A new book–Contemporary Caribbean Architecture–which explores the notion of contemporary Caribbean architecture through essays and photographs of more than 50 design projects throughout the English and French-speaking Caribbean, raises the question: "What is Caribbean architecture or a Caribbean aesthetic?" Architect Mark Raymond, whose essay on the issue appears in the book, explores this notion.
The selected projects in Contemporary Caribbean Architecture reveal how architecture in the English and French-speaking Caribbean has sought to engage with the peculiarities of place, climate and cultural context through a modern architectural syntax. By presenting a photographic interpretation of what is understood as contemporary architecture, the publication compels us to ask what is contemporary and what is understood by contemporary Caribbean?
The vast majority of buildings in the Caribbean are not designed by architects, and hence–certainly in the English-speaking Caribbean–the failure of architecture and planning over the past 30 years to contend effectively with the wilful expediency of development has resulted in a culture of building that is ad hoc, ill-considered, and consequently, for the most part, of poor quality. This failure is evident in the deterioration of the urban fabric and insensitivity to the landscape.
In the case of the city, the overwriting of the clarity and coherence of the colonial urban grid with a broad, untrammelled and crude script has compromised the sense of order previously afforded by a robust and valuable form in many Caribbean cities. The natural landscape, meanwhile, is seen as a wilderness to be colonised when and where possible, with little regard for its environmental, sustainable and aesthetic values and qualities. Physical development appears no longer to be guided by coherent policy or planning, but simply to serve short-term economic and political interests.
This trend of development has inhibited and undermined the potential of architecture, urban design and landscape architecture, to positively inform both the public and private occupation and use of space. Within a larger cultural schema, architecture has been marginalised as a form of critical production.
While the tradition of architectural education and academic research in Latin America has underwritten the recognition of a rich architectural heritage in both historical and modern terms, there is insufficient research into Caribbean architecture in the English-speaking region. Our neighbours in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Cuba work within the legacy of a relatively sophisticated architectural and urban cultural environment. What little research and scholarship does exist in the anglophone Caribbean focuses, for the most part, on 18th and 19th century colonial or vernacular architecture–a great man approach that reveals little value in relation to contemporary demands and perpetuates a colonial-framed reading of culture and society.
It is a desire to express what we might call 'Caribbeanness' that perhaps drives the characteristic domestic architectural production in much of the region, a desire to evoke vernacular or colonial architecture in modern form. This largely unsuccessful enterprise has created a hybrid expression that speaks more to the idea of architecture as a commodity and expression of social status than its intended articulation of an expressive and potent fusion of tradition and modernity.
The popular notion of architectural form thus exists in contrast to the thrust of the modern project that has preoccupied many Caribbean architects in recent years. This latter trajectory understands architecture as a cultural operation which responsively deploys its modern language in an orchestration of form, programme and context. This attitude to design is not seen as an expression of a style, but as a technique that embraces a universal syntax for its expressive value and cultural resonance.
In expressing this drive to create a Caribbean architecture with universal appeal, architects do not identify the revival of 18th, 19th-century form as an appropriate response.
The programme and use of dwelling houses has changed, the crafts and skills required to create such architecture are no longer available, and it is arguably no longer economical for many applications. Furthermore, there appear to be many exciting and more responsive possibilities in the form of innovation in materials, technology, or spatial approaches such as open planning. A range of operative strategies allow novel possibilities which architects perceive as more culturally responsive.
The projects represented in Contemporary Caribbean Architecture reveal the potential of architecture to pursue this modern tendency: to provide an alternative, modern means of effectively ordering space and advancing society. The projects reflect trends and tendencies not only in Caribbean architectural culture but also in global architectural culture over the past 75 years, reflecting universal values. Each in its own way explores how architecture might address the challenge of presenting a functional and aesthetically appropriate response to the quality of its particular site–the genius loci–while also reflecting a universal appeal and identity.
A number of the projects portrayed in the book, display no ostensible architectural or gestural response to the site–to anchor them in place or attempt to say anything obvious about their "Caribbeanness," however we interpret that elusive character and quality. Other projects, through the use and perceptual association of form and materials, however, directly reinforce the connection with place and topography, and the fundamental relationship between memory and the occupation of the space and the site. What the projects have in common is a way of thinking and understanding of their context through the application of modern architectural technique.
At its core, modern architecture seeks to advance society through the liberative potential of new programmes of use, new materials, technique and new thinking. This is perhaps how the projects in this compilation might be read–as examples of a form of continuing experimentation and research in the application of modern design principles in the context of the Caribbean.
INFO
Contemporary Caribbean Architecture, by Trinidadian architect, Brian Lewis of acla: works, with text in English and French, is published by LUMIS Photography and acla: works. For purchasing and other information, visit lumisphotography.com.
Mark Raymond