SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Hello everyone. Before we begin, I wanted to add a quick note. This conversation on Caribbean architecture was recorded prior to Hurricane Mark's impacted several islands across the region. We of course still wanted to share this episode, especially because the subject matter feels even more relevant in Martha's aftermath. I wanted to clarify why the recent events were not specifically mentioned. We're keeping everyone affected in our thoughts and prayers, and as always, we'll continue using Strictly Facts to highlight the strength and resilience of carbean people everywhere. Now, let's get to the episode. Welcome to Strictly Facts, a guide to carape and history and culture, hosted by me, Alexander Miller. Crickly Facts teaches the history, politics, and activism of the caroter and connecting contemporary music and popular culture. Hello, hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Crickly Facts and Guide to Caribbean History and Culture, where we explore the history, cultures, and spaces that shape the Caribbean. After speaking a kind of stuff that are, you know, really wanting for this discussion. Today we are turning our attention to Caribbean architecture, a form of expression that tells us as much about social structures, history, and identity as it does about aesthetics. It's like by indigenous knowledge, European colonial legacies, African traditions, of course, our papers from Catholics of Asia oftentimes, and the practical demands of the island's life and the ways that we take up space. It carries the marks of colonialism from the imposition of European styles, but also more recently the ways that urban and rural spaces were designed to allow us to live on these lands. And at the same time, it has been checked by creativity, resilience, and adaptation, blending cultural influences into something unique like Caribbean. This episode will explain how architecture in Caribbean is not only a lens into the past, but also a way to understand contemporary challenges from the pressures of tourism and global stereotypes of the region to an urgent need for climate resilience through design. We will discuss many of these things, and so I am really grateful to have Professor Dahlia Ndu joining us. She is the visiting associate professor at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign joining us. Thank you so much again for joining us for this episode. Why don't you kick us off a little bit with telling our listeners a little bit more about who you are, your connection to the Caribbean, which of course I'm hoping you're excited to share a little bit about, and of course, what inspired your interest in Caribbean architecture?

SPEAKER_00: 2:58

Okay, great. My name is Dahlia Endum. I'm an architect, researcher, and educator. And I think kind of holistically my work centers on climate change, climate justice, housing, and identity in the Caribbean. So I think your intro really encapsulates a lot of my interests in the nuances of Caribbean architecture, right? I'm interested in it more than just a building and the aesthetics of it all. Really interested in how it embodies and it's a vessel for culture, memory, resilience, power, identity, and sort of all these intersections of cultural, social, and sort of political dynamics that help to shape the architecture. So that's kind of where my work lies. How I got to that is I'm born and raised in Antigua. So, you know, I've been in the US for over 20 years now, left for college, so spent my entire childhood in Antigua. And so I always say, no matter how long I've been in the US, Antigua will always be home for me. My family's still there. I still go back often, and that's where I call, you know, my home. But I think growing up, I was always interested in design. You know, I I enjoyed art. Um, and architecture just seemed like a really fascinating way to think about how you can sort of manifest your creativity into the world in this kind of tangible way. And that's kind of where it started, just this idea that your creativity could have an impact in the world. Um, and then as I got older and started to understand that architecture is more than just, you know, this kind of aesthetics, it really can shape how we live, it shapes how we use space, it can separate people, it can bring people together. Like it's so much embodied in architecture, and it really has a huge impact on our lives, and that really solidified my interest in architecture beyond just the sort of aesthetics of it as a building. And then related to Caribbean architecture, it was more about just trying to understand the nuances of the architecture of where I grew up. So I was educated in the US for both undergrad and grad school, and uh not once were we looking at Caribbean architecture as a sort of model of architecture that should be studied. Um, my education was through a European lens and studying everything from Greek and Roman sort of classical architecture all the way to cabusier and modern sort of ideals, but from that kind of Eurocentric lens. And I always questioned: well, there is um value to be had in studying Caribbean architecture, right? And I started to question why we weren't studying it in the way that we were studying all of these other sort of architectural traditions. So once I graduated and got into academia, um, that's where I found my niche, like wanting to add to the body of work and critical understanding of Caribbean architecture outside, you know, the sort of glossy postcard images that we tend to see. So that's sort of my overview of how I got here. And um yeah, excited to continue this work, especially as the Caribbean, you know, is facing, you know, challenges of climate change, etc.

