Colonial Modern: Aesthetics of the Past, Rebellions for the Future is a
reader on the relationship between modernism and the project of
modernisation in architecture, as well as the intertwining of both in
the context of colonialism and decolonisation. Colonial Modern focuses
on the dual topics of the relationship between the post-war aesthetic
regime of modernism and the project of modernisation in architecture and
urban planning. Colonial Modern is based on the exhibition In the Desert
of Modernity: Colonial Planning and After, at the Haus der Kulturen der
Welt [House of World Cultures] in Berlin and Les Abattoirs de
Casablanca. Colonial Modern reflects contemporary research into
architectural modernism and colonialism, and uses the thesis of
"negotiated modernism" to initiate new debates on conceptions of
modernism--and inevitably postmodernism--in an interdisciplinary
context.
The book includes significant texts by Nezar AlSayyad, Mark Crinson,
Francoise Navez-Bouchanine, Sven Olov Wallenstein and other specialists
in the field and provides a strong visual representation of the subject
with the work of artists and architects forming a well rounded debate on
issues relating to modernism and colonism.