Image makers of British modernism: Dell & Wainwright at The Architectural Review

‘It used to be unkindly said of the modern school of architects before the war that they designed their buildings not to please clients or even themselves, but to please Dell & Wainwright. Unfair though this was, it paid a deserved compliment to Dell &Wainwright, the official photographers of The Architectural Review. It meant that their representations of modern buildings—resplendent in a perpetual mellow sunshine, beautifully composed within a frame of leafy branches or above a foreground dappled with shadows—when reproduced on the glossy pages of the Review came near to the ideal their designers had in their imaginations. They were the brave new world itself?…’ This comment, published in the 13^th June, 1946, Issue of the Architects’ Journal on the occasion of Mark O. Dell’s retirement, highlights both the expressive power and the influential nature of Dell & Wainwright’s photography. Their images were part of the Review’s 1930s campaign to promote modern architecture in Britain and given much prominence in the periodical’s pages, which had been reshaped by the Editor Hubert de Cronin Hastings and his team thanks to the use of experimental typography and innovative layouts. Many of the trademark features of Dell & Wainwright’s work had been introduced in architectural imagery by the ‘New Photography’, which had originated in continental Europe in the previous decade and encompassed both the ‘New Vision’ of Moholy-Nagy and Rodchenko, and the ‘New Objectivity’ of photographers such as Werner Mantz and Albert Renger-Patzsch. This paper examines the origins of Dell and Wainwright's partnership, their work for The Architectural Review and its critical reception, but also questions some of the most recurrent assumptions related to their photographic output, which was decidedly wider in range than is commonly believed.     

Eric de Maré: between the functional and the beautiful

Eric de Maré’s photographs were very widely published in post-war Britain and his images may be seen to have influenced a generation of architects. Perhaps more than any polemic or lengthy rationale they expanded the possibilities of architectural design; his pioneering work on the photography of early industrial buildings seen in ‘The Functional Tradition’, published as an article in The Architectural Review in 1957 and subsequently as a book, helped to create a new language at a time ready for such change.

De Maré was part of the wider architectural culture of the Architectural Press and The Architectural Review, and acknowledged the influence of the long-time proprietor de Cronin Hastings as well as other contributors such as John Piper, Gordon Cullen and J.M. Richards. There are clear links with another major position in British architectural work of that period, the ‘New Brutalism': the Smithsons’ ideas of honesty of form and materials are very close to the lessons which were drawn from de Maré's photographic evidence, whilst drawing attention to the ordinary and unvalued was the common ground basic to both positions. More than this, his images of worn surfaces and ageing structures are informed by an acute architectural sensibility. De Maré's work represents a repudiation of the utopianism of Modernist practice and theory, in favour of a new kind of beauty, redemptive in the harshly utilitarian modern world.     

Urban contrast and neo-Toryism: on the social and political symbolism of The Architectural Review's Townscape campaign

Using archival evidence from Hastings' unpublished writings, as well as from representative Townscape publications, this essay chronologically traces the genesis and development of Townscape as social and political project within the history of British planning theory. Revising recent scholarship on Townscape, the article posits that Townscape embraced a conservative project, in many ways resistant to the emerging welfare state and to the dominant government consensus for regionalist principles of post-war reconstruction. It argues that Townscape posited an anti-collectivist model of society, bound together, not through a consensus of aims or viewpoints, but through a composite ecology of individualizing difference, developed according to one's unique cultural role or ‘bias’. Paralleling conservative British political discourses of the period, Townscape aestheticized and naturalized such differences through a tri-partite model of social types and a metaphorical construction of society as nature. Understanding the central significance of this social and political symbolism allows for new understanding of Townscape's construction of social complexity, as well as its use of organic analogies to describe social difference.     

Education for Change: An Experiment

Abstract

When Robert Venturi began writing Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture in 1962, Jane Jacobs's The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) was the subject of dinner-table conversation across the country. Apart from Jacobs's direct influence, among the parallels that emerged from their Townscape affiliations and other interests, the concept of complexity stands out, with Venturi's conception echoing Jacobs's historic introduction of complexity science into architectural and urban theory. While Venturi did not seek to extend the scientific research put forward by Jacobs, favoring instead the complexities suggested by gestalt theory and New Criticism, he cited similar scientific sources and derived similar principles for urbanism, as revealed by his Copley Square project of 1966.     

