Rural Architectural Traditions in Central Asia - Thomas Barfield

[@rayman1611]

Very interesting. I was deployed to Afghanistan in early 2002 with a Forward Surgical Team. We converted a small mud brick building into our operating room. We were there from March to late November. That little hut stayed warm in the spring and fall, and cool in the summer. That hut was very old according to the locals. I certainly learned to respect the cleverness of these people.

[@coreycox2345]

I have a friend with an adobe house in Phoenix, Ray Man. It is both a lovely, comfortable environment and healthier than air conditioning. Similarly, the social geography of old cities that grew in a more organic form is a more human one.

[@vc68675]

This architecture evolved maybe over hundreds of years and has stayed like that (rightfully so) for thousands of years. It's less ingenuity than tradition and guarding the tradition because of how old it is. The older, the more it should be attributed to tradition. The people today didn't invent anything there.

[@ziakhalid6657]

I really respect your views Professor and I agree with them.

[@miklosgergely2356]

I am truly happy to have found your channel, also including the presentations of Prof. Bardfield. Bravo!!

[@shoppingamericanarecording5808]

I find professor Barfield's presentations very informative. Thank you for posting. I wanted to find out more about Afghanistan and this expert anthropologist's thoughts are a perfect introduction to this complicated and fascinating country. I work on some very old walls in the south of England in a region that has many cob built structures. I definitely agree with many of his observations regarding the amount of time required to assess construction materials and techniques, the suitability of the structure to resist prevailing weather conditions and provide comfort for the inhabitants, the use of local materials and the inherited knowledge that is very often dismissed.

[@njb1126]

Simple need not mean foolish. It’s fascinating how we have heating elements in our large buildings in the west and the complicated but overall simpler design fulfilled those needs centuries ago.

[@johannesandersson9477]

“Let’s talk about mud” I like this guy

[@tbayley6]

Very interesting and very well presented. Thank you.

[@lindaliuq]

So interesting and educational! Perfect example to show one doesn’t fit all. Thank you!

[@joaocoelho1029]

I live in Brazil and most houses here are made of mud bricks. Industrialized mud bricks, but mud bricks nonetheless.

[@willsbrooks6352]

i live in an adobe house in the southeastern us. You can use mudbrick as long as you have a good roof like a metal one. The outside can be protected with a lime plaster which looks nicer than mudbrick

[@gauravtejpal8901]

Modern humans would do well to acknowledge the genius of our ancestors. Learn with humility

[@ziakhalid6657]

We the people of the region need to relearn a lot of things.I wish our architecture people learn from you.

[@markletts8802]

Rory Stewart...Afghanistan the great game..I would highly recommend to anyone..it's one of those programmes that leave you a little wiser.😊🇬🇧

[@jaclynoddi4992]

I'm watching that, too. And reading The Places In Between

[@andyharpist2938]

Dubai demolished all of its old wind towers and built concrete high rise with imported cement and sand. In an endless desert they went upwards ignoring coral and lime.

[@ReeceDee]

Stumbled upon this channel. Wow. So interesting. 👍🏽

[@aliakbar-qz8tx]

I do admire your studies thanks

[@violahamilton782]

Professional and Expert can be mutually exclusive nowadays.

[@pickerrs]

I agree regarding the use of indigenous materials, but as soon as you want a level of finish that is more precise than mud, or require levels of sanitation, environmental performance or technical capacity then 'hello modernity'. I agree with you regarding the general management of construction standards (and also your delight in contemplating the end of Narco-Palaces), but it is a bit more complex than merely fetishizing vernacular traditions that are pre-modern. Professor Barfield's library, for example, requires a mediated, dust free environment to remain intact.

[@sundog8772]

I feel like this theme of construction was merely a backdrop for the overall point which is that new is not always better and that many, many people are ignorant in so many ways to methods of doing things that have been tried and tested over hundreds of not thousands of years. I don’t believe this proof was or was making an argument for aesthetics but in that sense I think one is better off to have a building that does not collapse rather than one that does - even if it were prettier and more precise. Also, could you expand on your sanitation comment?

