Our world is full of lands, cities, buildings and artefacts, many of which are deposits and residues of colonial times and, more pervasively, colonial processes. Reclaiming Colonial Architecture unpacks the built inheritances of colonialism and re-thinks how we might understand, narrate, intervene in or act upon them as architects.
Offering historical background, unpacking key concepts and presenting thematically organised and multi-scalar urban and architectural case studies, this accessible publication showcases how legacies of colonialism are being dealt with in real-world instances. Case studies involve works and actions by built environment professionals such as architects and heritage practitioners, as well as community initiatives and activism.
The book aims to build confidence in practitioners, students and communities grappling with a seemingly vast and complex terrain of debates and approaches around colonial landscapes, urban areas, buildings, monuments and material culture. It also aims to be a helpful resource for architecture schools or critical heritage studies departments and organisations. Its content will provide a point of departure for graduate student inquiry and its accessible nature will help introduce undergraduate students to the concepts and questions of colonial built-environments.
Reclaiming Colonial Architecture
Tania Sengupta and Stuart King, eds.
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Reclaiming Colonial Architecture: Critical Practices of Lands, Cities, Buildings and Things
Tania Sengupta and Stuart King
Map showing featured locations
Lands
L1 – Truth-telling at Wybalenna (Wybalenna, Tayaritja, Lutruwita/Tasmania)
L2 - Inga Ancestral Inhabitation Knowledge Mapping (Andean Amazon, Colombia[MOU1] [AW2] )
00 Pedro Jajoy, Jhon Tisoy, Musu Jacanamijoy, Juliana Ramírez and Catalina Mejía Moreno
L3 - Ma Joie Plantation House (Mahé, Seychelles)
00 Helénè Frichot
L4 - The Counter Plantation of Barbados (Saint George, Barbados)
00 Mackenzie Luke
L5 - Watery Archives, Aqueous Methods (Manchester, UK)
00 Huda Tayob
L6 - The Inscrutable Mire: Designing with Other-than-Human Agency (Banff, Canada))
00 Tiffany Kaewen Dang
L7 - Reclaiming the Landscape Beyond the Highway (Jerusalem)
00 Mira Idries
Cities
C1 - Postcolonial Anxiety and Fragmented Revitalisation of Jakarta’s Old Town (Jakarta, Indonesia)
00 Amanda Achmadi
C2 - Making, Unmaking and Remaking Colonial Space in New Delhi (Delhi, India)
00 Arunava Dasgupta
C3 - Contesting Pasts: (Re)Interpretations of Colonial Heritage in Harbin (Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China)
00 Wenzhuo Zhang
C4 - Dangerous Heritage in Danger: Colonial-Imperial (Neo)classicism of the Ukrainian South (Odesa, Ukraine)
00 Ievgeniia Gubkina
C5 - Two Missing Colonial Monuments in Germany (Hamburg and Berlin, Germany)
00 Valentina Rozas-Krause
C6 - ReOrientalism: The Ramadan Pavilion at the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, UK)
00 Shaheed Saleem
Buildings
B1 - The Chicago Cultural Center and the Settler Colonial City (Chicago, USA)
00 Andrew Herscher and Ana-María León
B2 – ‘Rainbow Serpent (Version)’ at the Gropius Bau (Berlin, Germany)
00 Michael Mossman and Andrew Leach
B3 - Decolonising Fascist Legacies, Demodernising Architecture (Borgo Rizza, Sicily)
00 Emilio Distretti and Alessandro Petti
B4 - The Claude Bernard Hospital in Paris: A ‘Debris of Empire’ (Paris, France)
00 Guillaume Lachenal, Gaëtan Thomas, Simon De Nys-Ketels and Johan Lagae
B5 - Rescripting the Invisible City (Johannesburg, South Africa)
00 Althea Peacock and Tanzeem Razak
B6 - Reconnecting Architecture with Country at 119 Redfern Street (Sydney, Australia)
00 Aileen Sage Architects and Danièle Hromek
B7 - (Re-)Inhabiting the Junta Dos Bairros E Casas Populares Neighbourhoods (Maputo, Beira & Nampula, Mozambique)
00 Patricia Noormahomed
B8 - The Paradox of Andean Colonial Churches in Arica and Parinacota (Arica and Parinacota, Chile)
00 Magdalena Pereira and Cristian Heinsen
B9 - Coral White: Reclaiming (?) Missionary Architecture in the Cook Islands (Rarotonga and Mangaia, Cook Islands)
00 Jeanette Budgett, Carolyn Hill and Jean Mason
B10 - Dissonant Heritage: The Loss of the Apia Courthouse (Apia, Samoa)
00 Christoph Schnoor
Things
T1 - Spring Bay Mill: A Place to Gather Again (Triabunna, Tasmania)
00 Ross Brewin
T2 - Interpreting and Communicating Taiwan’s Colonial Sugar Industry Heritage (Taiwan)
00 Cheng An-Yu and Wu Ping-Sheng
T3 – Reweaving, Rebuilding: The Malkha Cotton Factory (Ellanthakunta, Telengana, India)
00 Tania Sengupta
T4 - Now You See It, Now You Don’t: The Henry Jarvis Memorial Hall Screen at 66 Portland Place (London, UK)
00 Neal Shasore
T5 – Toppling Crowther: Activists, Institutions and Colonial Monuments (Nipaluna/Hobart, Tasmania)
00 Stuart King
T6 - A New Practice for the Architecture of Afrorevivalism: The Lobi Vessel (Lobi Country, Western Africa)
00 Richard Adetokunbo Aina
T7 - Harmful Objects (Beloved Subjects): Colonial Family Archives (County Down, Northern Island)
00 Briony Widdis
Conclusion: Architectures of Critical and Responsive Practice
Tania Sengupta and Stuart King
About the Editors
Authors’ biographies
Community-based Organisations
Notes
Index
Image Credits
Biography
Dr Tania Sengupta teaches and is Director of Architectural History and Theory at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London.
Dr Stuart King is a Senior Lecturer in Architectural Design and History, and Program Coordinator for the Master of Urban and Cultural Heritage at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
