Vernacular and emancipation: vernacular architecture as a resource of social development

Nowadays the social science agenda is focusing on the search for new resources to provide effective responses to the challenges faced by the society. The author, working in accordance with this trend and using the lens of critical theory, reviews the potential role of vernacular (folk, anonymous) architecture in solving key problems of contemporary society, such as atomization, inequality, marginalization of certain groups, environmental crisis. The author’s discussion of these issues is supported by extensive field research of vernacular architecture, which he carried in various regions of eastern Russia in 2018-2019. The paper begins with a review of the current debate among architectural theorists what leads the author to a discussion of the multidimensional potential of the vernacular, followed by a description of the concrete steps needed to actualize vernacular architecture as a resource for social development.