Arris

Abstract:

Existing histories define tropical architecture as a neo-colonial modernist discourse – exported from London to the existing and former colonies – to continue the imperial relationship between Britain and the tropics even after decolonization. In modernist discourses, tropical architecture is seen as a strain of critical regionalism that nevertheless reinforces the relationship of London as the metropole to the tropics. This paper departs from these histories to show how one of the key actors in the field of tropical architecture – Otto Koenigsberger – developed his ideas not in London, but in princely Mysore and New Delhi in India. Koenigsberger was a German émigré architect who worked for the Maharaja (king) of Mysore’s regime in India and later for the government of India. This paper argues that the genesis of Koenigsberger’s ideas can be traced to his experience in India, making the notion that tropical architecture was a discourse developed in London and disseminated centrifugally in the tropics problematic.