.
Similar dimensions. stuff usage. and building methods were used continually along the Atlantic Slave Trade path by free inkinesss and slaves. The traditional dimension. 10’ ten 20’ in breadth and length. and a six to eight pess height. is found in West African Yoruba house is and continually repeated in Haiti and New Oreann. A building method known as briquette entre poteux. where a mortise tenon system is supported with diagonal timbers in the interior corners and filled with brick and howitzer. was introduced by Europeans to Haiti and Louisiana used the same stuffs of most African civilizations.
Vlach analyzes the acceptance of howitzer and edifice dimensions in the building of luxuriant plantation houses. urban lodging in free black communities and slave cabins as cogent evidence that there was a development of architectural manner over clip from rural to urban lodging. proposing that the scattergun was nil new. So why is this of import? It is of import as a historian to right bind the individuality of common architecture to its beginning.
