On ‘Borrowing’ and ‘Othering’ : unpacking the practices, networks, and biases underpinning two manuals on building in the tropics around 1940
- Author
- Johan Lagae (UGent) and Monika Motylinska (UGent)
- Organization
- Project
- Abstract
- Considering the growing interest in 20th-century building in the tropics, as well as in practices of sustainable building in the "Global South" nowadays, this paper focuses on two interwar publications, Friedrich Vick's 1938 book Einflu beta des tropischen Klimas auf Gestaltung und Konstruktion der Gebaude and a 1940 report written by Egide-Jean Devroey, entitled Habitations coloniales et conditionnement d 'air sous les tropiques. Published at a time when scientific research into thermal comfort and the use of air-conditioning was still in full development, both publications, written by a German and Belgian engineer respectively, address the difficulties met when translating this research from the temperate to the hothumid climate zones. While both authors drew extensively on their own experience in the tropics, Devroey's 1940 report extensively "borrowed" from recent scientific insights on building physics developed in France and the US, as well as from "best practices" in other colonies. Devroey's explicit reference to Vick's internationally lesser-known work invites us to consider the interwar circulation of knowledge on building in the tropics beyond conventional metropole-colony connections and across imperial and linguistic boundaries. Yet confronting Devroey and Vick's work also enables us to unpack how climatic design in the tropics was informed by various normative assumptions of settlement, race, labor, and productivity, which undergirded extractive colonial economies.
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Citation
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication: http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-01JXGJC02AAB2K50N0EC55RYMQ
- MLA
- Lagae, Johan, and Monika Motylinska. “On ‘Borrowing’ and ’Othering’ : Unpacking the Practices, Networks, and Biases Underpinning Two Manuals on Building in the Tropics around 1940.” PROCEEDINGS OF THE 8TH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON CONSTRUCTION HISTORY, edited by Stefan Holzer et al., 2024, pp. 1269–76.
- APA
- Lagae, J., & Motylinska, M. (2024). On “Borrowing” and ’Othering’ : unpacking the practices, networks, and biases underpinning two manuals on building in the tropics around 1940. In S. Holzer, S. Langenberg, C. Knobling, & O. Kasap (Eds.), PROCEEDINGS OF THE 8TH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON CONSTRUCTION HISTORY (pp. 1269–1276).
- Chicago author-date
- Lagae, Johan, and Monika Motylinska. 2024. “On ‘Borrowing’ and ’Othering’ : Unpacking the Practices, Networks, and Biases Underpinning Two Manuals on Building in the Tropics around 1940.” In PROCEEDINGS OF THE 8TH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON CONSTRUCTION HISTORY, edited by Stefan Holzer, Silke Langenberg, Clemens Knobling, and Orkun Kasap, 1269–76.
- Chicago author-date (all authors)
- Lagae, Johan, and Monika Motylinska. 2024. “On ‘Borrowing’ and ’Othering’ : Unpacking the Practices, Networks, and Biases Underpinning Two Manuals on Building in the Tropics around 1940.” In PROCEEDINGS OF THE 8TH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON CONSTRUCTION HISTORY, ed by. Stefan Holzer, Silke Langenberg, Clemens Knobling, and Orkun Kasap, 1269–1276.
- Vancouver
- 1.Lagae J, Motylinska M. On “Borrowing” and ’Othering’ : unpacking the practices, networks, and biases underpinning two manuals on building in the tropics around 1940. In: Holzer S, Langenberg S, Knobling C, Kasap O, editors. PROCEEDINGS OF THE 8TH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON CONSTRUCTION HISTORY. 2024. p. 1269–76.
- IEEE
- [1]J. Lagae and M. Motylinska, “On ‘Borrowing’ and ’Othering’ : unpacking the practices, networks, and biases underpinning two manuals on building in the tropics around 1940,” in PROCEEDINGS OF THE 8TH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON CONSTRUCTION HISTORY, Zürich, Switzerland, 2024, pp. 1269–1276.
@inproceedings{01JXGJC02AAB2K50N0EC55RYMQ,
abstract = {{Considering the growing interest in 20th-century building in the tropics, as well as in practices of sustainable building in the "Global South" nowadays, this paper focuses on two interwar publications, Friedrich Vick's 1938 book Einflu beta des tropischen Klimas auf Gestaltung und Konstruktion der Gebaude and a 1940 report written by Egide-Jean Devroey, entitled Habitations coloniales et conditionnement d 'air sous les tropiques. Published at a time when scientific research into thermal comfort and the use of air-conditioning was still in full development, both publications, written by a German and Belgian engineer respectively, address the difficulties met when translating this research from the temperate to the hothumid climate zones. While both authors drew extensively on their own experience in the tropics, Devroey's 1940 report extensively "borrowed" from recent scientific insights on building physics developed in France and the US, as well as from "best practices" in other colonies. Devroey's explicit reference to Vick's internationally lesser-known work invites us to consider the interwar circulation of knowledge on building in the tropics beyond conventional metropole-colony connections and across imperial and linguistic boundaries. Yet confronting Devroey and Vick's work also enables us to unpack how climatic design in the tropics was informed by various normative assumptions of settlement, race, labor, and productivity, which undergirded extractive colonial economies.}},
author = {{Lagae, Johan and Motylinska, Monika}},
booktitle = {{PROCEEDINGS OF THE 8TH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON CONSTRUCTION HISTORY}},
editor = {{Holzer, Stefan and Langenberg, Silke and Knobling, Clemens and Kasap, Orkun}},
isbn = {{9783728141668}},
language = {{eng}},
location = {{Zürich, Switzerland}},
pages = {{1269--1276}},
title = {{On ‘Borrowing’ and ‘Othering’ : unpacking the practices, networks, and biases underpinning two manuals on building in the tropics around 1940}},
url = {{https://doi.org/10.3218/4166-8}},
year = {{2024}},
}