SPEAKER_01: 6:30

Thank you so much for sharing some more just about basically, you know, how you've transitioned from um learning about architecture into, you know, being in this space today. I definitely want to kick us off in terms of our conversation, really underscoring this fact that I, you know, mentioned in the intro, and it's that, you know, there are so many influences that have checked our history, which I've talked about several times, right? But particularly when it comes to thinking about the design layout, you know, architectural space of the Caribbean I don't want to say it's largely um been impacted by colonization, but I I mean we can't underscore that. Um, of course, you know, there are many ways that our indigenous influences or African influences are Asian influences have helped to underscore who we are. But I think in a lot of ways when we think of maybe immediately when we think of architecture, we think of, you know, buildings and churches and courthouses that have been like, you know, steeples of this has been here since 1700, whatever, and you know, all of these things, you definitely do think about the impact of colonization in the region. And so for you, just sort of in doing this work, how have you sort of underscored the importance of European colonial powers and influencing Caribbean architecture and how have their design sort of impacted the way Caribbean people take up space or even how Caribbean space is perceived?

SPEAKER_00: 8:02

Yeah, that's a great question. I think um a lot of my work has centered around imagery, right? So it's kind of the opposite kind of analysis. Instead of studying the buildings themselves, it's studying how the buildings were represented and what was chosen to be represented and what was concealed, what was revealed. And um that work sort of built off of other scholars, historians that have studied imagery and how it's helped to frame this exotic sort of Garden of Eden narrative across the Caribbean. So, for example, Krista Thomas in her work, An I for the Tropics, you know, really um understood um imagery landscapes and how the body was represented within those landscapes and how people were represented in those landscapes and what was concealed and revealed. And so I was interested in how does that start to speak to architecture and how architecture was represented, and then how does that start to frame an understanding of the dominance of certain narratives of architecture in the Caribbean? So through that work and sort of unpacking all of the nuances of Caribbean architecture, right? We see that there was sort of this deliberate construction of imagery to promote um sort of colonial ideals, right? So we know that architecture has meaning, right? When the Spanish came, then the British, et cetera, there was this notion that indigenous architectural practices were not deemed as sort of on par with their kind of architectural styles. So, for example, the British, they would sort of bring their architectural styles from Britain wholesale, even though they may not have been suited to the climate, um, because they were a symbol of sort of colonial dominance over this space, right? You know, a lot of the Georgian Gothic revival styles that we see in courthouses and um churches and forts were about symbols of power and dominance, right? And so images of that also perpetuated that, right? So we have this idea of images being used for specific narratives and then the architecture as well being used for specific um narratives. And so, you know, you begin to see this idea of the images and the architecture being used to reinforce a certain ideal that ended up sort of pushing indigenous vernacular African practices to the background. And so a lot of my work has tried to track that physically in how architecture is developed in spaces, but also through imagery. So what I found I used Jamaica as a case study, and what I found was that even from 18th century plantation paintings by James Haquewell, we see the prominence of these sort of plantation structures that were um sort of Georgian architectural styles, and then, but in this sort of glorified picturesque landscape, right? That then started to tell a certain story of um the plantation as a place that was removed from death, disease, and the horrors of slavery. And this was happening at a time of abolitionist movement in Britain. And so you begin to see how the image and the architecture together were a way to try to tell a certain story, a kind of propaganda about what was really happening. And within a lot of those images, the homes of the enslaved laborers were sort of hidden and concealed. And then that started to shift after emancipation, where we begin to see um homes that were really suited to the climate. They were very economical. Um, they were some of the first homes of free people built out of wood with jealousy windows, you know, some of the things that we see today that are really climatically responsive, um, I argue have started to then be branded as this exotic. They started to show up in postcards, the kind of thatched roof structure that once again was very climatically responsive to the environment, um, started to then be wielded in a way to promote tourism. This is kind of a stage set or backdrop. So, once again, even though now we're seeing more of these indigenous and vernacular practices sort of being more visible in these images, they were still being used as a way, sort of be manipulated in this case for tourism, um, as part of the kind of colonial narrative that was being shaped at that time around sand, sea, sand, this kind of exotic narrative. So I think those are some of the first instances where you begin to get this exotic narrative being branded that now is a mix of these colonial architectures, but also some of the things that have become cliched now, like a thatched roof, for example. So it's it's very nuanced that colonial inference. It manifested in the actual sort of colonial architecture, but I think it also manifested in how colonial powers were shaping narratives.

