Snipped from http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2007-03-09/article/26533 Just What Is a Bungalow? By Jane Powell It really annoys me when I see a real estate listing with a picture of a bungalow which announces something like "fabulous Victorian"- you would think there are enough bungalows around here that agents would get a clue, but apparently not. So herewith I shall answer the question "What is a Bungalow?" The question is fundamentally rather complicated. Dictionaries provide these definitions: "A low house having only one story or, in some cases, upper rooms set in the roof, typically with dormer windows"; "a usually one storied house with a low pitched roof"; "a small house all on one level"; "a small house or cottage usually having a single story and sometimes an additional attic story"; "a thatched or tiled one story house in India surrounded by a wide verandah"; "a usually one storied house of a type first developed in India and characterized by low sweeping lines and a wide veranda." Bungalows and other Arts and Crafts houses, and the design philosophy that shaped them began in 19th Century Britain. The Arts and Crafts Movement was a reaction to the many changes in society brought on by the Industrial Revolution. It is generally agreed that bungalows descended from thatched Bengali peasant huts in India, called variously "banggolo," "bangala," or "bangla" (depending on who's translating). The British altered the native dwelling into something that conformed better to their idea of what a house should be, and built these Anglo-Indian bungalows in compounds outside of the cities and towns, as well as in "hill stations" where the Europeans would go in the summer to get away from the heat. Eventually the bungalow was exported to all corners of the British Empire as being the proper sort of house for Europeans in the tropics. The bungalow's initial use as vacation architecture meant that it came to be associated with leisure and informality, in a natural setting. This association continued even as bungalows began to be built in cities. [snip] ============================= ----- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar Nagpur, India