Culture Politics & the Built Environment Series
By Helen Gyger, Sun-Young Park, Itohan Osayimwese and
()
About this series
As India moved from colonial rule to independence, the Indian government, business entities, international NGOs, and intergovernmental agencies took major initiatives to modernize housing conditions and the domestic environment of the state’s low-income population. Of Greater Dignity than Riches traces multiple international origins of austerity as an essential ingredient of postcolonial development. By prescribing model villages, communities, and ideal houses for the working class, this project of austerity eventually reduced poverty into a stylized architectural representation. In this rich and original study, Karim explains the postwar and postcolonial history of low-cost housing as an intertwined process of global transferences of knowledge, Cold War cultural politics, postcolonial nationalism, and the politics of economic development.
Titles in the series (8)
- Governing by Design: Architecture, Economy, and Politics in the Twentieth Century
13
Governing by Design offers a unique perspective on twentieth-century architectural history. It disputes the primacy placed on individuals in the design and planning process and instead looks to the larger influences of politics, culture, economics, and globalization to uncover the roots of how our built environment evolves. In these chapters, historians offer their analysis on design as a vehicle for power and as a mediator of social currents. Power is defined through a variety of forms: modernization, obsolescence, technology, capital, ergonomics, biopolitics, and others. The chapters explore the diffusion of power through the establishment of norms and networks that frame human conduct, action, identity, and design. They follow design as it functions through the body, in the home, and at the state and international level. Overall, Aggregate views the intersection of architecture with the human need for what Foucault termed "governmentality"—societal rules, structures, repetition, and protocols—as a way to provide security and tame risk. Here, the conjunction of power and the power of design reinforces governmentality and infuses a sense of social permanence despite the exceedingly fluid nature of societies and the disintegration of cultural memory in the modern era.
- Building Modern Turkey: State, Space, and Ideology in the Early Republic
13
Building Modern Turkey offers a critical account of how the built environment mediated Turkey's transition from a pluralistic (multiethnic and multireligious) empire into a modern, homogenized nation-state following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. Zeynep Kezer argues that the deliberate dismantling of ethnic and religious enclaves and the spatial practices that ensued were as integral to conjuring up a sense of national unity and facilitating the operations of a modern nation-state as were the creation of a new capital, Ankara, and other sites and services that embodied a new modern way of life. The book breaks new ground by examining both the creative and destructive forces at play in the making of modern Turkey and by addressing the overwhelming frictions during this profound transformation and their long-term consequences. By considering spatial transformations at different scales—from the experience of the individual self in space to that of international geopolitical disputes—Kezer also illuminates the concrete and performative dimensions of fortifying a political ideology, one that instills in the population a sense of membership in and allegiance to the nation above all competing loyalties and ensures its longevity.
- Modern Architecture in Mexico City: History, Representation, and the Shaping of a Capital
13
Mexico City became one of the centers of architectural modernism in the Americas in the first half of the twentieth century. Invigorated by insights drawn from the first published histories of Mexican colonial architecture, which suggested that Mexico possessed a distinctive architecture and culture, beginning in the 1920s a new generation of architects created profoundly visual modern buildings intended to convey Mexico's unique cultural character. By midcentury these architects and their students had rewritten the country's architectural history and transformed the capital into a metropolis where new buildings that evoked pre-conquest, colonial, and International Style architecture coexisted. Through an exploration of schools, a university campus, a government ministry, a workers' park, and houses for Diego Rivera and Luis Barragan, Kathryn O'Rourke offers a new interpretation of modern architecture in the Mexican capital, showing close links between design, evolving understandings of national architectural history, folk art, and social reform. This book demonstrates why creating a distinctively Mexican architecture captivated architects whose work was formally dissimilar, and how that concern became central to the profession.
