A genealogy of tropical architecture : colonial networks, nature and technoscience / Jiat-Hwee Chang.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Chang, Jiat-Hwee, author.

Contributor:

J. Fithian Tatem Memorial Fund.

Series:

Architext series

The architext series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Architecture, Tropical--British influences.

Architecture, Tropical.

Architecture, British colonial.

Architecture and society--Tropics.

Architecture and society.

Architecture and society--Singapore.

Singapore.

Tropics.

Physical Description:

xxviii, 290 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

London : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2016.

Summary:

A Genealogy of Tropical Architecture traces the origins of tropical architecture to nineteenth century British colonial architectural knowledge and practices. It uncovers how systematic knowledge and practices on building and environmental technologies in the tropics were linked to military technologies, medical theories and sanitary practices, and were manifested in colonial building types such as military barracks, hospitals and housing. It also explores the various ways these colonial knowledge and practices shaped post-war techno scientific research and education in climatic design and modern tropical architecture. Drawing on the interdisciplinary scholarships on postcolonial studies, science studies, and environmental history, Jiat-Hwee Chang 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.

Contents:

Tropicality and colonial nature 5

Colonial technoscientific networks and circulations 8

Governmentality and colonial power 10

Plan of the book 12

Part I Building Types 19

1 The Emergence of the Tropicalized House: Comfort in the Heteronomous and Heterogeneous Conditions of Colonial Architectural Production 21

Presentism and historiographical problems 23

Heteronomy and the dependence on local builders 30

Heterogeneity and building artifacts 36

Multicultural influences, comfort and house typologies 39

2 Engineering Military Barracks: Experimentation, Systematization and Colonial Spaces of Exception 51

Military barracks as tropicalized "global form" 53

Royal engineers, constructional training and experimental tradition 62

The prefabricated tropicalized barracks 66

Barrack synopses, climates and type plans 69

"Global form" in colonial spaces of exception 78

The intelligible enclave 85

3 Translating Pavilion Plan Hospitals: Biopolitics, Environmentalism and Ornamental Governmentality 94

Light, air and coolness: the "new" pavilion plan hospital 97

Metropolitan origins and technologies of population 100

Quantification and environmental technologies 103

The "accumulation of neglect" beyond the enclave 113

Colonial monuments and ornamental governmentality 117

4 Improving "Native" Housing: Sanitary Order, Improvement Trust and Splintered Colonial Urbanism 129

Knowing the governed, regulating the environment 132

Deficient "information order" and belatedness 142

The defining problem 146

Housing experiments for a variegated "public" 148

The anatomy of a failed case 155

Part II Research and Education 163

5 Constructing a Technoscientific Network: Building Science Research, "Rendering Technical" and the Power-knowledge of Decolonization 165

The missing technoscientific dimensions 166

The colonial research model 170

Network building and the tropical building division 175

(Im)mutable mobiles and climatic design 184

Conflicting interests and the contingent center 191

6 Teaching Climatic Design: Postcolonial Architectural Education, Scientific Humanism and Tropical Development 203

The new model of architectural education 206

Decolonization, the RIBA and Commonwealth architecture 211

Climate and fundamental principles 217

Pedagogy and curriculum 221

The rise of building science and architectural research 227

The legacies 231

Conclusion: Tropical Architecture Today 245

Nature, tropicality and anthropocene 245

Technoscientific constructions and network building 247

Power and governmentality 249.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the J. Fithian Tatem Memorial Fund.

ISBN:

9780415840774

0415840775

9780415840781

0415840783

OCLC:

940691589