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British Colonial Architecture

Teaching and Research: Global Architectural History Teaching Collaborative at MIT

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October 11, 2014
Africa, British Colonial Architecture, European Transnational, Fry & Drew, Global Architecture, India, Lahore Model Town, Middle East, Poland, South East Asia, Tropical Architecture
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Global Architectural History Teaching Collaborative at MIT

How do we teach the global history of architecture? What should we include in our classes and where can we gather the information, knowledge and sources that enable meaningful narratives to emerge? Is the global survey course even possible, or should we be utilising distinct and precise case studies to discuss the global condition instead?

These are just some of the questions that Global Architectural History Teaching Collaborative is attempting to answer as well as to create a community of scholars who will share and exchange knowledge to change the way we think about the history of architecture.. The GAHTC has been established by Mark Jarzombek and Vikramāditya Prakāsh with funding provided from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, see http://gahtc.org for more information.

Grants are available for teaching teams to develop new teaching material and modes of teaching that deal with global history, from the beginning of time to the modern. This is a major challenge, but very exciting. In the current round of grants 9 teams have been accepted with the following ambitions:

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Panorama of the participants (photo by Rachel Lee)
  • Architecture and Climate in a Global Perspective – Team Daniel Barber
  • Sites and Networks of Global Modernity – Team Bob Cowherd
  • Globalizing a Humanities Approach to Architectural History – Team Ann C Huppert
  • Scales of Modernity – Team Jonathan Massey
  • The Architecture of Global Modernity, 1000-2000 CE – Team Kenny Cupers
  • The Global Turn: Architecture and the Built Environment Since World War Two – Team Michelangelo Sabatino
  • Technologies of Movement and Communication – Team Shundana Yusaf
  • East Asian Architecture from A Global Perspective: Cultural Transactions and the Development of Traditions – Team Shuishan Yu
  • The Modern Metropolis – Team Eric Mumford

At the first workshop, held in MIT (9th and 10th October 2014), each group gave a presentation that outlined their position and ambition. Most also proposed a distinct module of lectures/seminars and a discussion/critique followed. Day two was composed of a number of workshops that discussed ‘Deliverables and Digitisation’, ‘Pedagogy’, ‘The problem of teaching architecture made before 1800’, and ‘future ambitions’. A digital resource has been developed that will contain some of the data: http://www.timescape.io/login

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Vikram Prakash addressing conference.

Team Daniel Barber became known as the ‘Climate group’  – which is a perfectly accurate and succinct way of describing us, with the caveat that climate is not the only factor to determine the architecture we’re interested in.

We are proposing six themes/lectures, each to be lead by one team member:

“Architecture without Architects” and the Timeless Climatic Type [Albert Narath]

Colonial Architecture and Climate in Africa and Asia [Ola Uduku]

Sanitation, climate and statecraft in colonial societies [Iain Jackson]

Modernism, Climate, and Post-colonial development [Rachel Lee]

Universal Science and International Architecture after World War II [Daniel Barber]

Air Conditioning Takes Command [Jiat-Hwee Chang]

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Panorama of the Participants (photo by Rachel Lee)

TAG will continue to track the developments of GAHTC and to report on future developments…

The South Park Street Cemetery in Calcutta and the French Cemetery in Chandernagore

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September 5, 2014
British Colonial Architecture, India
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The South Park Street Cemetery in Calcutta and the French Cemetery in Chandernagore

 The Follies of Empire world make a good book title and topic for future study. Buildings, or rather monuments have frequently been deployed as tangible metaphors of political ideology. Throughout the territories of the British Empire we encounter structures that were certainly folly, sometimes extending to the scale of an entire city, as New Delhi designed by Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker from 1911 demonstrates. The Victoria Memorial in Calcutta designed by William Emerson from 1906 would also qualify; a palatial white marble pile built in a classical style and decorated with a blend of ornamentation dedicated to the late Queen. Calcutta grew into a major trading port and capital of British India after the East India Company set up a trading post off the Hooghly River in 1690. Throughout the 18th Century the port grew into ‘the second city of Empire’, suitably grandeur and packed with suave mansions and gardens that lined the river. Traders and merchants made vast fortunes and were able to fund lavish lifestyles in Palladian inspired mansions in the exclusive Garden Reach and Alipore districts of the city. Although trade bloomed, fortunes were made and honours bestowed, the city was renowned for its malaise and disease, and many afflicted British visitors spent the last days of their brief lives in India.

