30TH

EARTHEN ARCHITECTURE
Sustaining Heritage, Diversity, and the Environment
BY CLAUDIA CANCIN0 AND ERICA AVRAMI
FOR MILLENNIA HUMANS HAVE CONSTRUCTED BUILDINGS OF
earth. A universal and ever-present material, earth appears in
ancient archaeological sites such as the pre-Colombian city of
Caral in Peru, as well as in twentieth-century complexes like New
Gourna Village in Egypt, designed by Hassan Fathy. Earth has been
employed in a variety of geographic contexts and climatic conditions,
and construction ranges in scale from vernacular housing
to large complexes, such as the almost four thousand ksour of
southern Morocco and the Great Mosque of Djenné in Mali. It
has been superbly used in decorated surfaces, such as the high
reliefs of Abomey in Benin and the earthen plasters of Cliff Palace
at Mesa Verde National Park in the United States.
While this legacy of earthen building constitutes a rich and
vast heritage, earth remains a ubiquitous modern construction
material and vital form of shelter. The United Nations estimates that
nearly 24 percent of the world’s population live in earthen homes.
In this respect, earthen architecture represents a significant aspect
of both social and environmental sustainability, and it is a critical
element of self-determination in many less developed regions.
Recyclable and low in energy consumption, earthen construction
has a minimal carbon footprint. While earthen architecture
is often undervalued or erroneously viewed as substandard, it is
a bastion of cultural and technological diversity in the face of a
globalizing built environment.
For this reason, over the past thirty years the Getty Conservation
Institute has engaged in projects and initiatives to
advance the field of earthen conservation, all of which have
involved robust collaboration with institutions and professionals
around the world. By working across borders and cultures, the
GCI has sought to create new knowledge that capitalizes on
both cutting-edge research and traditional know-how through
its Getty Seismic Adobe Project (GSAP), the Terra project, the
Earthen Architecture Initiative (EAI), and more. And by leveraging
its resources toward collective action, the GCI has helped
empower a global network dedicated to earthen architecture and
its conservation.
research
The scope of the GCI’s engagement in earthen architecture has
expanded significantly over the past three decades, but its initial
entry to the field was through badly needed scientific research. In
the 1980s, a small but important project was launched at the site
of Fort Selden, under the aegis of New Mexico State Monuments
Survey work being carried out at the Kasbah of Taourirt in southern Morocco as
part of the preparation of the conservation and rehabilitation plan for the site.
Photo: Claudia Cancino, GCI.
and the National Park Service Southwest Regional Office, to
investigate the treatment of earthen archaeological remains. In
1988 the GCI joined New Mexico State Monuments to undertake
Phase II of the research at Fort Selden, investigating chemical
consolidants, capping, and protective coatings for the conservation
of earthen walls, thus initiating the GCI’s direct engagement
with earthen architecture.
Given the prevalence of earthen architecture in earthquakeprone
regions of the world, GSAP was established by the GCI in
1990, in cooperation with Stanford University, to develop and test
minimally invasive and easily implemented techniques to avoid
the collapse of historic earthen structures during seismic events.
22 FALL 2015 | 30TH ANNIVERSARY