Faithin Omaha eBook Collection

Download or read book After Belonging written by Samir Pandya and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-12-26 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book breaks new ground in demystifying the relationship between architecture, nationhood, and other forms of collective identity. It attempts to extricate the oppressive ideology of national identity entrenched within the very idea of architecture. Authors investigate themes such as cosmopolitanism, diaspora, geopolitics, globalisation, hybridity, and race. Certain chapters expose highly regulated environments which support cultural hegemony, such as the context of a hostel for ‘coloured colonial seamen’ in London, the illusionary rhetoric of ‘authenticity’ used to legitimise architectural conservation, and the role of the mosque as mediator between a post-war, multi-racial Britain, and ideas of nationhood. Others engage subjects at the urban scale, including the phenomena of universities transcending their nation-building roots to become agents of cosmopolitan urbanism, and how the discursive context of a high-profile yet unrealised modernist office-block in the City of London sustained a culture of British faux-nationalism. Remaining chapters adopt a postcolonial lens, with one examining how particular works of literary fiction reimagine notions of ‘place’ within an emerging intercultural nation, and another exploring the tense relationship between identitarian form and affective atmospheres to suggest the possibility of anti-essentialist experiences of architecture. Together, these perspectives propose an alternative vision of the City, where neither state-sponsored identity politics nor right-wing populism determine the cultural context within which architects design for our collective urban experience. This book will be of interest to researchers and advanced students of Architecture, Anthropology, History, Human Geography, Politics, Sociology, and Urban Studies. The chapters in this book, except for chapter 1, were first published in the journal National Identities.