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Victoria Monument, Kolkata

A Scottish cemetery was created, as well as one for the English, which is the focus of this article. The cemetery opened in 1767, ten years after the Battle of Plassey, which cemented British control over Bengal. The dead were taken via raised causeway to what were then, the outskirts of the city, away from the River and into marshy land. Illuminated by torchlight, the ceremonies took place after dark and the coffin was carried out to the cemetery, sometimes accompanied by canon fire.

A brief time on earth did not limit the size of one’s mausoleum nor the tributes bestowed, and the demand for plots in the cemetery resulted in rather cramped conditions with ever-extravagant tombs, temples, obelisks, pyramids and rotundas competing for attention and space.

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South Park Street Cemetery 

Today, the cemetery is surrounded by the mega-metropolis of Kolkata, its walls clad with advertisements and hoardings, an encroachment that reveals the prime real-estate value of fashionable Park Street.

The entrance is a portal into another world, an overgrown necropolis of dilapidated and listing tombs held together in some cases by creepers and vines. The sunlight is diffused through the trees and their shade and cooling effect creates a calm and suitably peaceful setting for exploration, aided by a grave register and plan obtained at the entrance for 100 Rupees. The pleasure of reading about the cemetery’s occupants, the sometimes delightful (occasionally hyperbolic) descriptions of their personalities and feats is only matched by the staggering collection of mausoleums to discover. Elizabeth Jane Barwell is noted as being the ‘The Celebrated Miss Sanderson’, prior to her marrying a ‘Richard Barwell Esq.’ who died ‘aged about 23 years’ and was noted as being ‘The Friend of Warren Hastings’. Colonel Charles Russell Deare’s demise was to be ‘slain by cannon-ball at the storming of Tippoo Sultans Stronghold at Santinungulam’. Others are less dramatic but reveal something of the everyday activities, such as Gregory Jackson’s inscription from 1815,  ‘Many years Company agent for loading and unloading the Honorable Companys Ships at Kedgeree’.  Colesworthy Grant, died in 1880, is remembered for being the founder of the Calcutta Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. In some cases we no longer know who is interned in these exaggerated structures; a sad and slightly ironic situation­ as these monuments were intended to immortalise and suspend the transient.

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South Park Street Cemetery 

Two tombs stand out, both in terms of design and their occupants. The extremely large elongated white pyramid-cum-obelisk in the centre of the cemetery houses Sir William ‘Orientalist’ Jones, the founder of the Asiatic Society, Sanskrit scholar and judge. A far humbler tomb, but perhaps more interesting is that for eccentric Irishman, Major-General Charles Stuart. Known as ‘Hindoo Stuart’, because he adopted the local way of life, including bathing in the Ganges, wearing of Indian clothes and adopting the Hindu faith (yet is curiously buried in a Christian cemetery). He also wrote a tract encouraging European women to adopt the sari whilst in India. His tomb resembles a small Hindu temple, and contains some of the sculptures and idols he collected. It is a delightful and playful addition. The remaining sculptures from Stuart’s collection are now housed in the British Museum as part of the Bridge .

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‘Hindoo’ Stuart’s Tomb South Park Street Cemetery 

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Orientalist Jones’ Obelisk South Park Street Cemetery 

The cemetery was at one point completely neglected and overgrown with vegetation, wildlife and some of the tombs were even being used as shelters for the living. Thankfully the British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia and the Calcutta Historical Society are now actively involved in repairing and maintaining the cemetery. The main paths through the graveyard are clear, but the burial plots have a forgotten jungle settlement feel. Most of the tombs are constructed in brick and then rendered, which is no match for the monsoons and extreme temperature changes. The Bengal delta is alluvial mud and stoneless, so any stone used had to be expensively shipped from Madras, and marble was ransacked and recycled from the ancient ruined capital of Gaur. Some of the tombs have now collapsed and others are charming, but vulnerable, ruins. A programme of restoration is underway and recent renovations are showing real promise, although Jones’s sepultura has been rather enthusiastically restored, painted in a glaring white, complete with a red rubber floor finish around its perimeter.

In addition to the inscriptions and architecture, many of the tombs have carved decoration including the skull-and-crossbones, anchors, winged hourglass, and upturned torches, as well as the usual urns.

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French Mansion, Chandernagore

The British presence in India is well known; less so is that of the French. Pondicherry was their major trading settlement in the south of India, but 20 miles north of Kolkata is another French outpost called Chandernagore. Although most of India was under British control various trading post concessions were granted to other nations. Chandernagore is a small town located on the banks of the river and contains an eleaborate landing stage as well as some exquisite baroque mansions.

