The palestinian Arab house and the islamic "primitive hut"

Muqarnas

Volumn 15, Issue , 1998, Pages

  Fuchs, Ron ^a  

^a TECHNION ISRAEL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY   (Israel)

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EID: 65849404055     PISSN: 07322992     EISSN: 09210326     Source Type: Book Series    
DOI: 10.2307/1523281     Document Type: Article

References (135)

1. Karl Jäger, Das Bauernhaus in Palästina, mil Rücksicht auf das biblische Wohnhaus untersucht und dargeslelll (Göttingen, 1912)
2. T. Canaan, "The Palestinian Arab House," Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society 12-13 (1932-33): 233-47, 1-83
3. Gustaf Dalman, Arbeit und Sitte, vol. 7, Das Haus (Gütersloh, 1939; rpt., 1964)
4. See references in n. 10, below
5. Suad Amiry and Vera Tamari, The Palestinian Village Home (London, 1989)
6. Canaan, "Palestinian Arab House," p. 231
7. Joseph Meyuchas, The Fellaheen - The Life of the Fellah in Comparison to Jewish Life in Biblical and Talmudic Times (Jerusalem, 1936)
8. Dalman, Das Haus, p. 1: "Da das palāstinische Haus unter archāologischen Gesichtpunkt betrachtet werden soll, bleibt das stādtsche Haus... im Hintergrund, weil der europāische Einfluss hier jetzt mancherlei Wandlungen veranlasste, die fur unseren Zweck ohne Bedeutung sind."
9. Oliver Aurenche, La maison orientale: l'architecture du Proche Orient ancien des origines au milieu du quatrième millenaire, 3 vols. (Paris, 1981)
10. Yizhar Hirschfeld, The Palestinian Dwelling in the Roman Byzantine Period (Jerusalem, 1995)
11. Friedrich Ragette, Architecture in Lebanon: The Lebanese House duringthe 18th and 19th Centuries (Beirut, 1974), pp. 33-35
12. Alex Carmel, Geschichte Haifas in der türkischen Zeit, 1516-1918 (Wiesbaden, 1975)
13. Yehoshua Ben-Arieh, "The Development of the Twelve Major Settlements in Nineteenth- Century Palestine," Cathedra [in Hebrew] 19 (April 1981): 83-143
14. idem, Jerusalem in the 19th Century: The Old City (New- York, 1984)
15. idem, Jerusalem in the 19th Century: Emergence of the New City (New York, 1986)
16. Ruth Kark and Shimon Landman, "The Establishment of Muslim Neighbourhoods in Jerusalem Outside the Old City during the Late Ottoman Period," Palestine Exploration Quarterly 112-13 (1980-81): 113-35
17. Ruth Kark, Jaffa - A City in Evolution, 1799-1917 (New- York, 1990)
18. Ruth Kark and Michal Oren-Nordhein, Jerusalem and Its Environs, 1800-1948 [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1995)
19. David Grossman, Expansion and Desertion: The Arab Village and Its Offshoots in Ottoman Palestine [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1994)
20. See, e.g., Henry Maundrell, A Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, Easter A.D. 1697 (Oxford, 1703), entry of 3 March, the village of "Sholfatia"
21. James Silk Buckingham, Travels among the Arab Tribes Inhabiting the Countries East of Syria and Palestine (London, 1825), pp. 33-34
22. Mary E. Rogers, Domestic Life in Palestine (London, 1862; rpt., 1989)
23. "Shefa 'Omer," pp. 136-37; "Kefr Kara," pp. 203-4; Henry Baker Tristram, The Land of Israel: A Journal of Travels in Palestine (London, 1865), pp. 72-114
24. George Robinson Lees, Village Life in Palestine (London, 1905), pp. 82-83
25. Elihu Grant, The People of Palestine (Philadelphia-London, 1921), pp. 75-76
26. For an extensive, updated bibliography, see Hirschfeld, Palestinian Dzvelling
27. For measured drawings of village houses in Palestine, see Dalman, Das Haus, some 45 plans, although somewhat schematic; Yoram Segal, Building in the Arab Villages of the Galilee and Its Evolution [in Hebrew] (Haifa, 1967), two houses in the Galilee; Hirschfeld, Palestinian Dwelling, some 15 Judaean houses; Suad Al-Aamiry and Jan Cejka, "Das palāstinische Haus," in Pracht und Geheimnis - Kleidung und Schmuck aus Palāstina und Jordanien, ed. G. Volger, K.V. Welck, and K. Hackstein (Cologne, 1987), pp. 92-98, four Judaean houses; Amiry and Tamari, Palestinian Village Home, p. 22, one house near Ramallah
28. Constantin-François de Volney, Travels through Syria and Egypt in the Years 1783, 1784, and 1785, 2 vols., trans. From the French (London, 1787; rpt. 1972), 2:335, village houses "between Ramla and Ghaza."
