Poster presented at the ENAC Research Day EPFL, CH, 08.09.2025

The primary aim of this “atlas” is to offer a systematic “anatomy” of the architectural book and its representation of vernacular architecture. A consistent analytical framework is applied to all the studied works, ensuring a methodical and comparative examination. The books selected are shown in scale with respect to one another (1:2 scale), and their content are sorted according to the representation tools and types of drawing used: text, photography, freehand or orthographic drawings, analogical or diagrammatic classifications. Both the form of representation and the content chosen to be encapsulated within shows an increasing degree of complexity and abstraction progressively linking the object of study, namely – artefacts, objects, construction methods – to their larger economic, political, or social systems. The selection of passages and pages therefore reflects the discourse of architects on architecture built outside of their professional field. Its analysis deconstructs in a visual manner, the ways in which an understanding of vernacular architecture was formed and sedimented. Given the material precarity and uncertainty of vernacular architecture, the medium through which its tacit knowledge is passed on, that is – this collection of books – constitutes a “vernacular heritage”.