[@archeofutura_4606]

I mean they both have and had such a level of refinement. Just look at the madrassas and buildings of places like Bukhara, Samarqand, or Isfahan. I doubt they had a lot of problems with libraries during the Islamic golden age. And as he said, the insulation in these buildings would be good enough to have no carbon footprint when it comes to heating/cooling. That being said, blending modern technologies like solar panels and electric cooking and sanitation with pre-modern indigenous styles is a good way of doing things.

[@rameshdamarla2749]

Your videos are very informative and interesting. If you use pictures these can be more useful.

[@anak5183]

Very interesting.

[@chrisdiver6224]

He points out the independently discovered advantages of the thick mud wall in adobe in the American Southwest and in Afghanistan. Evolutionary biology calls this a "convergence". For example, the shark and the dolphin, although very distant from each other evolutionarily, each evolved the same shape because that shape minimizes drag through water, thus saving each species precious energy and the time needed to acquire it, conferring an adaptive advantage. Or we could look at these biological and architectural examples as following the principle that governs art -- that all the various parts of a system are each in their own way expressions of the environment as a whole i.e., the variety is expressive of an overall unity, aquatic or desert. I grew up in suburbia in the USA after WWll in the midst of lawns that were laid down like astroturf onto which pretty pastel houses were dropped from the sky. This phantasy materialized was brought in at enormous expense, with utterly no regard to the natural environment it sat on, and felt to me like I was living in a stage set. Which will be here in 1,000 years: mud wall, adobe, or suburbia, especially considering the stupendous use of fossil fuel = global warming building (ever building!) suburbia required?

[@rawstarmusic]

We could live in yurts in places where there is lack of housing. Not for a lifetime but for a period. Need a toilet and electricity. Water we can take from a pump.

[@niconesta8566]

We fill a building up with millions worth of tech to get a "green" certificate for subsidies. Now when you think about it who really is building durable and green??

[@stihlnz]

Its an assumption of modern people ( and this is historically empire building British or invading Americans) that indigenous people be they Inuvialuate or Pashtun are primitive. What they forget is that these peoples have survived in these environments for thousands of years ... there is a lesson here. Well done Prof Bardfield for your illuminating video's.

[@allihhussainmazari168r]

Very informative very nice

[@ofcourseofcoursebutmaybe]

Chic or Chique. Not chick ;) Description edit tip. Nice video.

[@malikumairzafar]

Very informative, thanks. 🇵🇰

[@lucifersatanson3005]

pictures next time, k thanks

[@JuanCanuck]

you only read picture books don't you

[@nobodynoone2500]

@@JuanCanuck I get your jest, but this is a topic where examples of the small differences from area to area the alludes to could be illustrative.

[@allihhussainmazari168r]

I am from banglaiccha pakistan

[@1hayes1]

This is somewhat dissociative. How many Americans actually live in houses of made of concrete and steel? Very, very few. Barfield speaks as if modernity is 'ours' but that is a delusional presumption.

[@omarrr35]

Buildings built by western contractors in the region are mostly concrete and rebar. I don't think he was comparing afghan homes and american homes, but the native afghan constructions and the foreign ones.

[@1hayes1]

@@omarrr35 Hello Omarrr35. I haven't visited Afghanistan, so I can't speak from experience about the correlation between building techniques and types of contractors. I will take your point, however, and admit that I may have been confused about the point that Barfield was making. Further to that, however, I think that most of Central Asia is experiencing a rapid transition from solid mud brick construction to reinforced concrete frame construction with mud brick used exclusively as infill panels. All the new construction I saw in Iran some dozen years ago was of this type, as was almost everything I saw then in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Of course, in Turkey, this process is even more advanced, and only the most traditional villages use mud brick instead of terracotta block. I'm sure that the 20 year long American occupation of Afghanistan makes it tempting to attribute the changes in construction to American contractors, but I think the emergence of concrete frame construction was historically overdetermined.