29. Rogers, Domestic Life, pp. 136-37
30. Hirschfeld, Palestinian Dwelling, pp. 206-11
31. Cf. The plan of the madaf in Ghada Azar et al., "Busra: Housing in Transition," Berytus 33 (1985): 103-42, fig. 9b
32. See examples in Dalman, Das Haus, figs. 19-21, 46; Hirschfeld, Palestinian Dwelling, chap. 2, passim; note the unique round mastaba in figs. 101, 106
33. Hirschfeld, Palestinian Dwelling, figs. 98, 117, 159. See Fouad El-Khouri, Domestic Architecture in the Lebanon (London, 1975), p. 6: "The water jug, a porous brown earthenware jar which every single house in Lebanon possesses, is always situated in a small, open, built-in cupboard by the entrance."
34. Photographs in Segal, Building in the Arab Villages. Elaborate designs were recorded in Lebanon and Syria: Richard Thoumin, La maison syrienne dans la plain hauranaise, le bassin du Barada el sur les plateaux du Qalamun (Paris, 1932), plates
35. Haroutune Kalayan, "L'Habitation au Liban," pt. 1 (Beirut, 1966)
36. Ragette, Architecture in Lebanon, figs. 7, 60-70
37. "The Palestinian Courtyard House," in Paul Oliver, ed., Encyclopedia of the Vernacular Architecture of the World, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1997), entry 2 IV. 4.n. On the formation of village clusters in Palestine
38. see Michael Meyer-Brodnitz, "Physical Change and Self-Help Housing in Arab Settlements in Israel," Habitat International 9, no. 2 (1985): 141-75. Forplans, see Al-Aamiry and Cejka, Das palāstinische Haus. Village clusters received more attention in studies on the neighboring regions. See Albert de Boucheman, Une petite cité caravanière: Suhne (Damascus, n.d. [1937?]), chap. 2; Oliver Aurenche and Patrick Desfarges, "Utilisation et transformation de l'espace architectural à El Kowm (Palmyre, Syrie)," Cahiers de l'Euphrate 3 (Paris: CNRS, 1982), pp. 99-113
39. idem, "Travaux d'ethnoarcheologie en Syrie et en Jordanie, Rapports preliminaires," Syria 60 (1983): 147-85
40. Ronald Jarno, "Tente et maison: le jeu annuel de la sédentarition à Qdeir (Syrie)," in Olivier Aurenche, ed., Nomades et sedentaires: perspectives ethnoarchéologiques (Paris, 1984), pp. 191-201
41. N. Daker "Contribution à l'étude de l'évolution de l'habitat bedouin en Syrie," ibid., pp. 51-79
42. Azar, "Busra"; Seteny Shami, "Settlement and Resettlement in Umm-Qeis: Spatial Organization of a Jordanian Village," in Dwellings, Settlements, and Tradition: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, ed. Jean-Paul Bourdier and Nezar AlSayyad (Lanham, Md., 1989), pp. 451-76
43. Helga Seeden and Jim Wilson, "The AUB-IFEAD Habur Village Project Preliminary Report" in Damaszener Mitteilungen 4 (1989): 1-18
44. Ruba Kana'an and Alison McQuity, "The Architecture of al-Qasr on the Kerak Plateau," Palestine Exploration Quarterly 126 (July-Dec. 1994): 127-51
45. Grant, People of Palestine, pp. 75-76
46. See, e.g., Aurenche and Desfarges, "El Kowm," fig. 3; Azar et al., "Busra," figs. 9a, 14. Note the persistence of differentiation in floor level
47. See the single-space houses in the collection of village house plans from various Middle Eastern countries in Aurenche, La maison orientale, 2, pls. 234-82. For Jordan, see Dalman, Das Haus, figs. 48, 50, 51, 52, 66, 80
48. Abderrahman Ayoub, "Habitation en milieu rural au nord-ouest de lajordanie," Bulletin d'Etudes Orientates 32-33 (1980-81): 7-19, pl. V
49. Ammar Khammash, Notes on Village Architecture in Jordan (Lafayette, La., 1986), house at Hmud
50. Architectural Heritage of the Hashemite Kingdom - As-Salt [in Arabic] (n.p., n.d. [1995?]), pp. 91-94
51. Kalayan, L'Habitation au Liban, p. 20