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Landing Stage, Hooghly River, Chandernagore

It too has a cemetery. Although not as grandiose as Park Street and in a worse state of repair, it contains some notable mausolea, and a rather good temple (almost Doric but not quite), that is built in ashlar and has weathered more gracefully than its neighbours. The cemetery has recently been extensively catalogued but there seems to be little funding available for preservation and restoration.

 

 

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French Cemetery, Chandgernagore

A version of this article appeared in Follies Magazine, Autumn 2014, issue 89, p.4-5

http://www.follies.org.uk/

Late Colonial Architecture in Ghana, Journal Article

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July 18, 2014
Africa, British Colonial Architecture, Fry & Drew, Tropical Architecture
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In the laboratory and in the field: hybrid housing design for the African city in late-colonial and decolonising Ghana (1945–57)

Viviana d’Auria, The Journal of Architecture Volume 19, Issue 3, 2014

This paper considers the case of late-colonial and ‘transitional’ Ghana (1945–57) to qualify the way in which ‘native’ dwelling practices were harnessed for housing design. Theories about the ‘colonial modern’ have underpinned the ambivalence of residential schemes and urbanisation strategies developed during decolonisation by modernist architects. Most documented among these is work in North Africa, with projects from Casablanca and Algiers taken as the epitome of how modernism memorably embraced the vernacular to amend its tenets in the early 1950s; however, British involvement in the colonies has more commonly been documented in relation to the tropical architecture canon, with a focus on institutional buildings rather than housing projects, especially in West Africa. Housing design, on the other hand, makes manifest the significance of the social and cultural dimensions as a basis for housing and urbanism during decolonisation in Ghana, downplayed to date because of a focus on climatic and economic factors. Projects by Fry, Drew, Drake and Lasdun, and by Alfred Alcock and Helga Richards, are discussed to gauge the extent of transcultural exchange while socio-economic surveys, experiments in building science and anthropological studies increasingly inspired the design process.

Read the full article here: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/feTHdMSVJgz2GHV5Biux/full

Architecture of Independence

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July 14, 2014
British Colonial Architecture
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Scottish independence. Should there be an independent Scotland, or should Scotland remain an integral part of the United Kingdom? As the clock ticks closer to the proposed referendum on 18 September 2014, the debate rages on. Although the mid-twentieth century independence of West African nations took place under completely different circumstances, this article uses the present independence debate to re-ignite a discussion on Nigeria’s decolonization years, the attainment of independence and the architecture which emerged as a consequence.

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The Governor General of Nigeria Sir James Robertson, and the new Nigerian Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa on Oct 1, 1960

 

The clamour for independence and self-rule in West Africa gradually began after World War II.  This achieved its highpoint in 1957, when Ghana became the first African nation to attain independence and transit from colonial rule to self-governance. One feature which perhaps, became widely synonymous with the country’s drive for independence was the Pan-Africanist movement and the frontline role of Kwame Nkrumah, who later became Ghana’s pioneering president. However, a less referenced but equally important tribute to Ghana’s independence, were the architectural monuments which were constructed to commemorate the event. Chief among these is the Accra independence arch.

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Independence Arch, Accra, 1957

 

As with Ghana, self-governance calls had pervaded different levels of Nigerian society before the October 1 1960 independence date. The most prominent perhaps were those propagated through African edited newspapers like the West African Pilot, and which echoed the voices of native elites and politicians. Nigeria’s formal decolonization process however appears to have started with the 1945 promulgation of Richard’s constitution. Not only had this constitution granted greater levels of native participation in the legislative house, it equally paved way for the much sought after regional system of governance. Nigeria was therefore reorganized along political and administrative lines into a Western region with headquarters at Ibadan, a Northern region with headquarters at Kaduna, and, an Eastern region with headquarters at Enugu, while Lagos remained the Federal Headquarters. With this new organizational structure came the formation of regional houses of Assembly and the election of its representative members.

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Design for Eastern Nigeria parliamentary complex, 1960

Of equal importance were the new parliamentary complexes being built to usher in the emerging era of self-governance, beginning from October 1 1960. The new buildings may therefore be described as some of Nigeria‘s most prominent symbols of transition to self-rule, and were indeed the ‘architecture of independence’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Research Presentation

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May 26, 2014
British Colonial Architecture
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14 May was a PhD research presentation day at the school of architecture. Students were required to describe the progress made in their research; what had been done in the previous year, what the foregoing research plan is, and how they intend to get it done. Going by these guidelines, I outlined how my research had developed from inception to its current stage of findings. I equally provided a Gantt chart to relay the progress made, as well as the projections for ensuing months.

