| OCR Text |
Show A New Architectural History Architectural design must be viewed as a dialogue between form and context; what people build is the product of a dialectic between what is individually possible and what is socially acceptable. 3 The folk designing competence ~hat emerged in the Sanpete Valley during the nineteenth century had the capacity to generate a wide variety of house types and styles. The local house carpenter, however, could only employ those designs that remained consistent with community norms. In the end, the form of the house was governed by function, both utilitarian and social. Houses had to keep out the rain, but in their plan and appearance they also had to articulate the specific values of the society. Mormonism is well known for is strong emphasis on order and cooperation. Arrington, Fox, and May have underscored this point in the introduction to Building the City of God: The law of Consecration and Stewardship, which Joseph Smith announced in February 1831 •.•. was intended to be a major instrument in reorganizing the social and economic patterns of life among his followers . Moreover, it was to provide the model upon which all human society would be organized when the Savior returned to the latter-day Zion in Missouri. It would build unity among a people fragmented by their individualistic search for economic well-being. It would impose order upon the chaos of a society suffering from an excess of liberty. An ideal community would be prepared to administer Christ's millennial reign--a people divested of selfishness and greed, living in square-surveyed towns and villages, surrounded by productive farmlands. Order, unity, community were the supreme values of the Prophet's ideal society--values strikingly at odds with those characteristic of antebellum America.4 If artifacts express, as Jules David Prown suggests in his essay, 11 Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method,~ ''the 293 |
