Tropical Modernism

Tropical Modernism was an architectural style developed in the hot, humid conditions of West Africa in the 1940s, principally by the British architects Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew of Fry, Drew and Partners, whose designs included Mfantsipim School in Cape Coast, in what was then the Gold Coast and is now Ghana. After independence, the approach was embraced by newly sovereign nations including Ghana and India as a symbol of progress and national identity, deliberately distancing new public architecture from colonial building traditions; in India its most prominent expression came through Le Corbusier's master plan for the new city of Chandigarh. Kenneth Scott, designer of Accra's Scott House, and local architects including John Owusu Addo carried the style further across West Africa. The approach combined modernist principles with climate-responsive design suited to tropical conditions and remained influential from the 1940s through the 1950s and into the 1970s, particularly during the post-independence era.