London's Victoria and Albert Museum has launched its Tropical Modernism exhibition, which highlights the architectural movement's evolution from colonial import to a "tool of nation building".
According to the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A), the exhibition aims to examine the complex context, power dynamics and post-colonial legacy of tropical modernism ? an architectural style that developed in South Asia and West Africa in the late 1940s ? while also centralising and celebrating its hidden figures.
London's V&A museum has opened a major exhibition exploring tropical modernism
"Tropical modernism is experiencing something of a modish revival as an exotic and escapist style popular in verdant luxury hotels, bars and concrete jungle houses," the exhibition's lead curator Christopher Turner told Dezeen. "But it has a problematic history and, through an examination of the context of British imperialism and the de-colonial struggle, the exhibition seeks to look at the history of tropical modernism before and after Independence, and show something of the politics behind the concrete," he continued.
The exhibition traces the evolution of tropical modernism within a South Asian and West African context
The exhibition follows the V&A's Tropical Modernism exhibition at the 2023 Venice Biennale, which revealed the team's precursory research on tropical modernism in a West African setting.
For the in-house iteration of the exhibition, addi...