The Project of Independence: Architecture of Decolonization in South Asia, 1947-1985

Martino Stierli, Anoma Pieris, and Sean Anderson Eds. With a photographic portfolio by Randhir Singh and additional contributions from Kazi Khaleed Ashraf, Nonica Datta, Prajna Desai, Da Hyung Jeong, Farhan Karim, Evangelos Kotsioris, Saloni Mathur, Rahul Mehrotra, Mrinalini Rajagopalan, Peter Scriver and Amit Srivastava, and Devika Singh MOMA, 2022 SKU S04042 South Asia holds a unique place among the many regions of the world where modern architecture was understood as both a tool for social progress and a global lingua franca in the second half of the twentieth century. Following the end of British rule in 1947–48, architects in the newly formed nations of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh (East Pakistan until 1971), and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) proposed a novel understanding of modernity, disrupting the colonial hierarchy of center and periphery by challenging modernism’s universalist claims. Architecture offered multiple ways to break with the colonial past. Through the establishment of in