Formal characteristics of vernacurar architecture in Erbil city and other Iraqi cities

Related to their environmental contexts and available resources they are customarily owner- or community-built, utilizing traditional technologies. All forms of vernacular architecture are built to meet specific needs, accommodating the values, economies and ways of life of the cultures that produce them." (Oliver, 1997, p.ii) In another definition Oliver gives a description about the context of vernacular architecture: "Within the context of vernacular architecture it embraces what is known and what is inherited about the dwelling, building, or settlement. It includes the collective wisdom and experience of a society, and the norms that have become accepted by the group as being appropriate to its built environment." (Oliver, 1997, p.ii) In his book (House Form and Culture), Amos Rapoport makes a comparison between the buildings that belong to the grand design tradition and those of the folk tradition. (Rapoport, 1969,p.2) According to Rapoport, the monument- buildings of the grand design tradition- are built to impress either the populace with the power of the patron, or the peer group of designers and cognoscenti with the cleverness of the designer and good taste of the patron. The folk tradition, on the other hand, is the direct and unself-conscious translation into physical form of a culture, its needs and values as well as the desires, dreams, and passions of a people.•lt is the world view writ small, the "ideal" environment of a people expressed in buildings and settlements, with no designer, artist, or architect with an axe to grind (although to what extent the designer is really a form giver is a moot point). The folk tradition is much more closely related to the culture of themajority and life as it is really lived than is the grand design tradition, which represents the