Reconsidering Tropical Architecture and Urbanism

<p><b><i>Reconsidering Tropical Architecture and Urbanism</i></b><b> explores the complex factors - </b><b>from climate to colonialism -</b> <b>that have shaped ideas of tropical architecture from the eighteenth century to the present.</b><br><br>While many studies view tropical architecture simply as the development of climatic design strategies and technologies, this book looks deeper, aligning a history of tropical and subtropical architecture with cultural as well as environmental narratives. Themes – ranging from climate, tropical medicine, and health, through to race, identity, whiteness studies, development, decolonization, disaster and resilience – are each examined through a series of insightful case studies spanning diverse geographies including Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Australia. Together, they propose the tropical building or city as a cultural artefact, informed and influenced both by climate and by colonial and post-colonial discourses on the tropical imaginary.<br><br>Divided into four sections, each introduced by a key cultural or environmental historian, the book presents four overarching themes – Disease, Discomfort, Development, and Disaster – which encapsulate different anxieties surrounding colonisation, acclimatisation, settlement, and decolonisation.<br><br>Challenging existing perceptions of tropical architecture and inviting readers to critically reassess established narratives, <i>Reconsidering Tropical Architecture and Urbanism</i> presents an alternative history that exposes the intertwined relationships between tropical architecture, climate, colonialism, settler colonialism, and labour in the global south.</p>