My research has been examining Nigeria’s Public Works Department (PWD), with specific interest in the composition and outputs of its architectural unit between 1900 and 1960. The explorations have largely been conducted along three historiographical strands. First is on the department’s administration and its linkages to the wider colonial system of the day, the second on standardized building production practices it employed, and third on its architects; who they were, why they came to practice in Nigeria and how this relates to the wider notion of empire building. Going by the PWD flourish period also, these architects appear to provide the pioneering legacy in the study of Nigeria’s architectural profession.

 

Exhibition Review: Charles Correa at the RIBA

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April 28, 2014
British Colonial Architecture, India
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‘Charles Correa India’s Greatest Architect’

This review was originally published (without the photographs) in the JSAH Journal, Vol 73, no.1, March 2014.

 

‘Charles Correa India’s Greatest Architect’ exhibition featured at the RIBA, London, as part of its ‘Out of India’ season, that also included numerous events running throughout the summer. Film screenings, discussions, a symposium with Charles Correa, and a lecture by the great man himself will subject the work to an extended period of interrogation where proper debate can ensue.

India has become something of a hot topic, with recent high profile visits made to the country by Prime Minister David Cameron, coupled with numerous television programmes and radio broadcasts, trade delegations and educational visits; the UK is hungry for all things Indian.

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The exhibition at the RIBA forms part of this renewed interest, but was largely triggered by Correa’s decision to donate his personal archive of over 6,000 artifacts to the RIBA – the largest single donation to their collection by a non-British architect. This fine array of drawings, models and written ephemera spanning from 1958 to the present, promises to be a most valuable resource to scholars and students, and for those unable to visit London, has been digitized in its entirety (more about this later). Correa is at liberty to give his work to whomever he pleases, but the choice of a British Institution, and a Royal one at that, may raise some eyebrows and probably came as a shock even to the RIBA. Correa was born during the colonial era and his work has consistently looked to develop an architecture that was modern, firmly entrenched as Indian, and certainly not European. Despite this, Correa felt that the RIBA would look after the work and ensure that it is properly catalogued and preserved – a feat that sadly would be difficult to achieve in India (a visit to the Chandigarh City Museum demonstrates how Le Corbusier’s drawings have been treated…)

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The exhibition, designed by David Adjaye and curated by Irena Murray, is spread over two floors with the lower level including a series of timber plinths painted in the delightful hues of paprika, turmeric and saffron invoking the Jawahar Kala Kendra project. It is a dramatic introduction to the work that leaves one expectant of something really special but sadly the exhibition fails to do justice to this enigmatic architect. Architecture exhibitions are peculiar affairs, not least because the architecture rarely features in architecture exhibitions, instead, we see the machinery created as a result of, or to enable the production of, the artifact in question – what Correa calls the trail left by a snail. The gap between drawing and architecture is especially apparent when viewing Correa’s work; the buildings and spaces (‘the empty centre’ in Correa’s parlance) really need to be moved through, set against an open sky and as Adjaye describes in the catalogue, absorbed through the soles of the feet. His work is not really captured by a rendered elevation or static photograph, nevertheless, considerable pleasure is gained from studying his sketches that go someway in connecting us to the person behind the drawings. Through the pencil lines and coloured crayons we can discern something of the architect who made the marks – but at this exhibition we are not even looking at the actual drawings. Instead, they are scanned reproductions on mountboard. Perhaps this would not matter if they were not so grossly enlarged to the point that they are pixelated. I found this to be most distressing, as when viewed in the catalogue (which is excellent and highly recommended) they look wonderful. As the original drawings could not be displayed due to the lighting at the RIBA it might have been a better idea not to show any at all, or just to reproduce the images as the small drawings that they are, rather than distorting them in this manner. The photographs are more forgiving, but some of them are also pixelated and not really of exhibition quality. Despite these distractions, the models go a long way to make things better. The Hindustan Lever Pavilion model in tropical hardwood is spectacular and still a radical design despite being over fifty years old, and the model of the Kanchanjunga Apartments stands at over 6ft tall putting the apartments at eye-level and immediately showing the vantage points and interiors. The housing section is the real strength of the exhibition, and arguably of Correa’s career – from the ‘Tube House’ and one-off houses in the Ahmedabadian brick and concrete style, through to the courtyard houses of Belapur and the PREVI experimental houses in Peru he has demonstrated how to design dwellings. It is these schemes, along with Correa’s analysis and proposals for Mumbai that put him up there as one of India’s greatest architects (what will the RIBA call the exhibition if Doshi follows suit with his archive? India’s Greatest Architect 2?)

