If Walls Could Talk

The austere buildings of Chandigarh, India cut across the region’s semi-arid landscape like methodically honed sculptures. Across South Asia and West Africa, sleek, stylish, and seamlessly constructed designs exist as both a vestige of a colonial past and an emblem of an independent future. Now, in a newly opened exhibition at the South Kensington location of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), visitors gaze upon the architectural style that was once described as “the Bauhaus of the tropics.”

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The exhibition, titled “Tropical Modernism: Architecture and Independence,” showcases the eponymous architectural style initially developed in West Africa by British architects, husband-and-wife duo Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry, and later reappropriated by Ghanaian architect John Owusu Addo and Indian architects Balkrishna Doshi and Prakash among others. Doshi and Prakash were among a new generation of architects spurred by a desire to reclaim the spaces once inhabited by colonial presence through the usage of more celebratory forms of modernism.

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Characterized by a chic practicality, Tropical Modernism does not rebel against the region’s atmospheric conditions but instead embraces them. The resulting design is simultaneously elegant and utilitarian. Brise soleils line the exterior walls of the buildings’ north and south facades, providing shade while allowing the passage of cool air. Overhanging wide eaves and adjustable louvers safeguard against intense sunlight and rain, with the latter also facilitating natural ventilation. Despite its colonial origins, Tropical Modernism has garnered appreciation among newly independent nations, with both former Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and former Ghanaian Prime Minister, Kwame Nkrumah, viewing it as a beacon of internationalism and progressiveness.

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The traveling exhibition at V&A, which runs until September 22, 2024, features models, drawings, letters, photographs, archival ephemera, and a half-hour film installation of key figures and stages of the Tropical Modernism movement. The exhibition not only calls attention to the architecture, but to the forming of national identity as well. “The story of Tropical Modernism is one of colonialism and decolonization, politics and power, defiance and independence,” Christopher Turner, the V&A’s Keeper of Art, Architecture, Photography & Design and Curator of the exhibition, shared in a statement. Born from British colonial rule before evolving into symbols of post-colonial freedom, Tropical Modernism illustrates the complex evolution of architecture and nationhood and perhaps can serve as a framework for developing contemporary climate change strategies. After all, as Turner went on to add, “It is not just about the past, but also about the present and the future.”

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“Tropical Modernism: Architecture and Independence” is on view until September 22, 2024 at the V&A South Kensington, Cromwell Rd, London SW7 2RL, United Kingdom.