Writing the history of Spanish modern architecture: texts by Flores and Fullaondo from the 1960s

It was in the 1960s when architects interested in organising the past had sufficient historical perspective to present different narratives for Spanish modern architecture. This paper discusses the writings of Carlos Flores and Juan Daniel Fullaondo, which were fundamental in the revision and reconstruction of the assimilation and evolution of modern architecture in Spain. Flores’s book Arquitectura Española Contemporánea stands out because of its spirited defence of modernity. Recognition of the iconographic value of architectural photography and the use of José Ortega y Gasset’s ‘The idea of the generations’ are the two main characteristics of this book. Whereas Fullaondo, who was in charge of a magazine, Nueva Forma, was a faithful advocate of the critical work of Bruno Zevi. He published different special issues in which he discussed the connection of German expressionism and Italian futurism in Spain, and defended organicism as the most influential tendency in Spanish architecture in the 1960s. This paper relates the main ideas of these authors with previous writings that began analysing modern buildings erected on Spanish soil, and with other remarkable books also published in the 1960s, such as those of Cesar Ortiz-Echagüe, Lluís Domènech and Oriol Bohigas. All in all, they established the principles of Spanish modern historiography, and influenced European magazines that were starting to pay attention to Spanish architecture by publishing special issues, such as the Swiss Werk or the Italian Zodiac.     

Lucien Hervé and Le Corbusier: pair or peers?

The lasting iconicity surrounding the seminal accomplishments in modern architecture has its roots in long-term alliances between architects and photographers. The Masters of the Modern Movement carefully managed their public ‘image’ largely by establishing a distinct relationship with specific photographers, whose visual sensibility appeared to amplify the underlying design intent for maximum impact on the collective unconscious.

Le Corbusier experienced particularly effective affinities with Lucien Hervé (1910–2007), whose photographic signature memorialised the last fifteen years of the Swiss/French architect's output. By choosing one photographer and remaining loyal to him for a significant amount of time, Le Corbusier ensured that his architecture took on a consistency that is partially the by-product of a photographic mind close to his architectural sensitivity. After the Second World War, there are numerous examples of such an interrelationship, among the most notable being Neutra/Shulman, Bunshaft/Stoller and Ellwood/Rand, with varying degrees of intensity, yet all revealing similar patterns of co-construction. Such a dynamic touched every corner of the globe where modern architecture was built and published, but was particularly visible in Europe and North America.

Drawing on published and unpublished materials this paper focusses closely on the ramifications of the working couple Hervé/Le Corbusier so as to highlight the formation and consolidation of the partnership. This collaboration would elucidate the mutual influences between disciplines when a new, more humane idea of Modernity was formed and broadcast around the world.     

Personalising Architecture: The Contribution of Neorealism to Italian Architecture through the INA-Casa Programme (1949–56)

Abstract

After the Second World War, neorealism was fundamental as a spatial register of the time while simultaneously contributing to the creation of a visual culture at a key moment in Italian history. Although the term has been adopted ad hoc in architecture, transfers between neorealism and architecture are still not fully understood and significant grey areas remain. Against this backdrop, recent studies have suggested approaching neorealism not from the standpoint of the disciplinary autonomy of architecture, but from its active and bidirectional link with other forms of artistic expression, approached through the cultural climate of the time in Italy. Within the field of architectural theory, a significant number of works that have been linked to neorealism belong to new neighbourhoods that were developed through state social housing programmes. For this reason, this article uses the INA-Casa programme as a lens for examining neorealism’s penetration in architecture, based on the hypothesis that this programme’s written regulations were inflected by the neorealist environment during its first settennio (1949–56). It sets out to consider if and how a neorealist making existed in architecture by analysing the first two INA-Casa design manuals, which are seen here as an example of a rule book for the theory of architecture.     