[@1hayes1]

The real question is why Americans care about the style of people's dwelling on the other side of the earth. I'm not even sure they do. I often say that half of humanity lives in courtyard houses, and the other half has never even seen a courtyard house.

[@gj1234567899999]

The real question is why are you on an American website, typing from a computer or cellphone built with American technology listening to an American professor giving praise to other cultures while you look down on Americans?

[@1hayes1]

@@gj1234567899999 I'm Canadian, so I know a bit about carving out an autonomous identity in the shadow of a much larger, much more powerful neighbour, one who exercises a sort of suzerainty over me and my nation (note: as I write this google offers to correct, i.e. americanize, my spelling of neighbour). The dirty secret of American academic studies of other cultures (so-called 'area studies") is the instrumental impulse to convert knowledge into power and control over other people. The tragedy of American academic studies of other cultures (so-called 'area studies') is that the experts they cultivate never have access to real decision making power. If the military had heard or understood cultured experts like Barfield, they would not have launched the war in Afghanistan. I don't look down on Barfield, I pity him for being so ineffective. It's painful to witness Barfield compare vernacular mud brick construction to the new adobe retirement mansions of Arizona and New Mexico. It can only be explained as a desperate attempt to engage his audience of affluent liberals.

[@nobodynoone2500]

@@1hayes1 Wow, you sound fun. I won't bother correcting you, since you clearly already know it all, and it is I, that must be mistaken. I'm sure your fellow Canadians are very proud of you.

[@1hayes1]

@@nobodynoone2500 You haven't articulated any opinion, so it is impossible to judge that you are mistaken. Actually, Omarr35 said something relevant in response to another comment I made, and I take his point. Your attack is merely ad hominin, and as such, irrelevant.

[@enaiatalizadeh4620]

Now Covic19

[@enaiatalizadeh4620]

Now Covic19

[@bahramghaznavi4347]

Please do a DNA test and you will find out your origins. It will cost you 100 bucks but will open your eyes.

[@noanyabizniz4333]

The most boring question in the WORLD!

[@MrAM4D3U5]

