58 What is Architectural History?
under British rule.^31 So too for South Africa, Indonesia and
New York in relation to Dutch colonization. Few historians
of architecture would regard the concept of nation or terri-
tory to be so straightforward and passive as the lines of a
map suggest. This is not to say that these lines do not offer
a useful starting point for considering the architecture of a
territory or culture.^32
A history of Swiss architecture, to give one example, might
be resolutely introspect or openly treat the problems, both
practical and conceptual, of architects moving easily between
one country and another, originating in Switzerland or
moving there, or identifying strongly with one neighbour or
linguistic community. A curious example of a history con-
tending with this kind of geographical permeability is the
American G. E. Kidder Smith’s modernist history and pho-
tographic survey Switzerland Builds: Its Native and Modern
Architecture (1950). In a long preface, the Prague-born Swiss
historian Sigfried Giedion offers a distracted refl ection on
the ‘character’ of the Swiss, which is extended in the content
of Smith’s account. Giedion’s ‘Introduction to Native
Architecture’ begins with this explanation:
The native, or vernacular, building shown on the following
pages is comprised of the dwellings in which the people of
the country live, and the buildings which they use in gaining
their livelihood, such as barns and agricultural adjuncts. The
book will not deal, except in passing, with the richer com-
munal monuments or public buildings of derivative ‘styles’- largely foreign – for these, even in remote districts, were
almost always done under the patronage or infl uence of the
church or local government, both of which were well versed
in architectural developments abroad. Churches will be
touched upon because they are so intimately tied up with the
lives of the inhabitants, but not the cathedrals, nor the Renais-
sance, Gothic or Baroque as such. These forms can be seen
in far fi ner examples in the countries of their origin on the
four sides of Switzerland.^33
The qualifi cation for being included in Switzerland Builds is
the demonstration of a native character. For Giedion this
excludes those works of Swiss architecture that adopt and
adapt styles, forms and types that originate elsewhere and