Forum A historical context for theories underpinning the production of the built environment

The quest for ‘theory’ in the Building Research & Information special issue ‘Developing Theories of the Built Environment’ (36(3) 2008) needs to be understood within a larger historical and political context. It would benefit from engaging with a rich vein of work on the production of the built environment over the last 30 years. Theory inherently develops in the political context in which it exists; if it fails to do so, it may be dangerous. This commentary traces the intellectual underpinning concerned with understanding the process of change in the built environment, particularly the result of changes in social relations and the social labour process. The production of the built environment is seen as encompassing all the social processes concerned with producing the built environment, built products, buildings and infrastructure, and out of natural resources, whilst consumption is applied to all the processes involved in consuming these, including the well-being of tenants. And between these are situated the processes of exchange, distribution, and circulation, involving complex webs of relations between developers, builders, and landlords and landowners. The challenge is not only to engage and learn from past work, but also to state explicitly what is currently driving the need for a theory (or set of theories).

La quête de la « théorie » dans ce numéro spécial de Building Research & Information consacré aux théories du développement du milieu bâti (volume 36(3), 2008) doit être comprise dans un contexte historique et politique plus large. Elle aurait intérêt à s'appuyer sur les nombreux travaux concernant la production du cadre bâti publiés au cours de ces 30 dernières années. La théorie se développe, de manière inhérente, dans le contexte politique dans lequel elle existe; dans le cas contraire, la situation pourrait devenir dangereuse. Cet article analyse le raisonnement intellectuel sous-jacent concernant la compréhension du processus de changement dans le milieu bâti, notamment les conséquences des changements dans les relations sociales et dans le processus social du travail. La production du cadre bâti est considérée comme englobant tous les processus sociaux liés à la production du cadre bâti, des produits de construction, des bâtiments et des infrastructures et aux ressources naturelles alors que la consommation s'applique à tous les processus qui entrent en jeu dans la consommation de ceux-ci, y compris le bien-être des occupants. Entre ces deux notions, on trouve les processus d'échange, de distribution et de circulation qui font intervenir des réseaux de relations entre promoteurs, constructeurs, bailleurs et propriétaires fonciers. La difficulté ne vient pas seulement du fait qu'il faut tirer profit des travaux et de l'expérience passés mais qu'il faut également expliquer ce qui motive aujourd'hui la nécessité d'une théorie (ou d'un ensemble de théories).

Mots clés: cadre bâti, cadres conceptuels, consommation, processus de travail, cadre politique, production, relations sociales     

Historical heritage,landscape and modernity: aspects of the Italian contribution to the IFHTP congresses between the two wars

The International Federation for Housing and Town Planning (IFHTP) congresses in the period between the two wars represented one of the most relevant spheres of debate on the design and construction of the modern city. In addition to drawing a general outline of Italy's contributions to the IFHTP congresses between the early Twenties and late Thirties, this article will reflect on some of the thematic issues that clearly emerged, especially from the 1929 Rome congress. It concerns the role of multi-storey apartment building in the construction of the modern city, the adaptation of historic town centres to the needs of modernity, the expansion of the historic city and the relationship with the landscape. Themes on which certain Italian protagonists (Cesare Chiodi, Gustavo Giovannoni and Luigi Piccinato to name but a few) have made contributions to modern international town planning culture which, albeit controversial for many reasons, seem significant and not devoid of original content.     

Ito Chuta and the narrative structure of Chinese architectural history

This article examines the intellectual and political environment that gave rise to the basic narrative structure in the writing of Chinese architectural history during the formative stage of the discipline through the career and works of the Japanese architectural scholar Ito Chuta (1867–1954). The author argues that the heavy emphasis on pre-Tang history in the early literature on Chinese architecture was a result of the power shift in late-nineteenth to early-twentieth-century East Asia, namely, the decline of China and the rise of Japan. By analysing the textual and visual information in Ito's major scholarly works, this article reveals the political agenda behind the methodological discrepancy between Shina kenchikushi and Shina kenchiku soshoku: the former is more historical and the latter is more anthropological, which echoes the cultural contradictions in Japanese colonialism, and shows how Ito's scholarships on Horyuji helped to identify such a shift in the mantle of East Asian tradition from ancient China to modern Japan.     

