A Genealogy of Tropical Architecture

Time: Oct. 16, 2018, 5:15 p.m. - 7 p.m.

Location: Slocum Auditorium

Chang Jiat-Hwee (National University of Singapore)

The current preoccupation with sustainable architecture in the Global South has contributed to a renewed interest in tropical architecture. But what is tropical architecture? Instead of assuming it as a "natural" or self-evident fact, this lecture explores the history of tropical architecture as a series of colonial and post-colonial socio-cultural and political constructions.

Drawing on the interdisciplinary scholarships on postcolonial studies, science studies, and environmental history, Jiat-Hwee argues that tropical architecture was inextricably entangled with the socio-cultural constructions of tropical nature, and the politics of colonial governance and postcolonial development in the British colonial and post-colonial networks.

By tracing the history of tropical architecture beyond what is widely considered today as its "founding moment" in the mid-twentieth century, this discussion aims to revise our understanding of colonial built environment and provide a new historical and theoretical framework for reconsidering climatic design and sustainable architecture.

This event is co-sponsored by the CNY Humanities Corridor and the Syracuse University School of Architecture.

Lawrence Chua, Architecture