Postcolonial theory has had a significant effect on the way we understand

intercultural relations today and historically. Since the 1980s, the lexicon of

postcolonial theory, the concepts it uses to represent cultures and cultural

interaction, have penetrated the rhetoric of contemporary politics, international

trade and all areas of academia. Needless to say, postcolonial discourse has also

had an effect on architecture. In the past 30 years, the work of thinkers such as

Frantz Fanon, Edward Said and Gayatri Spivak has permeated into numerous

publications which analyse architectural production around the world, both in

previously colonised countries and in western metropolitan centres. It is,

however, the work of Homi K. Bhabha which has dominated discussions about

postcolonial architecture. The fact that Bhabha employs the concept of ‘space’,

and numerous other architectural analogies, has made his work highly appealing

to architects and architectural theorists. However, the political dimension of his

work prohibits the facile application of his terminology in the study of specific

buildings and cities, or in the broader historicisation and theorisation of

architecture. The concepts that Bhabha uses in his writings demonstrate that

cultures are complex assemblages made up of multiple elements, histories and

subject positions (individuals, social groups, class affiliations, genders and sexual

orientations). Hence, when used in architecture they establish a strong link with

a wide range of issues outside the limits of such a disciplinary field. For that

reason, this book argues that the postcolonial methods of critique used by

Bhabha could help to develop further our understanding of architecture and its

professional practice.