Taking advantage of a collection of models of vernacular architecture (the only one of its kind in the world), whose special attributes he highlights and whose value he thus underlines, the author selects contemporary realisations by architects from Africa, Asia, America and Europe that seem to him to constitute a "new vernacular architecture". The emphasis here is on materials available on the fringes of the market, on the safeguarding and development of traditional know-how, on the social role of the architect and on the teaching of architecture