Colonial Modernities: Building, Dwelling and Architecture in British India and Ceylon (Architext) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0415399092 ISBN 13: 9780415399098

Publisher: Routledge, 2007

Synopsis

A carefully crafted selection of essays from international experts, this book explores the effect of colonial architecture and space on the societies involved – both the colonizer and the colonized.

Focusing on British India and Ceylon, the essays explore the discursive tensions between the various different scales and dimensions of such 'empire-building' practices and constructions. Providing a thorough exploration of these tensions, Colonial Modernities challenges the traditional literature on the architecture and infrastructure of the former European empires, not least that of the British Indian 'Raj'.

Illustrated with seventy-five halftone images, it is a fascinating and thoroughly grounded exposition of the societal impact of colonial architecture and engineering.

About this title

About the Author

Peter Scriver is a researcher in the Centre for Asian and Middle-Eastern Architecture (CAMEA) and Senior Lecturer in Architecture, History and Theory at the University of Adelaide, Australia. He is the author, with Vikram Bhatt, of After the Masters: Contemporary Indian Architecture, and a forthcoming monograph, The Scaffolding of Empire, on the architecture and planning history of the Public Works Department of British India.

Vikramaditya ("Vikram") Prakash is currently Chair of the Department of Architecture, University of Washington, having been previously Associate Dean of the College of Architecture and Urban Planning. He is author of Chandigarh's Le Corbusier: The Struggle for Modernity in Postcolonial India and (with Francis Ching and Mark Jarzombek) A Global History of Architecture.

 

Review

'From vernacular to monumental architecture, numerous examples of legacies of colonial practices are found throughout South Asia and this book takes the first steps toward introducing their ideological underpinnings, theorizing and narrating them into a particular intellectual space.' – Cities

"This book is an enjoyable read, and a solid scholarly contribution by some familiar names, to the modest field of postcolonial architectural studies. The essays highlight many of the complex issues involved in the field, and in an area where records are not always easily accessible, there is much detailed critique." - Martin Beattie, Landscape Research, Vol. 34, No. 4

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0415399092
• ISBN 13: 9780415399098
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304
• Editor: Scriver Peter, Prakash Vikramaditya