Architecture Under Nationalism

Bringing together case studies from Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia, this book provides an exploration of the relationship between architecture and nationalism. It includes essays grouped together in three thematic sections: Revisiting Nationalism, Interpreting Nationalism and Questioning Nationalism.

Unlike regionalism in architecture, which has been widely discussed in recent years, nationalism in architecture has not been so well explored and understood. However, the most powerful collective representation of a nation is through its architecture and how that architecture engages the global arena by expressing, defining and sometimes negating a sense of nation in order to participate in the international world. Bringing together case studies from Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia, this book provides a truly global exploration of the relationship between architecture and nationalism, via the themes of regionalism and representation, various national building projects, ethnic and trans-national expression, national identities and histories of nationalist architecture and the philosophies and sociological studies of nationalism. It argues that nationalism needs to be trans-national as a notion to be critically understood and the geographical scope of the proposed volume reflects the continuing relevance of the topic within current architectural scholarship as an overarching notion. The interdisciplinary essays are coherently grouped together in three thematic sections: Revisiting Nationalism, Interpreting Nationalism and Questioning Nationalism. These chapters, offer vignettes of the protean appearances of nationalism across nations, and offer a basis of developing wider knowledge and critically situated understanding of the question, beyond a singular nation's limited bounds.

The role of the home, the domestic sphere and the intimate, ethno-cultural identities that are cultivated within it, are critical to understanding the polemical constructions of country and city; tradition and modernity; and regionalism and cosmopolitanism. The home is fundamental to ideas of the homeland that give nationalism its imaginative form and its political trajectory. This book explores positions that are vital to ideas of national belonging through the history of colonial, bourgeois self-fashioning and post colonial identity construction in Sri Lanka. The country remains central to related architectural discourses due to its emergence as a critical site for regional architecture, post-independence. Suggesting patterns of indigenous accommodation and resistance that are expressed through built form, the book argues that the nation grows as an extension of an indigenous private sphere, ostensibly uncontaminated by colonial influences, domesticating institutions and appropriating rural geographies in the pursuit of its hegemonic ideals. This ambitious, comprehensive, wide-ranging book presents an abundance of new and original material and many imaginative insights into the history of architecture and nationalism from the mid nineteenth century to the present day.

Excerpt from Architecture Under Nationalism Considered in its relation to the architectural art, I propose to review, first the general, and then the specific advantages which nationalism will bring; and, in this material age, we may appropri ately consider the material advantages first and the intellectual and moral ones afterwards. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from Architecture Under Nationalism Nationalism may be defined as the substitution of universal cooperation and education for industrial and social warfare. It is a continuation of the evolutionary force which has raised man from the lower to the highest form of terrestrial beings. It is so strictly logical and practical in all its aspects; so impartial in its benefits to all classes; has already crept so deeply into the minds and hearts of thinking people in both continents, and has made such remarkable progress of late, in this country, especially on the Pacific coast, in arousing the people to definite action with a view to hastening its practical introduction, that we are forced to believe the present generation will see a great change in the social organism due to its influence. Nevertheless, there still exist many curious popular misconceptions as to its principles; and it is necessary to refer briefly to these, before entering upon the consideration of the particular branch of the subject we have chosen. Perhaps the most common error in the popular conception of Nationalism is that it will benefit chiefly, if not only, the poorer classes, increasing their wealth at the expense of the richer. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.