52. el-Khouri, Domestic Architecture in the Lebanon, pp. 4-6, 10
53. Ragette, Architecture in Lebanon, chap. 1; "The Closed Rectangular House," pp. 16-35
54. Thoumin, La maison syrienne, pls. XVIII, XIX; Boucheman, Suhne, pp. 28-30, figs. 3-5; Jacques Weulersse, Le pays des Alauites (Tours, 1940), pp. 240-46; Dalman, Das Haus, figs. 67, 43; Kogi Yagi, "Traditional Houses and Living Patterns in Syria," in Islamic Architecture and Urbanism, selected papers from a symposium held at King Faisal University, ed. A. Germen (Damman, 1983), pp. 343-62, figs. 5, 13
55. Godfrey Goodwin, A History of Ottoman Architecture (London, 1971), pp. 430-31, describes single-space houses but does not mention elevated platforms explicitly. A direct reference is offered in Isabella
56. L.B. Bishop, Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, 2 vols. (London, 1891), 2:344-45, describing the odah or village guesthouse in the region between "Undzag and Erzerum": "the odah is a large rambling room.... In the centre, or some other convenient place, [is] a mud platform slightly raised.... The platform is for human beings, with the rest of the building for horses, mules, oxen, asses, and buffaloes, with a few sheep and goats probably in addition."
57. Dimitri Philippides, ed., Greek Traditional Architecture-Eastern Aegean, Sporades-Ionian Islands (Athens, 1983), pp. 43, 75, 110-13, 128, 200, 207, 208; for lavish photographs
58. see also Suzanne Slesin et al., Greek Style (London, 1990)
59. Dimitri Philippides, "Greek Vernacular: The Interior Woodwork Decoration of the Elymbos House," AARP/Art and Architecture Research Papers 12 (December 1977): 1-9
60. On balustrades and storage, see below, nn. 78-80; on the water jug, see above, n. 19
61. The importance of the platform in Islamic vernacular architecture is pointed out in Guy T. Petherbridge, "Vernacular Architecture: The House and Society," in Architecture of the Islamic World, ed. George Michell (London, 1978), pp. 176-208, esp. p. 199
62. Small squares of this sort in Lebanese houses are explained as follows: "Les entrées de maisons ont un carré surbaissé de la langeur de la porte, où l'on secoue ses chaussures ou ses bottes afin que la neige ou l'eau ne soient pas transportée sur tapis du séjour ou de la chambre" (Aboussouan, L'architecture libanaise, p. 88, and illustration)
63. Jarno, "Tente et maison," figs. 17(2), 21(5), 23(2, 5)
64. Daker, "L'evolution de l'habitat bédouin," fig. 20
65. Some evidence for outdoor and interior platforms in Palestinian houses of the Byzantine period is cited by Hirschfeld; then he concludes: "A characteristic feature of the traditional Palestinian house is a division of the inner space into horizontal levels. There are few archaeological indications, however, that the dwellings of Roman-Byzantine Palestine were similarly divided into vertical [should be horizontal] levels" (Palestinian Dwelling, pp. 268-69)
66. For a description of tents in the Middle East as well as in Central Asia, see Torvald Faegre, Tents: Architecture of the Nomads (London, 1979)
67. Ancient as well as modern nomads in southern Asia Minor are known to have built rubble platforms in tents, but these were to protect luggage and not for sitting; Roger Cribb, Nomads in Archaeology (Cambridge, 1991)
68. Robert William Hamilton and Oleg Grabar, Khirbat al-Mafjar (Oxford, 1959)
69. Aly Bahgat and Albert Gabriel, Fouilles d'Al Foustat (Paris, 1921), house no. 5
70. Nassib Saliby, "Une maison arabe à Resafa," in Resurrecting the Past. A Joint Tribute to Adnan Bounni, ed. Paolo Matthiae et al., Nederlands historisch-archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul (Leiden, 1990), pp. 277-96, pl. 86
