ART_HIST 390-0-1 Undergraduate Seminar: Resourcing Empire: Colonialism and Modern Architecture in a Global Age
This seminar will explore the entangled histories of colonialism and architectural modernism, from the mid-nineteenth century until the 1960s, at the onset of mass decolonization across the Global South. The course will look beyond the “laboratory” narrative of modernism as colonialism’s import, paying close attention to the role of local aesthetic and material practices, building technologies, environmental knowledge, and labor in the design of the colonial environment. Exploring stylistic forms of modernism and design theory in the imperial metropole, this course will also trace the European appropriation of indigenous cultural and material traditions and technical innovations. Expanding the scope of analysis beyond the urban scale, the seminar will situate the unique territorial character of colonial expansion during this period, and its reliance on emerging transregional infrastructures, within the broader framework of the industrialized “resource frontier.” Our inquiry into the built environment of the colonial past and its relationship to architecture’s modernity will be guided by contemporary debates and critical discourse that offer nuanced perspectives on the interlocking struggles over reparation, restitution, and the politics of memory.
