Semester:
Offered:
Vishal Khandelwal
This course explores architecture, urbanism, and design in colonial and postcolonial South Asia through the region’s interactions and exchanges with other parts of the world. Extending from early European presence in the subcontinent to the formalization of the British empire and its subsequent end that eventually led to the formation of current-day South Asian nation-states, the course analyzes urban, rural, and architectural spaces including the bungalow, the single-family apartment, and the village dwelling alongside other buildings and environments of residence, education, governance, and entertainment. It also probes how pedagogical developments affected the perception and reception of buildings and designed objects in ways that tested the operation of authority or influence during moments of production or collaboration. And it emphasizes multiple artistic and architectural media employed within diverse approaches to writing architectural and urban histories of the region. With a keen eye informed by recent methodologies in global art and architectural history, the course encourages the questioning of a global approach towards refining the same for students’ specific sub-fields or research and learning interests.