If you were to conjure an image of a Victorian colonial lifestyle, perhaps imagine yourself as a British officer stationed in rural India, you may picture this typical scene; a leisurely afternoon spent on a shaded verandah, surrounded by a lush garden dutifully tended by household staff. This idyllic domestic scene of colonial life within […]
Historically known as Burma, present day Myanmar has gone through significant transformations in power structures and national identity. This struggle can be symbolically represented through the architectural presence left by imperialist superpowers, most commonly, Great Britain. The imposition of architectural styles is one method of establishing empire and declaring power over a nation. Its strong presence […]
An English landscape garden using an eclectic combination of architectural typologies and building styles. Castle Howard is an English castle and landscape garden located in North Yorkshire. From a first glance, viewers tend to draw their attention towards the magnificent splendour of the castle, without paying much attention to the surrounding landscape. The ornamental architecture […]
A city built around resource extraction and the dispossession of indigenous lands and culture The Hastings Mill Store was built in 1865 and is an important case study to examine how British colonists used land as an extractive resource to build industrial capital in BC. The colonial government systematically displaced and dispossessed the lands and […]
The British Raj Thrives due to Mayo College In 1875, the British founded Mayo College in the town of Ajmer, located in the Rajputana (now known as Rajasthan) area in India. During the days of the British Empire, the area of Rajputana was divided into princely states, each having its own ruler who owed allegiance […]
All the colors, creeds, breeds, and voices become Rangoon; Rangoon was born in Rangoon, Rangoon was raised in Rangoon, Rangoon stood on par with other cities around the world. Proud Rangoon, the son of an urban city: (From Dressmaker Rangoon by Maung Chaw Nwe and translated by Kenneth Wong, 2013)1 The growth of British control […]
A Conflict of Dominion at the Slave Quarters Tuckahoe slave labour camp is located ten miles west of Richmond, Virginia and was first settled by the Randolph family in 1714 and was at one point the childhood home of Thomas Jefferson.1 Construction of the main house began soon after and ultimately underwent the addition of […]
In the late nineteenth century, Bombay transformed from a city of warehouses to become one of Britain’s finest imperial cities. As trade, wealth, and the population flourished, the colonial government embarked on the long-contemplated project of demolishing the old fort walls, to make room for the envisioned metropolis1. As Preeti Chopra discusses in her book, […]
One of the defining characteristics of 19th century social and cultural thought was a shift in man’s approach towards science and reinterpretation of the relationship between human creation and divine inspiration. The architectural debates that dominated this moment of history are expressed in the Oxford museum’s 1854 competition to create the two-storey natural history museum […]
The remnants left behind in Anomabo, a town on the coast of Ghana (figure 1), tell a story in the late 19th century of the elite members of the Gold Coast colony, known today as Ghana. They were constructing their own elegant mansions utilizing an popular British architecture styles1 that not only embraced the modernity […]