‘Tropical Modernism’ exhibition by V&A and La Biennale at Venice Architecture Biennale 2023 – Photo by Andrea Avezzù.

Architecture – Tropical Modernism is an architecture style created by colonising countries as a Modernism adaption to the climatic and environmental conditions of the tropics. The Tropical Modernism: Architecture and Power in West Africa exhibition by Venice Architecture Biennale and the Victoria & Albert Museum explores how the style was developed and employed as a tool to support colonial rule to be then adapted by newly independent African countries as a tool to strengthen national identity. The exhibition is on show at the Applied Arts Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia, Arsenale, and will then travel to London at the V&A next year.

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The exhibition critically reflects on the imperial history of Tropical Modernism, starting an experiment from an analysis of the work of the Department of Tropical Architecture – established in 1954 by Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew at the AA in London to teach European architects to work in the colonies – and a dozen key projects.

Tropical Modernism was initially devised by British architects Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew in the West African colony – now Ghana, Gambia, and Sierra Leone – which was an experimental laboratory for colonial architects. The couple developed a distinctive scientifically-informed language of climate control featuring adjustable louvers, wide eaves, and brises soleils that mitigated the tropical climate. One distinctive example is the Wesley Girls’ Senior High School in Cape Coast, Ghana (1958).

Tropical Modernism exhibition by V&A and La Biennale at Venice Architecture Biennale 2023 – Photo by © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Fry and Drew’s architectural innovations attracted international interest. The couple and their peers won commissions of a scale and quantity that architects in post-war Britain could only dream of and built numerous schools, universities, community centres, and libraries for Africans. These commissions were paid for by the Colonial Welfare and Development Act’s £200m post-war programme to reform, rebuild and modernise the colonies – a cynical initiative designed to offset calls for independence and to make the colonies better producers for the world market and better buyers for European goods.

This investment could not hold back the ‘winds of change’ that blew across Africa as the continent was about its freedom. In 1957, Ghana became the first sub-Saharan African country to gain independence. The event sparked excitement for a possible Pan-African future. As more and more countries began their path towards independence, Tropical Modernism “survived this transition, when it became a key aspect of nation-building and symbol of the progressiveness and internationalism of these new countries,” explains co-curator Christopher Turner.

Ghana Independence Arch by Public Works Department in Accra, Ghana, 1961 – Photo by Fquasie, Wikicommons.

Kwame Nkrumah, the first Ghanan Prime Minister, commissioned architects from Eastern Europe to work alongside Ghanaian architects to create monumental structures intended as beacons of a free Africa. A key example is the Ghana Independence Arch by Public Works Department was built for Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Ghana in 1961.

Tropical Modernism exhibition by V&A and La Biennale at Venice Architecture Biennale 2023 – Photo by © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

In 1963, the Department of Tropical Studies was invited to form a partnership with the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, where a first generation of qualified African and Black architects, including John Owusu-Addo and Max Bond, also taught. Whereas Maxwell Fry had asserted that nothing could be learned from traditional African architecture, the school questioned the colonial assumptions of Tropical Modernism and inspired a new architecture that appreciated vernacular forms and looked to create a unique national or African style.

• Unless stated otherwise, all photos by Andrea Avezzù, courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia.