I'm still wondering what our housing style is
This paragraph at the end of the letter by Guillermo de la Paz, struck me, because I have been thinking about this for a long time. I wrote an article about it once, asking, "What is the housing style in Coconut Grove?"
Guillermo says: "Government should not be involved in where a particular demographic lives, what type of housing they should have and control the income of the area. People should not be obligated to build, live or repair houses like "shotgun" homes. This type of architecture was brought from Africa to the Caribbean through the Yoruba tribe because it was one of the few building techniques and ways in which they knew how to build back then. The Caribbean including the Bahamas were colonized by different countries like Spain, English and the Dutch each of thee cultures left behind engineering and a style of architecture. The idea that everybody from the Caribbean should or did live in a shot gun home is not real or accurate."
I wondered, too. As much as many people don't like the big white boxy houses, that seems to be the style of the 21st Century. My quarrel with them is sometimes the size and location, as I believe everything in its place. So putting a three or four-story house next to a single story house, taking up most of the land mass, makes no sense. But imagine if we did not allow new structures to be built. Would there be no representation of the early decade of the 21st Century for people to see and appreciate 100 years from now?
Guillermo says that people built what they knew. This makes a lot of sense.
He says at the end: "The idea that everybody from the Caribbean should or did live in a shot gun home is not real or accurate."
This all leads back to the question: What is the housing style in Coconut Grove?
Guillermo says: "Government should not be involved in where a particular demographic lives, what type of housing they should have and control the income of the area. People should not be obligated to build, live or repair houses like "shotgun" homes. This type of architecture was brought from Africa to the Caribbean through the Yoruba tribe because it was one of the few building techniques and ways in which they knew how to build back then. The Caribbean including the Bahamas were colonized by different countries like Spain, English and the Dutch each of thee cultures left behind engineering and a style of architecture. The idea that everybody from the Caribbean should or did live in a shot gun home is not real or accurate."
I wondered, too. As much as many people don't like the big white boxy houses, that seems to be the style of the 21st Century. My quarrel with them is sometimes the size and location, as I believe everything in its place. So putting a three or four-story house next to a single story house, taking up most of the land mass, makes no sense. But imagine if we did not allow new structures to be built. Would there be no representation of the early decade of the 21st Century for people to see and appreciate 100 years from now?
Guillermo says that people built what they knew. This makes a lot of sense.
He says at the end: "The idea that everybody from the Caribbean should or did live in a shot gun home is not real or accurate."
This all leads back to the question: What is the housing style in Coconut Grove?
posted by Tom Falco at 4:00 AM
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2 Comments:
Why does there have to be a housing "style"? For that matter, why don't we just live or building everything like in communist countries, all buildings ugly and the same? I think we need to have rules that are followed, like how many stories or what height is allowed for a house, what percentage of the land can be used for the building and how much green area you should have, but let's not make all houses look the same.
Guillermo builds what he knows how, big ugly white cheap boxes with no regard whatsoever for the community. It is developers like him that are the scourge of the Grove.
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