Traditional & Non-Traditional Architecture

In the hit broadway musical, "Fiddler on the Roof", Tevya asks "How do we(the jewish community he belongs to)keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: Tradition!" Like any musical he bursts into song and dance right after, but he uses a very important word that becomes the theme of the overall show tradition. What we wil be using tradition for is to determine the difference between folk architecture and regular architecture. Folk archictecture as defined by the book "includes all traditional nonacademic building types which consist of cabins, and houses, barns, smokehouses, washhouses, summer kitchens, spring houses, etc. Regular architecture may use traditional norms such as logs but to build commerical like buildings such as ski lodges, motels, schools, etc. Nonfolk buildings usually consist of organizations that are usually known worldwide. Folk Architecture focuses on buildings that belong to a particular group such as a church for a specific religion. Folk builders too knew exactly what they were building, who they were building for, and what they wanted it to look like. Today, most nonfolk architecture tends to be made up as it goes along. For example when Indian made houses for themselves, they knew exactly what kind of house they wanted and how they were going to achieve it. Overall, folk architecture is rooted in deep tradition while non-folk architecture is not.