A geometrical analysis of multiple viewpoint perspective in the work of Giovanni Battista Piranesi: an application of geometric restitution of perspective

This paper is a study of the work of the eighteenth-century Italian artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi. In it, selected etchings by Piranesi have been analysed by means of geometric restitution of perspective. Using this method it will be proved that the drawings of Ponte Fabrizio and Ponte Ferrato have been composed from multiple viewpoints. Piranesi has manipulated the conventional rules of perspective in order to produce a more believable and compelling representation of reality and subtly to influence our understanding of it. The paper presents a specific and detailed analysis of Piranesi's technique and reveals the sophisticated approach to perspective which he employed. It also gives an historical insight into the method of geometric restitution, explains how it operates and why it is useful, by employing it to analyse a series of etchings by Piranesi. It demonstrates that using precise geometrical methods may lead to new and exciting discoveries in the analysis of works of art.

It is assumed that the reader has a basic understanding of the principles and constructions for vertical perspective. For more information refer to The basic constructions of perspective. ¹ This will frame our way of thinking about perspective and provide an understanding of the projection methods.

[The author was the winner of the 2007 RIBA President's Dissertation Medal; material additional to that in the article can be accessed in the multimedia section of the online version.]     

阅读城镇形态

城镇形态是指城镇所表现出来的空间特征,也可以指将视觉感受的整体性与组织性,赋予那些即使是随机的．偶然的自发生长的城镇环境。城镇形态既是一种研究对象．也是一种思维观念,它着重探讨城镇形态的视觉效果所基于的某种偶发的,但又有章可循的原则。对城镇形态的阅读，就是为那种含糊性寻找一种结构,使之可以识别、理解.     

Building for the visual age

While architects and builders in practice have embraced ever more visually based ways of working, the research into these new visual practices has lagged behind. The recent special issue on ‘Visual Practices: Images of Knowledge Work’ (2007) provided important new understanding of the ways in which the visual and the use of visual objects actually operate in our professions. This Forum paper explores some of the challenges and difficulties that researchers face, and it develops an agenda for the future development of this important line of inquiry.

Alors qu'architectes et constructeurs de bâtiments ont, en pratique, adopté des méthodes de travail de plus en plus basées sur le visuel, la recherche dans ces nouvelles pratiques a pris du retard. Le récent numéro intitulé «Visual Practices: Images of Knowledge Work» (2007) éclaire d'un jour nouveau la manière dont le visuel et l'usage d'objets visuels fonctionnent réellement dans nos professions. Cette communication analyse quelques uns des défis et des difficultés auxquels sont confrontés les chercheurs et propose un programme pour le développement futur de cet important secteur d'intérêt.

Collaboration,?communication,?processus de conception,?recherche conceptuelle,?échange de connaissances,?contexte social,?pratiques visuelles     

Radical Italian Architecture Yesterday and Today

In Italy there is a revival of the spirit of 1960s Radicalism. Fresh from university, young architects ‘pick up a rock band name, enrol in an architectural competition or just invent their own research and project installations’. William Menking, who co-curated the 2003 exhibition at London's Design Museum on Superstudio - the supergroup of Italian radicali - and Olympia Kazi bring the new generation of young protagonists under scrutiny. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Impact of climate warming on passive night cooling potential

Night-time ventilation is often seen as a promising passive cooling concept. However, as it requires a sufficiently high temperature difference between ambient air and the building structure, this technique is highly sensitive to changes in climatic conditions. In order to quantify the impact of climate warming on the night-time ventilative cooling potential in Europe, eight representative locations across a latitudinal transect were considered. Based on a degree-hours method, site-specific regression models were developed to predict the climatic cooling potential (CCP) from minimum daily air temperature (T _min). CCP was computed for present conditions (1961–90) using measured T _min data from the European Climate Assessment (ECA) database. Possible time-dependent changes in CCP were assessed for 1990–2100, with particular emphasis on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ‘A2’ and ‘B2’ scenarios for future emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols. Time-dependent, site-specific T _min scenarios were constructed from 30 Regional Climate Model (RCM) simulated data sets, as obtained from the European PRUDENCE project. Under both emissions scenarios and across all locations and seasons, CCP was found to decrease substantially by the end of the 21st century. For the six Central and Northern European locations (>47°N) CCP was found to decrease in summer (June–August) by 20–50%. For the two Southern European locations (Madrid and Athens), future CCP was found to become negligible during the summer and to decrease by 20–55% during the spring and the autumn. The study clearly shows that night-time cooling potential will cease to be sufficient to ensure thermal comfort in many Southern and Central European buildings. In Central and Northern Europe, a significant passive cooling potential is likely to remain, at least for the next few decades. Upper and lower bound estimates for future CCP were found to diverge strongly in the course of the 21st century, suggesting the need for flexible building design and for risk assessments that account for a wide range of emissions scenarios and uncertainty in climate model results.