71. Jacques Revault and Bernard Maury, Palais et maisons du Caire du XIVe au XVIIIe siècles, 4 vols. (Cairo, 1975-83), 1:5
72. E.g., platforms were constructed in the qa'a-like apartment on the upper floor of the maristan at Divrigi
73. Lees, Village Life, pp. 82-83
74. Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, Arabic Proverbs or the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, 2nd ed. (London, 1875), pp. 276-77
75. Cf. a similar description in Edward William Lane, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians Written in Egypt during the Years 1833-1835 (London, 1841)
76. For further references in travel literature on living space in Egyptian and Syrian houses, see Jean-Charles Depaule, "Deux regards, deux traditions: l'espace domestique perçue par les auteurs anglais et français au Levant," in Les villes dans l'Empire ottoman: activités et sociétés, ed. Daniel Panac (Paris: CNRS, 1994), pp. 189-228
77. Note comparison between the qa' albayt and the Cairene qa'a in al-Aamiry and Cejka, "Das palāstinische Haus," p. 93. For a typological study of the townhouse apartments in Cairo and Syria, see the excellent Jean-Charles Depaule et al., L'Habitation urbain dans l'Orient arabe- elements d'architecture (Versailles, 1984)
78. On the Cairene house, see also Revault and Maury, Palais et maisons du Caire; Jean-Claude Garcin et al., Palais et maisons du Caire, 1: Epoque mamelouke (XIII-XMe siècles) (Paris, 1982)
79. Bernard Maury et al., Palais et maisons du Caire, II: Epoque ottomane (XVIe-XVIIIe siècles) (Paris, 1983)
80. For recent publications on the Syrian house, see Depaule et al., L'habitation urbain, pp. 89-123; Dorothee Sack, "Zur GrundriB typologie des Damaszener Wohnhaus (Zusammenfassung)," Diskussion zur archāologischen Bauforschung 3 (1978): 244-48; idem, "Damaskus, die Stadt intra muros. Ein Beitrag zu dem Arbeiten der 'internationalen Kommission zum Schutz der Altstadt von Damaskus,"' Damaszener Mitteilungen 2 (1985): 207-90; idem, Damaskus (Mainz, 1989)
81. Bernard Maury, "La maison Damascene au XVIIIe et au debut XIXe siècle," in L'habitat traditionnel dans les pays musulman autour de la Méditerranée 1: L'héritage architectural: formes et fonctions (Aix-en-Provence, 1988), pp. 1-42
82. Annette Gangler, "Urban Life: Building and Dwelling, the Example of Aleppo," in Arts and Crafts of Syria, ed. J. Kalter et al. (London, 1992), pp. 52-58; idem, Ein traditionelles Wohnviertel im nordosten der Altstadt von Aleppo in Nordsyrien (Tubingen and Berlin, 1993)
83. Alexander Russell, The Natural History of Aleppo, 2 vols. (London, 1794; rpt. 1969), 1:27-28
84. Description of the pasha's house, Tripoli, Maundrell, Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, entry 13 March
85. For standard sources on the Turkish Ottoman house, see Sedad Hakki Eldem, Tūrk evi plan tipleri (Istanbul, 1955)
86. idem, Turk evi, Osmanli dōnemi = Turkish Houses, Ottoman Period, 3 vols. (Istanbul, 1984-87)
87. Goodwin, History of Ottoman Architecture, pp. 429-50
88. Doǧan Kuban, The Turkish Hayat House (Istanbul, 1995)
89. S.v. "Iwan," Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed
90. Jean-Claude David and Jean-Pierre Said, "L'iwan Tsaleq à Alep, un pavilion d'habitation dans les jardins suburbain d'Alep (XVe-XVIe siècles)," Bulletin d'Etudes Orientates 34 (1982): 33-58
91. Jean-Claude David, "Syne: systèmes de distribution des espaces dans la maison traditionnelle d'Alep," Les Cahiers de la recherche architecturale 20-21 (1987): 38-47; 40-41, 47
92. As suggested in Oscar Reuther, "Die Qa'a," Jahrbuch der asiatische Kunst 2 (1925): 205-16, 213