- Colonialism and Modern Architecture in Germany
15
Over the course of the nineteenth century, drastic social and political changes, technological innovations, and exposure to non-Western cultures affected Germany's built environment in profound ways. The economic challenges of Germany's colonial project forced architects designing for the colonies to abandon a centuries-long, highly ornamental architectural style in favor of structural technologies and building materials that catered to the local contexts of its remote colonies, such as prefabricated systems. As German architects gathered information about the regions under their influence in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific—during expeditions, at international exhibitions, and from colonial entrepreneurs and officials—they published their findings in books and articles and organized lectures and exhibits that stimulated progressive architectural thinking and shaped the emerging modern language of architecture within Germany itself. Offering in-depth interpretations across the fields of architectural history and postcolonial studies, Itohan Osayimwese considers the effects of colonialism, travel, and globalization on the development of modern architecture in Germany from the 1850s until the 1930s. Since architectural developments in nineteenth-century Germany are typically understood as crucial to the evolution of architecture worldwide in the twentieth century, this book globalizes the history of modern architecture at its founding moment.
- Building Character: The Racial Politics of Modern Architectural Style
In the nineteenth-century paradigm of architectural organicism, the notion that buildings possessed character provided architects with a lens for relating the buildings they designed to the populations they served. Advances in scientific race theory enabled designers to think of “race” and “style” as manifestations of natural law: just as biological processes seemed to inherently regulate the racial characters that made humans a perfect fit for their geographical contexts, architectural characters became a rational product of design. Parallels between racial and architectural characters provided a rationalist model of design that fashioned some of the most influential national building styles of the past, from the pioneering concepts of French structural rationalism and German tectonic theory to the nationalist associations of the Chicago Style, the Prairie Style, and the International Style. In Building Character, Charles Davis traces the racial charge of the architectural writings of five modern theorists—Eugene Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Gottfried Semper, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and William Lescaze—to highlight the social, political, and historical significance of the spatial, structural, and ornamental elements of modern architectural styles.
- Ideals of the Body: Architecture, Urbanism, and Hygiene in Postrevolutionary Paris
Modern hygienic urbanism originated in the airy boulevards, public parks, and sewer system that transformed the Parisian cityscape in the mid-nineteenth century. Yet these well-known developments in public health built on a previous moment of anxiety about the hygiene of modern city dwellers. Amid fears of national decline that accompanied the collapse of the Napoleonic Empire, efforts to modernize Paris between 1800 and 1850 focused not on grand and comprehensive structural reforms, but rather on improving the bodily and mental fitness of the individual citizen. These forgotten efforts to renew and reform the physical and moral health of the urban subject found expression in the built environment of the city—in the gymnasiums, swimming pools, and green spaces of private and public institutions, from the pedagogical to the recreational. Sun-Young Park reveals how these anxieties about health and social order, which manifested in emerging ideals of the body, created a uniquely spatial and urban experience of modernity in the postrevolutionary capital, one profoundly impacted by hygiene, mobility, productivity, leisure, spectacle, and technology.
- Improvised Cities: Architecture, Urbanization, and Innovation in Peru
Beginning in the 1950s, an explosion in rural-urban migration dramatically increased the population of cities throughout Peru, leading to an acute housing shortage and the proliferation of self-built shelters clustered in barriadas, or squatter settlements. Improvised Cities examines the history of aided self-help housing, or technical assistance to self-builders, which took on a variety of forms in Peru from 1954 to 1986. While the postwar period saw a number of trial projects in aided self-help housing throughout the developing world, Peru was the site of significant experiments in this field and pioneering in its efforts to enact a large-scale policy of land tenure regularization in improvised, unauthorized cities. Gyger focuses on three interrelated themes: the circumstances that made Peru a fertile site for innovation in low-cost housing under a succession of very different political regimes; the influences on, and movements within, architectural culture that prompted architects to consider self-help housing as an alternative mode of practice; and the context in which international development agencies came to embrace these projects as part of their larger goals during the Cold War and beyond.
