Bhabha for Architects

The development of contemporary architectural critique has been influenced a great deal by postcolonial discourse. This volume examines specifically the contribution of Homi K. Bhabha to the discourse and practice of architecture. His concepts, and frequent use of architectural analogies, make his work highly appealing to architects, as well as to professionals in other creative disciplines.

Focusing on Bhabha's most acclaimed publication, The Location of Culture, this book explains in a simple manner some of the terminology employed by Bhabha in his writing-translation, ambivalence, hybridity, and the 'Third Space', along with the 'performative' and the 'pedagogical'. The book is structured so that the first two concepts provide the foundation to look into the theoretical importance of the other terms, terms which offer an opportunity to undertake a revision of the way in which architecture is inscribed historically, theorised, taught at schools and practised.

A perfect introduction to the theories advanced by Homi Bhabha and how they are useful in order to challenge many assumptions about contemporary architecture, this book thinks about contemporary architectures in general, not only in colonial and postcolonial contexts.

The work of Homi K. Bhabha has permeated into numerous publications which use postcolonial discourse as a means to analyze architectural practices in previously colonized contexts, particularly in Africa, Asia, the Middle-East, South-East Asia and, Latin America. Bhabha's use of the concept of ‘space’ has made his work highly appealing to architects and architectural theorists.

This introductory book, specifically for architects, focuses on Bhabha’s seminal book The Location of Culture and reveals how his work contributes to architectural theory and the study of contemporary architectures in general, not only in colonial and postcolonial contexts.

Felipe Hernández is an architect and Professor of Architectural Design, History and Theory in the Department of Architecture at the University of Cambridge. He is author of Beyond Modernist Masters: Contemporary Architecture in Latin America (Birkhäuser 2009).