Non West Modernist Past: On Architecture & Modernities

This book provides a comprehensive historical and theoretical overview of modern architecture in regions outside the “West” — Europe and North America. It brings together contributions from leading scholars in the interdisciplinary fields of architecture history, architecture theory, area studies, sociology and cultural studies. It interrogates Eurocentric views of modern architecture as autonomous and homogeneous and posits a heteronomous and heterogeneous understanding of modern architecture. Drawing from interdisciplinary theories, this book explores the complex relations between modernism, modernity and modernization and their entanglements with colonialism and postcolonialism, nationalism and development, globalization and regionalism. Closely examining the diverse cases of architectural modernisms in China, India, Indonesia, Singapore, Turkey, Brazil and South Africa, this book transcends the geographic division of labour in area studies to offer a broad comparative survey of modernisms beyond the West. It also covers heterogeneous temporalities of modernism today, tracing the continuities and discontinuities between the past and the present, from the proto-modern to the post-modern, from the west to the rest.This book is an essential resource for understanding architectural modernism outside its “western” regions and mindsets. Its in-depth discussion and insights will be invaluable to specialists, academics and graduate students. It is also comprehensive enough to be used as a textbook for undergraduate students, and general enough for practitioners and the curious general reader.