- Of Greater Dignity than Riches: Austerity and Housing Design in India
Extreme poverty, which intensified in India during colonial rule, peaked in the 1920s—after decades of imperialist exploitation, famine, and disease—a time when architects, engineers, and city authorities proposed a new type of housing for India’s urban poor and industrial workers. As Farhan Karim argues, economic scarcity became a central inspiration for architectural modernism in the subcontinent. As India moved from colonial rule to independence, the Indian government, business entities, international NGOs, and intergovernmental agencies took major initiatives to modernize housing conditions and the domestic environment of the state’s low-income population. Of Greater Dignity than Riches traces multiple international origins of austerity as an essential ingredient of postcolonial development. By prescribing model villages, communities, and ideal houses for the working class, this project of austerity eventually reduced poverty into a stylized architectural representation. In this rich and original study, Karim explains the postwar and postcolonial history of low-cost housing as an intertwined process of global transferences of knowledge, Cold War cultural politics, postcolonial nationalism, and the politics of economic development.
Read more from Helen Gyger
National Security Through a Cockeyed Lens: How Cognitive Bias Impacts U.S. Foreign Policy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Petroleum Triangle: Oil, Globalization, and Terror Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChallenged Hegemony: The United States, China, and Russia in the Persian Gulf Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Culture Politics & the Built Environment
Related ebooks
Nuggets for the Soul: Poems That Will Inspire You Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIsfjell Point Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBuilding a Snowman and Five Fables of Adventure Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTales from William F. Nolan's Dark Universe Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRuth & Freddy #0 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBatty: The Adventures of Boomer and Matilda Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLegend of Isis #6: Volume 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSweet Pea Saves the Rainbows Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGlobo Arte March 2022 magazine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Caboodle of Cat Tales Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPolitical Power: Michele Bachmann Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOdyssey Presents: Gallery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVincent Price Presents #06 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsExtreme Rhyming Poetry: Over 400 Inspirational Poems of Wit, Wisdom, and Humor (Five Books in One) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Sonoma - Valley of the Moon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChildren's Ten Commandments Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Blue Meteor Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOrbit: Mark Zuckerberg, Creator of Facebook Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJourney through Time Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVincent Price Presents: Phibes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCrossed Wires: Team-Up Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTill Death Us Do Part Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFAME: Pop Stars #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJourney to the Moon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsyellow promises Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpecial and Different: The Autistic Traveler: Judgment, Redemption, & Victory Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJustly Poetic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTribute: Jerry Garcia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpace Women Beyond the Stratosphere #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYour Guide To: Fearless Entrepreneurship Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Architecture For You
Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Architecture 101: From Frank Gehry to Ziggurats, an Essential Guide to Building Styles and Materials Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The New Bohemians Handbook: Come Home to Good Vibes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Fix Absolutely Anything: A Homeowner's Guide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Feng Shui Modern Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The New Bohemians: Cool & Collected Homes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cozy Minimalist Home: More Style, Less Stuff Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Live Beautiful Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Down to Earth: Laid-back Interiors for Modern Living Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Martha Stewart's Organizing: The Manual for Bringing Order to Your Life, Home & Routines Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Build Shipping Container Homes With Plans Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Rustic Modern Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Making Midcentury Modern Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Giza Power Plant: Technologies of Ancient Egypt Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Home Sweet Maison: The French Art of Making a Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flatland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Disney's Land: Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park That Changed the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Become An Exceptional Designer: Effective Colour Selection For You And Your Client Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Southern Rustic Cabin Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Foxfire Living: Design, Recipes, and Stories from the Magical Inn in the Catskills Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Year-Round Solar Greenhouse: How to Design and Build a Net-Zero Energy Greenhouse Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Nesting Place: It Doesn't Have to Be Perfect to Be Beautiful Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Travel Home: Design with a Global Spirit Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Solar Power Demystified: The Beginners Guide To Solar Power, Energy Independence And Lower Bills Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Old-House Doctor: The Essential Guide to Repairing, Restoring, and Rejuvenating Your Old Home Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Brief Guide to the History of Architectural Styles Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Culture Politics & the Built Environment
0 ratings0 reviews