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Ethnoarchitecture.org is the Internet's first and largest database of indigenous and vernacular architecture. It features information on the architecture of 7,299 groups around the world, distributed in 228 countries and territories.
This work in progress is a research initiative by Gabriel Arboleda, a doctoral student of architecture at the University of California, Berkeley. Total pages published so far: 7745.
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You are in: Ethnoarch Home » Stories of buildings, building stories
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ARCHITECTURE AND BUILDING IN MYTHS, TALES AND CUSTOMS FROM ALL AROUND THE WORLD
Gabriel Arboleda - Edited by Jennifer Rulf
A long, long time ago there was a monkey who wanted to be the Lord of the Skies. He thought he deserved it, as he was not an ordinary monkey. He had been born out of a stone egg no bird had ever laid. The egg simply appeared in the…
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A German Volksbuch ("folks book") story tells about the difficulties that the citizens of Schilda had, as they were trying to illuminate the interior of their council house. They went to the extreme of going outside with all types of baskets and bags, in order to collect as…
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Whenever the dead ones return to the gods' original homeland of Bulotu, some of them are used as building materials by Hiku-leo, the perfidious god that was left in charge of the sacred land. In fact, they become poles for his outhouses, posts for his fences, and bars for his…
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Bulotu    (Tonga)
The island of Tonga and other lands around were fished out of the ocean's bottom. The accomplished fisherman was Maui, the most powerful of the gods. He had decided to go on a fishing expedition, after getting bored of the life that the gods had in Bulotu. They just spent…
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Following the Christian myth, Adam was the first architect and his son Cain was the first urbanist. Adam was the first architect because after all he had to build a shelter for himself, once he was expelled from the protective paradise. Cain, the Bible says, populated earth with his descendants,…
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He was still alive, they said. He could be eighty-five by then. He lived in Borbón. I should go and ask him to prove it was true, they said. They even recalled his real name, which I forgot. His nickname, that was unforgettable: El Comecayapo, "the Cayapo eater," or one…
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Finding the perfect wood, one that lasts as long as stone or iron seems to be a universal paradigm of building cultures world-wide. It is in fact not uncommon to find stories about mythical kinds of woods that are amazingly durable and resistant. Framed thirteen hundred years ago,…
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Ingenuity is in the end more effective than pure strength, says a Georgian tale. A giant is challenging everybody to fight him but nobody dares, until a clever dwarf decides to accept the challenge. The giant makes fabulous demonstrations of strength. He squeezes moisture out of a stone.…
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Perhaps it was the pointed shape of the roofs in Sudanese Nuer houses that attracted lightning, a frequent phenomenon in this semi-desert environment. So often lights actually struck houses, burning them completely and killing people inside, that the Nuer developed specific rituals for this tragic event.The rituals aimed…
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The first fireplace was hidden, a tale from the Australian desert says. Two snakes had discovered fire by accident, and since that moment they had been hiding in the forest every time they wanted to cook. The snakes did not want to share such a fabulous secret with anyone else.
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In the village of Uru Uru in Bolivia there is a circular-shaped stone behind a mountain. People honor this stone as the son of a god, Huari. He was petrified by the Curacas or village chiefs, who in this way sabotaged his plans to abduct a local princess he was…
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"Architecture is more than just the development of products for a market. It is about space and place, home and community, body and memory, earth and sky.
It is for people, for their whole lives..." - C. Davies.
 
     
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