Colonialism found in the Modernist project a powerful and willing partner for the shaping of conquered territories in the southern hemisphere. Today, amid a new wave of colonial activity based on subtler and less easily identifiable strategies, little is done to understand its effects on the way people live and give form to their shelters. Neo-colonialism is an urgent issue but one which most of the profession is ill-prepared to interrogate. — Architectural Review
Colonialism found in the Modernist project a powerful and willing partner for the shaping of conquered territories in the southern hemisphere. Today, amid a new wave of colonial activity based on subtler and less easily identifiable strategies, little is done to understand its effects on the way people live and give form to their shelters. Neo-colonialism is an urgent issue but one which most of the profession is ill-prepared to interrogate. In order to address the underlying questions of the appropriateness of architectural concepts and their technical implementation, local and foreign experience needs to come together in an unbiased way to negotiate the challenges of intercultural communication. This is an indispensable prerequisite if such cooperation is to have sustainable and productive results.
4 Comments
Indigenous architecture is for poor people.
Since when has environmental science, modern design and site palnning, modern construction become 'neo-colonialism'? Conversly, when has learning and adapting vernacular architecture solutions to modern architecture become cultural theft? Really.
I would like to know what the people who live there think...my bet is that they are happy to have whatever is built. Life is hard in the 3rd world and having a new resource is usually more important than maintaining indigenous identity...after all, they do not view themselves as being some exotic indigenous peoples...above all they view themselves as people with needs...mothers, fathers, sons...A form of racism imo when a westerner wants to perserve and romanticize something like a favela, mud floor shelter, etc... Easy to preach preservation when you do not have to actually endure the hardships of living in the "exotic"...Then again, when it comes to other customs, like scarification, bush meat, etc...we feel like we can impose our western morality... In other words, we want to preserve the "exotic" of our imagination...the Indiana jones hollywood verson of the exotic. Another atempt to maintain a safer sterile version of our adventorous imaginations...where have we seem this before?
I understand the concern of globalization, but this is the wrong front...a better one would be the big oil and mining industries...the bad foreign trade policy...the religous extremists...(cristian and muslim)
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