A Genealogy of Tropical Architecture

"In this masterly account of the evolution of tropical architecture, Jiat-Hwee Chang combines the insights of Foucauldian governmentality with in-depth historical research and a keen understanding of colonial exceptionality. Focussing on four building types – the home, the barracks, the hospital and ‘native’ housing - he uncovers the colonial lineage of modern architectural forms and offers a radical reinterpretation of the ancestry of architectural tropicality. While centring on Singapore, Chang’s theoretically informed and richly empirical study opens up a wider critical perspective on architectural history across the entire region of South and Southeast Asia." - David Arnold, Professor Emeritus, University of Warwick, UK, author of Colonizing the Body and The Problem of Nature

"Meticulous and rigorous, Jiat-Hwee Chang brings us the first major study convincingly to span Victorian and modern colonial architecture. From colonial bungalows, through barracks, hospitals, public housing, court buildings and shophouses, covering technoscientific research and architectural education, and drawing from rich visual and scientific material, the book provocatively re-draws our understanding of tropical architecture. This is a true ‘genealogy’, a history of an idea as much as an account of its technologies and architectural manifestations." - Mark Crinson, Professor of Architectural History, Birkbeck College (London), UK, author of Modern Architecture and the End of Empire

"Jiat-Hwee Chang gives us a masterful history of "tropical architecture" way before that term was invented. He shows us how this architecture is entangled with social constructions of nature, the politics of colonialism, and the development of post-colonial discourses. It is a substantive and fascinating account that will be of significance to the architecture practitioners and academics in the region and beyond." - Nezar AlSayyad, Professor of Architecture, Planning, Urban Design, and Urban History, University of California, Berkeley, USA

"In this important and timely book, Jiat-Hwee Chang argues that tropical architecture -- often understood as a localized response to climatic conditions in the global south -- was conceived and produced through (post)colonial networks of knowledge and power. Drawing upon the case of Singapore, Chang’s meticulous and carefully theorized account reveals how the tropical and its architectural variants are at once a mode of governing, a framework for biopolitics, and a historical struggle over technoscience." - C. Greig Crysler, Associate Professor of Architecture and Arcus Chair for Gender, Sexuality and the Built Environment, College of Environmental Design, UC Berkeley, USA

"Chang effectively demonstrates that all design knowledge is localized, and that only through its circulation through various institutions, agents and practices — 'technologies of distance,' in the author’s words, like prefabrication or data management — is it rendered as global."- Cole Roskam, University of Hong Kong

"The book is an expansively researched, well-written and beautifully crafted piece of scholarship that productively unsettles familiar narratives and political histories of tropical modern architecture….it is as delightful to read as it is engrossing." - Tariq Jazeel, University College London in Fabrications: The Journal of SAHANZ

"Chang offers a robust exploration of a range of issues that ambitiously deconstruct superstructures and meta narratives occurring at an imperial scale but tested at a local level, and this correlation ensures the study’s broader global reach... This book validates environments that were previously dismissed or commodified." - Anoma Pieris, University of Melbourne in Postcolonial Studies

"One of the strengths of the book is the clarity of its organization and argumentation, which allows for the complexity and richness of the research to come through… Overall, it is a welcome addition to an important area of scholarship, appealing equally to architectural historians as well as historians of technology." - Brian L. McLaren, University of Washington in Technology and Culture

"The book clearly shows that the discourse of sustainable architecture cannot be understood without its global political dimension. It also shows that the inclusion and exclusion of particular audiences in the colonial context lies at the heart of the global concept of a sustainable society." - Farhan Karim, University of Kansas in Planning Perspectives

"A Genealogy of Tropical Architecture [is] the result of a formidable and meticulously executed research effort, and anextraordinary piece of scholarship..." - Simon De Nys-Ketels, Ghent University in ABE Journal: Architecture Beyond Europe