The most pronounced influence is usually the one that is so ubiquitous as to go unnoticed. The bungalow is the best example of total asian-western fusion. It is total fusion in the true sense: the style is so fused that one cannot easily separate the occidental from the oriental elements. The etymological roots are Gujarati from Hindustani, bangla, meaning belonging to or being derived from Bengal.
Originally a bungalow was a dwelling of bent bamboo and thatch , on a raised plinth, erected by lower cast Bengalis. The English first noticed it in 1659; by the 1790s, the British were mass-producing them by the thousands for British military officers and administrators. The Anglo-Indian bungalow was a veranda-fronted, one-story structure raised on meter-high brick supports or other wood or masonry plinths. Elevating the bungalow on plinths was primarily to deter ant and snake bites. My own experience living in the tropics has given me a deep understanding of the need to distance ourselves from nature’s venomous little creatures. Canadians exist with the constant presence of the forest - either visible from our windows, as in Vancouver, or a short drive away. We coexist with the mosquito, black fly, wood tick, water moccasin, rattlesnake, etc. so we cannot fully appreciate the effect that Asian snakes and insects had on the British, coming as they did from an environment largely free of biting creatures. Under British rule the bungalow spread across India, Pakistani and Burma and became the basis for the planning of New Delhi in 1911.
The building materials were altered to brick and slate when the bungalow reached Britain. Just as in India, entire suburbs, such as Bungalow Town in Shoreham, were erected. The Arts and Crafts movement appropriated the bungalow and imbued it with Ruskin’s ideology: honest materials, honestly treated. The British Arts and Crafts bungalow seemingly referenced a bygone age of English heritage – the fact that it was an Indian design in a new English iteration did not detract from its public appeal as a nostalgic return to rustic old English craftsmanship. Nationalism was in vogue and the bungalow was somehow associated with the England of yesteryear.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, one of the primary luminaries of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, died in a bungalow (1882). H. G. Wells extolled the lifestyle cachet of the bungalow , “fruit of the reaction of artistic-minded and carelessly living people….a fashion with a certain Bohemian-spirit class”.
In Vancouver, the most important popular expression of the Arts and Crafts movement is the “Craftsman bungalow”. The wood bungalow, with its low horizontal lines, spacious front veranda, and broad gabled roof, is excellent for Vancouver’s months of winter rain, but not well adapted for the high snow load back east. As a result, the bungalow enjoyed greater popularity in Vancouver than in any other Canadian metropolis. Today the bungalow is the most widespread and popular style of house in all the countries of Anglo-Saxon origin.
Now, Canadian companies in China are marketing bungalows built out of Canadian wood as luxury housing for China’s business elite. The fusion is complete.
[Next post: Hotel Europe]
The humble bungalow.
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