Colonial Modernities Building, Dwelling and Architecture in British India and Ceylon

A carefully crafted selection of essays from international experts, this book explores the effect of colonial architecture and space on the societies involved - both the colonizer and the colonized. Focusing on British India and Ceylon, the essays explore the discursive tensions between the various different scales and dimensions of such 'empire-building' practices and constructions. Providing a thorough exploration of these tensions, "Colonial Modernities" challenges the traditional literature on the architecture and infrastructure of the former European empires, not least that of the British Indian 'Raj'. Illustrated with seventy-five halftone images, it is a fascinating and thoroughly grounded exposition of the societal impact of colonial architecture and engineering.

Part 1: Frames of Discourse 1. Between Materiality and Representation: Framing an Architectural Critique of Colonial South Asia Peter Scriver and Vikramaditya Prakash 2. Stones and Texts:The ArchitecturalHistoriography ofColonial Indiaand its Colonial-Modern Contexts Peter Scriver 3.The Stone Books of Orientalism Stephen CairnsPart 2: Institutional Frameworks 4. Empire-Building and Thinking in the Public Works Department of British India Peter Scriver 5. 'Strangers within the Gate': Artisanry as Supplement of Labour in the Crafting of Colonial India Arindam Dutta 6. Between Copying and Creation: The Jeypore Portfolio of Architectural DetailsVikramaditya Prakash 7. Institutional Audiences and Architectural Style: The Napier MuseumPaul WalkerPart 3: Domestic Frames of Practice8. A Tomb of One’s Own: TheGovernor’s House, Lahore Sylvia Shorto 9. The Other Face of Primitive Accumulation: The Garden House in British Colonial Bengal Swati Chattopadhyay 10. The Trouser Under the Cloth: Personal Space in De-Colonization, Ceylon 1815-1948 Anoma Pieris 11.Negotiated Modernities: Symbolic Terrains of Housing in DelhiJyoti Hosagrahar

Peter Scriver is a researcher in the Centre for Asian and Middle-Eastern Architecture (CAMEA) and Senior Lecturer in Architecture, History and Theory at the University of Adelaide, Australia. He is the author, with Vikram Bhatt, of After the Masters: Contemporary Indian Architecture, and a forthcoming monograph, The Scaffolding of Empire, on the architecture and planning history of the Public Works Department of British India. Vikramaditya ("Vikram") Prakash is currently Chair of the Department of Architecture, University of Washington, having been previously Associate Dean of the College of Architecture and Urban Planning. He is author of Chandigarh's Le Corbusier: The Struggle for Modernity in Postcolonial India and (with Francis Ching and Mark Jarzombek) A Global History of Architecture.