La ventilation nocturne est souvent considérée comme un concept de refroidissement passif prometteur. Toutefois, cette technique nécessitant une différence de température suffisamment élevée entre l'air ambiant et la structure du bâtiment, elle est très sensible aux changements des conditions climatiques. Pour quantifier l'impact du réchauffement climatique sur les possibilités de refroidissement par ventilation nocturne, on a considéré huit emplacements représentatifs sur une transversale latitudinale en Europe. Sur la base d'une méthode ‘degrés-heures’, on a développé des modèles de régression spécifiques à des sites pour prévoir le potentiel de refroidissement climatique (CCP) à partir de la température quotidienne minimale de l'air (T _min). On a calculé le CCP pour les conditions présentes pendant la période 1961–90 en utilisant les données T _min de la base de données ECA (Evaluation du climat européen). On a évalué de possibles changements du CCP liés à la durée pour la période 1990–2100, en mettant l'accent sur les scénarios A2 et B2 du GIEC (Groupe d'experts intergouvernemental sur l'évolution du climat) relatifs aux futures émissions de gaz à effet de serre et aux aérosols. Des scénarios liés à la durée, avec T _min spécifiques aux sites ont été élaborés à partir de 30 ensembles de données de modèles de climats régionaux simulés obtenus dans le cadre du projet européen PRUDENCE. Pour les deux scénarios d'émission et pour tous les emplacements et saisons, on a constaté que le CCP diminuait de façon substantielle dès la fin du XXIe siècle. Pour les six emplacements en Europe centrale et en Europe du Nord (>47° nord), on a constaté que le CCP diminuait de 20–50% (juin–août). Pour les deux emplacements en Europe du Sud (Madrid et Athènes), on a constaté que le futur CCP devenait négligeable pendant l'été et diminuait de 20–55% pendant le printemps et l'automne. Cette étude montre clairement que le potentiel de refroidissement nocturne cessera d'être suffisant pour assurer le confort thermique dans de nombreux bâtiments construits en Europe du Sud et en Europe centrale. En Europe centrale et en Europe du Nord, un potentiel significatif de refroidissement passif va vraisemblablement durer pendant au moins les prochaines décennies. Il s'est avéré que les estimations supérieures et inférieures du futur CCP divergeaient nettement dans le courant du XXIe siècle, ce qui suggère la nécessité de concevoir les bâtiments avec souplesse et d'évaluer le risque en tenant compte d'une large gamme de scénarios d'émission et de l'incertitude des résultats des modèles climatiques.

Mots clés: changements climatiques, scénarios climatiques, potentiel de refroidissement climatique, ventilation nocturne, refroidissement passif, Europe     

Interrogating Authorship in Flaxmere's Regeneration

This article critically reflects on the way local government planning engages with inequality and deprivation in Flaxmere, a disadvantaged suburb on the outskirts of Hastings, a provincial centre in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The article comprises a comparative analysis, informed by a range of theoretical perspectives, of two planning documents that seek to improve the lot of Flaxmere's residents: the Flaxmere Community Plan 2015 (2005) and the Flaxmere Town Centre Urban Design Framework (2007). Through a deconstructive reading of these two texts, a fundamental disjuncture between the relationship they apparently have to each other (linear, sequential) and the actual relationship (parallel or perhaps palimpsestic) is revealed. The representation of this relationship functions to legitimise the approach taken in the Flaxmere Town Centre Urban Design Framework (2007), which gives rise to a decontextualised planning solution.     

