Summary Of The Monuments And The Bungalow By Pierce Lewis

In his essay “The Monument and the Bungalow,” Pierce Lewis advocates for his readers to consider the importance of landscape as a visual history that is as equally important as a written history. He encourages the cultivation of skills necessary to understand and participate in the informatively rich landscapes of our everyday lives. Pierce uses as example his own past experiences within teaching the ability of reading landscapes and makes a poignant observation of the commonality within American culture to take for granted the collective landscape and overlook the rich histories and details of our cultures that they may hold.

Most of us walk through our neighborhoods or drive through cities on our everyday commute without taking notice of

One must hone in their vernacular skills in order to participate in discussion as well as accurately describe the landscapes they are witnessing. Throughout his essay Lewis make the importance of vocabulary abundantly clear. Lewis’ belief I that without the ability to recognize patterns one cannot adequately discuss on any subject let alone a subject a complicated a human landscape. To be able to recognize similarities and differences and identify design motif a student should first cultivate the vocabulary necessary to do so.

Lewis uses a past class field trip to Bellefonte a town in the state of Pennsylvania to further highlight one way in which he went about introducing the vocabulary to his students. Lewis introduces his students to many forms of vocabulary all useful to the field but the most important being architectural. With the majority of human landscapes we experience on a regular basis being man made the comprehension of terms used in reference to architecture becomes vital. The town of Bellefonte serves as a perfect opportunity for Lewis to introduce hi students to vocabulary pertaining to post-colonial