This seminar examines tropical modernism as both a material legacy of coloniality and a site of resistance.

We will begin by situating modernism within the broader context of imperial expansion and anti-colonial resistance, tracing ideas from physical places that connect us to relevant memories, such as Wilhelmstraße in Mitte, to global movements that still resonate today, such as the Pan-Africanist Congresses. We will critically engage with architectural colonial export at different scales, focussing on German colonial exports to Africa and Modernist movements in the Global South spanning from India to Brazil, at each turn interrogating the shifting politics of preservation and memory. The aim is to find ways, from here, to turn the colonial gaze back on itself, and in doing so, tap into a practice that has been honed for generations before its present day “moment in the sun”.

Through a combination of readings, workshops, film screenings, and city walks, we will traverse the tensions between erasure and survival, appropriation and subversion in colonial and postcolonial space-making.

This seminar builds on previous inquiries of postcolonial urbanity, but no prior knowledge is required—only a willingness to critically question, reimagine, and resist. Attendance is mandatory, and contributing to topics, readings, or any other material is encouraged. We will work together toward a group presentation of individual topics in a format we will determine together at the end of the semester.