Poor Barfield. He is so blinded by all of the man hours he has invested in his Afghanistan studies that he simply cannot see that their entire civilization is backwards. I have watched several hours of his lectures now and he seems to come back to the same points; "they have cell phones!", "they don't live biblically", "mud huts really are the best infrastructure for the area", "it is not primitive it's actually highly meaningful tradition that's been well developed over centuries". Yeah, we get it. He also goes on to say that every interaction he would ever have with any local Afghan was always in Biblical terms, since they never had an Enlightenment in Central Asia that would serve to differentiate between sciences and philosophy. Furthermore, he reiterates time and time again that the entire country is now united under the fact that are all Muslim - although some are Suni and some are Shia. Their national consciousness is entirely nonexistent - instead, viewing themselves entirely through tribal lenses. Yes, they may have cell phones - but they way Barfield delivers this "check & mate" to the naysayers who claim that the Afghans are primitive, tribal, backwards, unsophisticated, uneducated people on the whole is cringe-worthy. He says it as if the Afghans invented electricity, invented the telephone, discovered radio waves, designed silicon semiconductors and developed cell phone technology despite their limitations. This could not be farther from the truth. Those are Western devices that have been imported into the country and truly juxtapose themselves against their mud-hut backgrounds, of while being used by bearded & scarved men riding camels, it is ridiculous to point to and exclaim, "see! they aren't 'biblical' at all! they're as modern as anyone, you just don't understand them!" Yes Thomas, we do. The truth is #1) WE KNOW that the reason Afghans carry on their literally ancient way of life because of local traditions. I don't know why he delivers this fact as if it will be of surprise to anybody. #2) The fact that the entire nation is unified under its belief in Islam is problematic. Anyone who has read the Qur'an from an objective standpoint can tell you that the Taliban interpretation of Shariah law, of Jihad - Holy War against those who oppose Islamic rule, of executing infidels, executing women found to have commit 'adultery', etc. is SPOT ON with what the text actually says. Verbatim. Those who claim that Islam is a "religion of peace" and that the ISIS or Taliban interpretations are taken out of context, misinterpreted, twisted by corrupt & evil men, etc. are the ones who are twisting and manipulating the words in the book to fit their per-conceived world view. NOT the other way around. I am not an "Islamophobe", I am not prejudicing an entire religions followers as being terrorists as I know that is not the case. This point is another Barfield regurgitates in some lectures. True, and that argument is often used against those who claim that "Radical Islam" and "Islam" are on in the same thing, but how often will Barfield ever tell you the # of "peaceful Muslims" who have strong sympathies for Jihadists and applaud Islamic violence against Westerners? Suddenly, that small minority actually on the front lines committing acts of terrorism (against their own people in the name of Islam or against their own people and neighbors for the same reasons) expands to a close to 50/50 split with slightly more than half of respondents claiming that they condoned and supported their Islamic brothers fighting against the infidels, imperialists, etc. #3) I am a strong believer in the right to self-governence. I also believe that if the Muslim dominated countries in Central Asia want to rule their countries under Sharia Law then that is their right. However, when we Westerners study these lands and try to gain an understanding of their people and customs I think it is important to not be afraid to tell the truth EVEN WHEN you know that the truth will be unpopular, offensive, & poorly received. I do believe that Barfield thinks he is telling the truth but that's because of the insane levels of cognitive dissonance employed by his own mind which is convincing him that 1000 year old technology really is "mighty impressive". It really isn't though. Call a spade a spade. Don't try to pass of Afghanistan as some modern and advanced nation or society because they are anything but. I would love to see Afghanistan go back to how it was in the mid 20th century but I am afraid that the nation will not look like that again for the rest of our lifetimes. The tribes there may fight against each other nonstop but they pause that fighting and unite when under threat from outsiders. Without further intervention Afghanistan will become the best armed and equipped terrorist training grounds the world has ever seen. It comes as absolutely zero surprise to anyone who has been paying attention that the Afghanistan Army abandoned their posts literally minutes after the US departed the country. The amount of opium and hashish that Afghan soldiers were all smoking on a daily basis was staggering. Check out the Vice Documentary "smoking opium with Afghan soldiers" if you do not believe me. In that decade old film it showed UK, Canadian, and US service members stationed in Afghanistan who all made separate statements that when they were supposed to be training the Afghan military how to do A, B, or C - they were instead babysitting a large group of well armed, stoned men who would frequently fire their rifles at hallucinations out in the desert and expend large amounts of ammunition, and who the other nationality troops estimates had 90%+ of their ranks breaking away a couple times ever hour to light up big pipes and spliffs of opium and hashish and pass them around themselves until they were all giggling and stumbling away - firing their AK-47s into the air. It is a f$%&ing nightmare over there and I wish acadmeics and other dishonest leftist intellectuals would STOP romanticizing their culure and way of life. Sorry Barfield, you have been studying primitive mud huts - wooden brick frames and all. Why don't you go to Prague and look at look at Vysehrad Castle. I am pretty sure it was built around 1100-1200AD. That is almost 1000 years ago. Try to actually gain some perspective for the state of the modern world and the long and blood filled path it took for us to get here. There are MANY, MANY other civilizations and geographic regions that have undergone substantial transformations into modern and advanced societies within the last 200 years. Afghanistan, is not one of them. By definition, it is primitive in virtually every way. Compare art from the region to more sophisticated art forms from all other parts of the world, and the sophistication of their music, science, agricultural knowledge, mathematical and engineering expertise. And I think it is great the parts of Kabul did have small pockets of all of the above. Unfortunately, most of those involved bringing basic education to the common people have now almost all either fled the country or been executed for the Taliban. Food for thought...

[@levolevo1059]

i think u should start education from scratch mate ,,, you talking nonsens,,,

[@sandravaladez]

Care to elaborate?