A new exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, which runs until September, showcases the iconic architectural style adopted by India soon after its independence from British colonial rule in the 1950s.
‘Tropical Modernism: Architecture and Independence’ explores how a new generation of national architects more sensitive to local context gave birth to distinctive alternative modernisms, reflected in the creation of the brand-new city of Chandigarh in the 1950s. It taps into the work of British architects Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry, who initially developed the concept of Tropical Modernism, which eventually transformed into tools of nation-building as a symbol of internationalism and progressiveness for a newly independent India.
Therefore, Tropical Modernism, despite its colonial associations, became an architectural symbol of a postcolonial future, symbolising the utopian possibility of the transitional moment in which a break with the past was articulated through architecture and new freedoms were won. It centres around adapting a modernist aesthetic that valued function over ornament to the hot, humid conditions of the region.
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Christopher Turner, the V&A’s Keeper of Art, Architecture, Photography & Design and Curator of the exhibition, said: “The story of Tropical Modernism is one of colonialism and decolonisation, politics and power, defiance and independence; it is not just about the past, but also about the present and the future.
“The exhibition looks at the colonial origins of tropical modernism in British West Africa, and the survival of the style in the post-colonial period when it symbolised the independence and progressiveness of newly independent countries like India and Ghana.
“As we look to a new future in an era of climate change might Tropical Modernism, which used the latest building and environmental science then available to passively cool buildings, serves as a useful guide?”
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The exhibition includes models, drawings, letters, photographs, and archival ephemera documenting the key figures and moments of the Tropical Modernist movement, and a half-hour film installation displayed on three screens. These artifacts don’t just speak to architecture, but also about modernism’s wider role in narratives about decolonisation and the construction of national identity.
