Tomorrow, the V&A will be launching a major exhibition on Tropical Modernism, an architectural style pioneered by British architects Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry in the late 1940s.
On from March 2 until September 22 in the V&A’s Porter Gallery, the exhibition explores how Drew and Fry adapted Modernist principles for hot, humid climates in West Africa, creating a colonial architecture that valued function over ornamentation.
Working mainly in Ghana and India, Drew and Fry’s style gained prominence after independence with leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru and Kwame Nkrumah commissioning projects that symbolised progress and internationalism. The exhibition highlights how Tropical Modernism evolved post-independence, with local architects embracing alternative Modernisms rooted in their own context.
Despite its colonial origins, Tropical Modernism came to represent postcolonial aspirations for a utopian future. The exhibition showcases various artefacts, including models, drawings, photographs, and a film installation, illustrating the movement’s key figures and its broader significance in narratives of decolonisation and national identity construction.
Christopher Turner, the V&A’s Keeper of Art, Architecture, Photography & Design and Curator of the exhibition said: “The story of Tropical Modernism is one of colonialism and decolonization, politics and power, defiance and independence; it is not just about the past, but also about the present and the future.
The exhibition looks at the colonial origins of tropical modernism in British West Africa, and the survival of the style in the post-colonial period when it symbolised the independence and progressiveness of newly independent countries like India and Ghana.
We deliberately set out to complicate the history of tropical modernism by looking at the architecture against the anti-colonial struggle of the time, and by engaging with and centring South Asian and West African perspectives.
As we look to a new future in an era of climate change might Tropical Modernism, which used the latest building and environmental science then available to passively cool buildings, serve as a useful guide?”
To find out more, head here and to book tickets head here.
Find the V&A at Cromwell Road, SW7 2RL.