ABSTRACT
For a globally inclusive account of the past, architectural history has to distance itself both from its established canon with a monophonic narrative that prioritizes sequential practices between white male architects and defines modern architecture as if it was invented exclusively in Europe and North America on the one hand, and the recent tendency to write the global history of architecture by perpetuating conventional art historical field or national categories that conceive of the world as separated into a few self-contained and often hierarchical geographical zones on the other hand. Building on translation theory, this chapter emphasizes methodological gestures for an intertwined history of architecture, while discussing focused examples that illuminate architecture’s place in the construction of people’s sovereignty around the world. By bringing out examples from Haiti, Uganda, Turkey, and Kuwait, the chapter deliberates over the inventions, hierarchies, and shifting identity markers of self-governance during the enlightenment revolutions, the colonization and decolonization processes, and the formation of nation-states.
