Why architectural modernism was championed by the rulers and the ruled

My childhood in Hong Kong was shaped by a particular style of building: market halls with brise-soleils sheltering us from the glare; housing-block stairwells with perforated blockwork letting in dappled light and breeze; classrooms accessed from open-air decks, with clerestory windows cross-ventilating the stale, sticky air.

In this sub-tropical ex-British colony, these features defined its mid-century municipal buildings. While the investment in public amenities has since been portrayed as ‘pacification’ to shore up consent for British rule, it also undeniably nurtured – in the wake of a ravaging Japanese occupation – the explosion of Hong Kong’s middle class. This included my parents, who were raised, schooled and housed in such postwar colonial architecture. I only later realised that it had a shared global lineage – and a name: tropical modernism.

It was pioneered by the British architects Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry who adapted modernism to some of these hotter climates.