93. Russell, Aleppo, 1:29
94. On the direklik, see Kuban, Turkish Hayat House, pp. 130-31
95. On the new house types of the nineteenth century, see Aharon R. Fuchs and Michael Meyer-Brodnitz, "The Emergence of the Central Hall House Type in the Context of 19thcentury Palestine," in Dwellings, Settlements and Tradition, ed. Bourdier and AlSayyad, pp. 403-24
96. Ron Fuchs, "The Palestinian Arab House: The Ottoman Connection," in Stanley Ireland and William Bechhoefer, eds., The Ottoman House (London and Coventry: British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara and the University of Warwick, 1998), pp. 57-73
97. Among the best descriptions are Stephen Olin, Travels in Egypt, Arabia, Petraea and the Holy Land, 2 vols. (New York, 1843), 2;133-36
98. Titus Tobler, Denkblātter aus Jerusalem (St. Gallen and Koblentz, 1853), pp. 153-78
99. Bernhardt Neumann, Die Heilige Stadt und deren Bewohner (Hamburg, 1877), pp. 126-323. Studies in the geographical history of Palestinian towns have extensively surveyed 19th-century references to house form
100. Ben-Arieh, "Twelve Major Settlements," idem, Jerusalem: The Old City, pp. 25-30; Kark, Jaffa, pp. 53-70
101. Illustrations of interiors in Jerusalem: by Dauzats (1830) and L.M. Cubley (1860) in Ely Schiller, ed., Jerusalem in Rare Lithographs and Engravings (Jerusalem, 1981), pp. 54, 6; by
102. William Henry Bartlett in Henry Stebbing, The Christian in Palestine (London, 1847), p. 24
103. and William Henry Bartlett, Walks about the City and Environs of Jerusalem, Summer 1842 (London, 1848), frontispiece
104. William Harvey, "A Native House, Jerusalem," The Builder 99 (July 16, 1910): 74-75
105. H. Waddington, "A Note on Four Turkish Renaissance Buildings in Ramleh," Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society 15 (1935): 1-6 and plates
106. Plan and description of a house in Hebron: Hirschfeld, Palestinian Dwelling, pp. 193-206; a number of relevant plans are included in Michael Hamilton Burgoyne, with D.S. Richards, Mamluk Jerusalem: An Architectural Study (London, 1987)
107. see also Andrew D. Petersen, "Preliminary Report on an Architectural Survey of Historic Buildings in Ramla," Levant 27 (1995): 75-101, esp. 95-96
108. Waddington, "Four Turkish Renaissance Buildings," figs. 1, 5 and text; Dalman, Das Haus, fig. 39a; Hirschfeld, Palestinian Dwelling, figs. 146, 149; Al-Aamiry and Cejka, "Das Palāstinische Haus," fig. 3. These spaces differed from the iwans of the Syrian house, as they were not connected to the adjacent rooms. Waddington uses the term riwaq for this element, and plausibly compares it to the Cairene tahtabosh. Cf. Canaan's use of the term ruaq (i.e., riwaq), "Palestinian Arab House," p. 44
109. The old (18th century) town houses in such towns as Acre and the towns of the Lebanese coastal zone may have followed the same architectural principles, but as wood was available and flat roofs feasible, the architectural effect was different
110. The most detailed and technically accurate description of Palestinian vault construction is the hitherto overlooked William Harvey, "Building Construction at Bethlehem," The Builder 96(June 19, 1909): 719-22
111. see also Tobler, Denkbldtter, p. 161; Harvey, "Native House," p. 75; Canaan, "Palestinian Arab House," pp. 39-40
112. On the various uses of these tubes, see James Silk Buckingham, Travels in Palestine through the Countries of the Bashan and the Gilead, 2 vols. (London, 1821; 2nd ed., 1822), 1: 262
113. Tobler, Denkblātter, p. 163
114. Elisabeth E. Finn, Home in the Holy Land (London, 1866), pp. 97-98
115. Neumann, Die Heilige Stadt, p. 127