Situating Situationism: Wandering around New Babylon with Mille Plateaux

This paper explores the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari with respect to art, space, and politics. Specifically, I wish to suggest an affinity between their philosophy and the work of the Dutch artist Constant, who was one of the originators of the Situationist International movement in post-war Europe. Deleuze and Guattari's ideas of re-territorialization, constructivism, and nomadology find a resonance with Constant's project of New Babylon, a project he worked on for more than twenty years. Recently, many scholarly works have assessed the intellectual legacy of the Situationist International. Given the solid foundation of this historical work, this paper proposes instead to extend the argument in the direction of the philosophy that would be later proposed in What is Philosophy? and Mille Plateaux. In contrast to a purely historical account, this paper juxtaposes several of Deleuze and Guattari's ideas in an encounter with Constant that aims for a bleeding over, or migration, of relevant themes into new productive territories. With regards to the politics of place, to begin, this paper briefly sketches out the historical position of the Situationist International in Europe, and specific proposals for a project called New Babylon by Constant, an early member of the group. Then a discussion of the political grounding of any possible notion of utopia is followed by a comparison between Deleuze and Guattari's notion of ‘constructivism’ and Constant's notion of ‘construction.’ In conclusion, this paper asks what are the possible consequences or implications of a utopian notion of nomadism upon contemporary life.     

Construction costs comparison between ‘green’ and conventional office buildings

The actual construction cost of certified green office buildings in New Zealand is compared with conventional buildings. Although a large body of research exists on the financial and environmental benefits of green buildings, there is little evidence on capital cost implications for building green. This study serves as the first empirical study to analyse detailed cost plan data in New Zealand to quantify the impact of green building on construction cost. Data from 17 Green Star NZ v1-certified office buildings were paired with a set of modelled cost estimates derived from the Davis Langdon Blue Book and the Rawlinsons New Zealand Construction Handbook (the authoritative published sources for New Zealand construction cost data). The paired data were analysed across five panels using the non-parametric Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed ranks test. When benchmarked against the modelled costs, green building construction costs were higher on average, but the difference was not statistically significant. This was true across all five panels tested: the entire green building dataset, mid-rise buildings, high-rise buildings, 4 Green Star-rated buildings, and 5 and 6 Green Star-rated buildings. Each panel featured buildings that were above comparative costs as well as several whose actual costs were below modelled estimates.

Le coût de construction réel des immeubles de bureaux certifiés verts en Nouvelle-Zélande est comparé à celui des immeubles classiques. Bien qu'il existe un important corpus de recherche sur les avantages financiers et environnementaux des bâtiments verts, il y a peu d'éléments probants sur les implications en termes de coût du capital pour la construction de bâtiments verts. Cette étude constitue la première étude empirique qui analyse les données des plans détaillés des coûts en Nouvelle-Zélande pour quantifier l'impact du bâtiment vert sur les coûts de construction. Les données provenant de 17 immeubles de bureaux certifiés Green Star NZ v1 ont été couplées à une série d'estimations modélisées des coûts tirée du Livre Bleu de David Langdon et du Rawlinsons Manuel de Construction de Nouvelle-Zélande (les sources publiées qui font autorité concernant les données relatives aux coûts de construction pour la Nouvelle-Zélande). Les données couplées ont été analysées sur cinq panels en utilisant le test non paramétrique des rangs signés de Wilcoxon pour échantillons appariés. Lorsqu'ils ont été comparés aux coûts modélisés, les coûts de construction des bâtiments verts étaient supérieurs en moyenne, mais la différence n'était pas statistiquement significative. Ceci s'est vérifié sur la totalité des cinq panels testés : l'ensemble des données des immeubles verts, les immeubles de hauteur moyenne, les immeubles de grande hauteur, les immeubles classés Green Star 4, et les immeubles classés Green Star 5 et 6. Chaque panel comprenait des immeubles qui se situaient au-dessus des coûts comparatifs, ainsi que plusieurs dont les coûts réels étaient inférieurs aux estimations modélisées.

Mots clés: coût du capital, construction, coût, immeuble vert, Green Star [Etoile Verte], immeubles de bureaux, durabilité     

Building for “l'Authenticité”: Eugène Palumbo and the Architecture of Mobutu's Congo

In 1966, President Mobutu initiated his political doctrine of recours à l'authenticité in the Congo. Aimed at erasing all traces of Belgian colonialism, it not only led to interventions in social and political life but also found expression in a new state culture, embodied in art and architecture. We trace the impact of this doctrine in the work of Eugène Palumbo, an Italian architect who designed several iconic public buildings under Mobutu's reign. Palumbo's projects, we argue, highlight the tension of an architect seeking to develop an architectural language evoking both “authentic” Congolese culture and notions of progress and modernity.