This is a text which presents a picture of the house within the social and symbolic worlds of the South-East Asian peoples. It draws on many sources of information, from both architects and anthropologists, as well as the author's own first-hand research. The main focus of this text is Indonesia, but the tracing of historical links between architectural forms reveals a much wider field of enquiry, closely related to the distribution of Austronesian language and extending as far as Madagascar, Japan and Oceania. As is probes into the centrally significant role of houses within South-East Asian social systems, it reveals insights into kinship systems, gender symbolism and cosmological ideas, ultimately uncovering basic themes concerning the idea of the life and life processes themselves. A picture is produced of how people shape building and buildings shape people, as rules about layout and uses of space themselves have an impact on social relationships. The text concludes with a consideration of some present-day processes of change as these affect the fate of indigenous architectures.