Daniel E. Coslett - Neocolonialism and Built Heritage: Echoes of Empire in Africa, Asia, and Europe

Architectural relics of nineteenth- and twentieth-century colonialism dot cityscapes throughout our globalizing world, just as built traces of colonialism remain embedded within the urban fabric of many European capitals.

Neocolonialism and Built Heritage addresses the sustained presence and influence of historic built environments and processes inherited from colonialism within the contemporary lives of cities in Africa, Asia, and Europe. Novel in their focused consideration of ways in which these built environments reinforce neocolonialist connections among former colonies and colonizers, states and international organizations, the volumes case studies engage highly relevant issues such as historic preservation, heritage management, tourism, toponymy, and cultural imperialism.

Interrogating the life of the past in the present, authors challenge readers to consider the roles played by a diversity of historic built environments in the ongoing asymmetrical balance of power and unequal distribution of capital around the globe. They present buildings maintenance, management, reuse, and (re)interpretation, and in so doing they raise important questions, the ramifications of which transcend the specifics of the individual sites and architectural histories they present.

Daniel E. Coslett earned a Ph.D. in the history and theory of built environments from the University of Washingtons College of Built Environments, as well as an M.A. in the subject from Cornell University. His research addresses colonial and postcolonial North Africa, focusing on intersections of architectural design, urban planning, archaeology, and historic preservation, as well as heritage management and tourism development. At Western Washington University and the University of Washington he teaches subjects including historic preservation, architectural analysis, as well as modern and colonial architectural history. He is also an assistant editor at the International Journal of Islamic Architecture.

THE ARCHITEXTSERIES

Edited by Thomas A. Markus and Anthony D. King

Architectural discourse has traditionally represented buildings as art objects or technical objects. Yet buildings are also social objects in that they are invested with social meaning and shape social relations. Recognizing these assumptions, the Architext series aims to bring together recent debates in social and cultural theory and the study and practice of architecture and urban design. Critical, comparative and interdisciplinary, the books in the series, by theorizing architecture, bring the space of the built environment centrally into the social sciences and humanities, as well as bringing the theoretical insights of the latter into the discourses of architecture and urban design. Particular attention is paid to issues of gender, race, sexuality and the body, to questions of identity and place, to the cultural politics of representation and language, and to the global and postcolonial contexts in which these are addressed.

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Neocolonialism and Built Heritage

Echoes of Empire in Africa, Asia, and Europe

Edited by Daniel E. Coslett

Edited by Daniel E. Coslett

First published 2020

by Routledge

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and by Routledge

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2020 selection and editorial matter, Daniel E. Coslett; individual chapters, the contributors

The right of Daniel E. Coslett to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Coslett, Daniel E., editor.

Title: Neocolonialism and built heritage : echoes of empire in Africa, Asia, and Europe / edited by Daniel E. Coslett.

Description: New York : Routledge, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019007868| ISBN 9781138368378 (hb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781138368385 (pb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780429429286 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Imperialism and architecture. | Architecture and history. | Architecture and society.

Classification: LCC NA2543.I47 N46 2019 | DDC 720.1/03dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019007868

ISBN: 978-1-138-36837-8 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-429-42928-6 (ebk)

Typeset in Frutiger

by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire

The production and use of neocolonialist sites of memory
Daniel E. Coslett

Part I
Colonial spaces in postcolonial metropoles

Old colonial sites and new uses in contemporary Paris
Robert Aldrich

The Axum Obelisk: Shifting concepts of colonialism and empire in Fascist and 21st-century Rome
Flavia Marcello and Aidan Carter

Part II
Between postcolonial metropoles and postcolonies

Erasing the Ketchaoua Mosque: Catholicism, assimilation, and civic identity in France and Algeria
Ralph Ghoche

All empire is a stage: Italian colonial exhibitions in continuum
Stephanie Malia Hom

The legacy of colonial architecture in South Korea: The Government-General Building of Chosn revisited
Suzie Kim

Part III
Inherited colonial-era spaces in contemporary postcolonies

Spatial governmentality and everyday hospital life in colonial and postcolonial DR Congo
Simon De Nys-Ketels, Johan Lagae, Kristien Geenen, Luce Beeckmans, and Trsor Lumfuankenda Bungiena

Colonial mimicry and nationalist memory in the postcolonial prisons of India
Mira Rai Waits

Part IV