Primitive hut

The Primitive Hut is a concept that explores the origins of architecture and its practice. The concept explores the anthropological relationship between man and the natural environment as the fundamental basis for the creation of architecture. The idea of The Primitive Hut contends that the ideal architectural form embodies what is natural and intrinsic.

The Primitive hut as an architectural theory was brought to life over the mid-1700s till the mid-1800s, theorised in particular by (Abbé) Marc-Antoine Laugier. Laugier provided an allegory of a man in nature and his need for shelter in An Essay on Architecture that formed an underlying structure and approach to architecture and its practice. This approach has been explored in architectural theory to speculate on a possible destination for architecture as a discipline. The essay was arguably one of the first significant attempts to theorise architectural knowledge both scientifically and philosophically.

The Essay on Architecture was first published by Marc-Antoine Laugier in 1753. It was written in the age of enlightenment, during a time characterised by rationalist thinking through science and reason. Architecture in France during this period was defined predominantly by the Baroque style with its excessive ornamentation and religious iconography. Rather than being concerned with the search for meaning and the over analysis of the representational elements of architecture, Laugier's essay proposed that the idea of noble and formal architecture was found in what was necessary for architecture, not in its ornamentation but in its true underlying fundamentals. Laugier argued for the simplicity of architecture, that architecture must return to its origins, the simple rustic hut.

It was through The Primitive Hut that Laugier sought to explain his philosophy of architecture. The Essay on Architecture provides what Laugier explains as the general rules of architecture: the 'true principles', the 'invariable rules'; for 'directing the judgement and forming the taste of the gentleman and the architect'. To Laugier, The Primitive Hut was the highest virtue that architecture should achieve.

An illustration of the primitive hut by Charles Dominique Eisen was the frontispiece for the second edition of Laugier's Essay on Architecture (1755). The frontispiece was arguably one of the most famous images in the history of architecture, it helped to make the essay more accessible and consequently it was more widely received by the public. The message the illustration was suggesting was clear; that the essay would suggest a new direction or a new order for architecture. In the image a young woman who personifies architecture draws the attention of an angelic child towards the primitive hut. Architecture is pointing to a new structural clarity found in nature, rather than the ironic ruins of the past.

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