Folk Architecture

What separates folk objects from any other functional or decorative objects is the tying of origin and purpose. Folk items lay out a narrative, they invoke a communal feeling, they strengthen a feeling among the members of a group. Their purpose for existing may have originally been purely functional but since has become absorbed into the respective culture. Other objects have not been steeped in culture this way. Perhaps they are designed to aesthetically resemble folk objects but their essence is surface level functionality with no underlying cultural implications. Architecture abides by this as well. The US is a fairly young culture and thus doesn't have as distinctive an architecture as Europe. Most countries, by seeing photographs of houses or public buildings, can be identified immediately. It is because of this embedding of folk within the structural spaces people exist within and among. In Europe, the countries have been around for hundreds of years more than the US. Styles and what can be defined as practical changes over such a period of time, and through that there is an evolution of what can be considered folk in a culture. A younger country doesn't have this same attribute, simply because of its age.