116. G. Gatt, "Industrielles aus Gaza," Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palāstina-Vereins 13 (1885): 69, 71-72
117. Harvey, "Building Construction," p. 721 and illustration; Canaan, "Palestinian Arab House," p. 20; Peterson, "Historic Buildings in Ramla," p. 95. Gatt gives ledscham as the Arabic for building tubes, while Canaan uses qawadis (sg. qadus, i.e., trough). Apparently kizan (sg. kuz, drinking jug) was also used
118. Drawings of such tubes from Iraq, see Felix Langenegger, Die Baukunst des Irāq (Dresden, 1911), pp. 17-19
119. Gatt, "Industrielles aus Gaza," p. 72
120. Conrad Schick, a German architect residing in Jerusalem, used earthenware tubes for the vaults of his Talitha Kumi orphanage, dedicated in 1868: David Kroyanker, Jerusalem Architecture - Periods and Styles, European-Christian Buildings outside the Old City Walls [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1987), p. 152, illustration p. 168
121. As suggested by William Harvey, "Saracenic Vaulting," Architectural Review 30 (November 1911): 241-45, esp. 245. On the Mamluk folded vault, see Burgoyne, Mamluk ferusalem, pp. 90-91
122. Such decoration was observed by Waddington, "Four Turkish Renaissance Buildings"; Hirschfeld, Palestinian Dwelling, fig. 151; Burgoyne, Mamluk Jerusalem, pls. 32.15, 36.18
123. Canaan, "Palestinian Arab House," p. 21. Other descriptions are given in Conrad Schick, "Arabic Building Terms," Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement 25 (1893): 194-98; Harvey, Building Construction, p. 720
124. see also Burgoyne, Mamluk Jerusalem, section in fig. 35.9; elevation, fig. 29.6
125. In Aleppo, the cloister vault "became widespread in the Ottoman period," according to Jihane Tate, Une waqfiyya du XVIIIe siècle à Alep: La waqfiyya d'al-Hagg Musa al-Amiri (Damascus, 1990), pp. 66, 105, pl. VII
126. Hirschfeld, The Palestinian Dwelling, fig. 146; Burgoyne, Mamluk Jerusalem, fig. 45.5
127. Hirschfeld, The Palestinian Dwelling, pp. 195, 197-98. Cf. Tobler, Denkblātter, p. 169, on houses in Jerusalem: "The floor is not even throughout, but the part away from the door, as elsewhere in the Orient, is 1 ft. higher..."(my translation); Henry Baker Tristram, Land of Moab: Travels and Discoveries on the East Side of the Dead Sea and the Jordan (London, 1873), pp. 13-14, on a simple home in Hebron: "The upper part of the large room, which formed the dwelling, was raised five steps above the rest, and here we were entertained."
128. Jean-Pierre Greenlaw, The Coral Buildings of Suakin: Islamic Architecture, Planning, Design, and Domestic Arrangements in a Red Sea Port (London and New York, 1995), pp. 75, 121
129. The plans in Burgoyne, Mamluk Jerusalem, show a number of apartments with this qa'a-like bay system. In the example depicted in Canaan, "Palestinian Arab House," p. 22, fig. 5, the lower zones are not placed in the central bay as they should be in a proper qa'a
130. Burgoyne, Mamluk Jerusalem, entry 48
131. Dar Khalil al-Mulla in Waddington, "Four Turkish Renaissance Houses," p. 5: "the two bays are divided from each other by a carved wooden screen, and there is a step up into the main bay." A balustrade and gate appear in the two domed upper apartments recorded in Hirschfeld, Palestinian Dwelling, figs. 150, 156
132. See also Waddington, "Four Turkish Renaissance Houses," fig. 4
133. Eldem, Turkish Houses, 2:234-59
134. As pointed out by Petersen, "Historic Buildings in Ramla," p. 95
135. This observation does not necessarily mean that high traditions actually originated in a single-space village house. The elevated platform may well have been adopted from urban architecture and in rural dwellings