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Domestic/residential North America Race Uncategorized

Devon House, Kingston 1881: Rising Resilience of the Black and Enslaved

Kingston, a city in Jamaica, has mostly been ignored by historians despite it being the fourth largest town in the British Atlantic before the American Revolution and the town with the largest enslaved population in British America before emancipation. Slave trade in Jamaica was at its height, from the early 1770s through to the early […]

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Asia British Domestic/residential

The Bungalow: A Colonial Residence

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 […]

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British Domestic/residential Europe Garden/park/landscape

Castle Howard, Yorkshire, 1699-1801

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 […]

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Domestic/residential French North America Public/government Race Settler colonialism Uncategorized

Sans-Souci Palace, 1813: Architecture of Liberation in the French Atlantic

Introduction The Caribbean is a region historically notable for its legacy of colonization and slave labour. As early as the 16th century enslaved Africans were shipped to islands in the West Indies to work on plantations owned and operated by Europeans. In particular, France claimed a substantial amount of territory for its monarchy, and took […]

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Africa British Domestic/residential Portuguese Public/government

Justice Akwa residence, Anomabo 1900: Reflection of Status, Modernity, and Resistance

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 […]

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Asia British Community/urbanism Domestic/residential

The Jackson Plan for Singapore: Subversion within Segregated Fabric

Founded in 1819, the British colony of Singapore was established as an administrative and trade hub for the Malayan peninsula, intended both to cement a British presence in the region, and create a platform to compete with and contain Dutch influence in the lucrative region. Singapore’s original planning document, The Jackson Plan was drawn between […]

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Asia British Domestic/residential Public/government

Government House, Calcutta: A Symbol of Imperialism

In 1773, the Raj began once the Crown appointed the first official governor-general of India to oversee the operations of the private British East India Company (BEIC); this was the British effort to bring the Enlightenment to India with their primary focus being on Calcutta, a city now known as Kolkata.1 Initially, Calcutta was a […]

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