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The rest of the content I found lacking and slightly predictable; I was hoping to see some of the less well-known designs, or greater analysis of some of the larger projects. For example, the confrontational LIC building in Delhi is sadly missing from the exhibition – how does that building fit with Correa’s objective of site and context, for instance? In many ways the designer and curator have played it too safe, and other than the outstanding project in Lisbon, Portugal, and the Po-Mo British Council building in Delhi we are not shown much of the playful later work.

The digital archive interface has been carefully crafted and as well as including the entire collection of drawings contains photographs of the models, buildings and scans of magazine articles and books that discuss the projects in question. The digital archive should have played a central role in the exhibition and broken away, at least in part, from the static mode of exhibiting and the passive role of viewing an exhibition – it was the perfect opportunity to project all of his work in a small space and to use the displays to critically examine the work, and perhaps to further explore why Correa might just be India’s greatest architect.

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The catalogue: Irena Murray, Charles Correa India’s Greatest Architect (London, RIBA Publishing, 2013), price £9.95

Transnational Architecture Group in Sicily

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April 17, 2014
Africa, British Colonial Architecture, Fry & Drew, India, Middle East, Tropical Architecture
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Transnational Architecture Group in Sicily

The Transnational Architecture Group (TAG) were participants in the just concluded Cost Action conference, “Rethinking European Architecture Beyond Europe”, from 13 to 16 April 2014. Pictured are the founder of the Group, Dr Iain Jackson on the far right, along with three members; Dr Ola Uduku (2nd Right), Yemi Salami (middle), and Jacopo Galli (far left).

Dr Jackson is a Senior lecturer at the School of Architecture, University of Liverpool, and Yemi Salami is running her PhD in the same department under he’s supervision. Dr Uduku is a Reader at the Edinburgh School of Landscape Architecture (ESALA), and Jacopo Galli a PhD Student at University of Venice Italy, (IUAV) .

At the conference, Dr Jackson and Dr Uduku had co-chaired the session titled ‘Examining tropical architecture in different international contexts’, while Yemi and Jacopo had both presented papers within the same session. Yemi’s paper, titled “British Architects in the colonial PWD: Unravelling Nigeria’s early Government Architecture”, saw her examining Nigeria’s colonial administrative architecture, though a time-line of events that produced a network of architects and specialized building design mechanisms. Jacopo’s Paper is titled “From tropical Medicine to tropical architecture.” In it he examines the generic process by which tropical health parameters had determined climate influenced designs for the tropical regions.

By and Large however, the conference provided an opportunity to deliberate on research trajectories in a varying range of subjects within the conference theme, present current research findings, get useful feedback on on-going research, and of course to savour some Mediterranean cuisine and sunshine!

 

 

 

Conference: Beyond Architecture Beyond Europe

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April 16, 2014
Africa, British Colonial Architecture, India, Tropical Architecture
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European Architecture Beyond Europe ; E-Cost Action

The final conference for the ‘Architecture Beyond Europe‘ network has just finished in Palermo, Sicily. We met in the wonderful Scarpa restored Palazzo Chiaramonte Sterri, and as usual it was a very interesting gathering with participants, contributors and audience members hailing from all corners of the world. Six packed sessions covered the Transnational, Development Aid, Tropical Architecture, Identity, Methods and Exile. In addition two keynotes were given by Sibel Zandi-Sayek (William and Mary, Virginia) on the Ottoman-British Networks and Lukasz Stanek (Manchester) on Architects from socialist countries working in Ghana. The full programme is attached here: FC_program_final

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The network has opened up many new opportunities and collaborative endeavours, as well as a high quality new journal (eager to receive submissions): for more details see:  ABE.

Current Research: Modern Architecture in Nigeria

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February 21, 2014
Africa, British Colonial Architecture, Fry & Drew, Tropical Architecture
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‘Suitable lodgings for students’: modern space, colonial development and decolonization in Nigeria

Tim Livsey has recently published his research into Ibadan University in Urban History Journal. The article argues that development and modernity have had spatial manifestations. It considers understandings of modern space in colonial and post-colonial Nigeria through the study of University College Ibadan, the country’s first university institution founded in 1948. It contends that the university was shaped by existing West African conceptions of modern space and university buildings took on new meanings with the shifting politics of decolonization. The article also suggests that colonial development involved a range of groups and forms of knowledge. It seeks to recognize the strength of colonial institutions and cultures but also the limits to and contingencies in late colonial power.

It also has some great archival images of Ibadan University from Cambridge University and SOAS Archives.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0963926813001065