SPEAKER_01: 13:22

I mean, I also thought of an eye for the tropics as we were setting this up. In a lot of ways, you know, you you bring a very interesting paradox because, of course, as you outlined for us, right? There there has been put on a sort of you know exoticized version of who the reaction is, um, who our people are, etc. But the flip side of that is, you know, the starting point. I don't know if I want to say it that way, um, are from, you know, our indigenous uh knowledges, our indigenous practices, right? Um, as a result of, you know, enslaved labor, disventured servitude, et cetera. And so I think basically there are just, you know, so many ways that Caribbean architecture has uh maybe this is more so a question for you in terms of what do you define as Caribbean architecture, but you know, I think there is a discrepancy as you've outlined between uh what things have been put onto us, sort of what things are innately ours. And so, you know, in terms of some of your work uh that has looked at housing, I think that is a very interesting way to sort of look at how have we sort of claimed our own land sometimes when when you're home or whether it's on social media, I have seen people build houses, you know, from blocks and cement and think this is the architecture in a lot of ways, right, that we don't highlight because uh there is this uh, you know, top-down or sort of right definition of architecture. And we don't necessarily always consider um some of these other ways that architecture can really manifest. And I found that sort of through your your own research about housing really interesting because it is one of those ways that we can define um innately what our own architecture looks like. And so maybe the question is for you um, how would you define Caribbean architecture? And then also, you know, through your work on housing, um, how do you sort of see it maybe distinct from or um offering us a different lens to consider what is, you know, innately Caribbean architecture?

SPEAKER_00: 15:30

That's a good question. Um I would start with what Caribbean architecture is not. Um I think it's not a monolith, it's very nuanced, right? And I think going back to some of that imagery and how it's kind of flattened the Caribbean as sort of one monolith. I know we do we say we're one Caribbean, which is you know this sense of community, but um the architecture is so nuanced across um the islands based on that history of colonization, based on um economic, social, political issues, like and how those all sort of come together. So it is very nuanced, but I think um if I had to kind of define um, you know, a kind of a broad definition, I would say it is about climate appropriateness, climate responsiveness, ingenuity. Um, and then it's really grounded, and I in I think domestic ritual, if we're we're speaking about the housing um component, and it's definitely grounded in deaconship systems, um, values, culture, et cetera. So I think there's the sort of tangible aspect in terms of how the construction practices, et cetera. But then I think it's also grounded in maybe ways that we live or want to be with others. And so, for example, with a lot of the housing work, like you're right, that's I the way I approach it, it's trying to understand that bottom-up approach and understanding that community knowledge is actually more important than maybe my professional knowledge, right? That, you know, going into a community, the community knows sort of their challenges and issues and how they may have responded architecturally to it that may be different from how I would respond to it. And so I often kind of approach an understanding of Caribbean architecture through that lens. But yeah, it also values maybe what's considered as informality in some spheres that may not be deemed as quote unquote worthy of studying because of that labeling of informality, right? But within that, there's a lot to be learned, right? There's about how people live, how they may choose to self-build or add on to their structures as they go along, what construction practices they may have been employing to get that to work, what techniques and local materials, right, that were maybe of the land that may have been employed. And so within that sort of um incremental self-built housing, I think you can find a lot of understanding of climate practices, cultural practices, um, maybe around family expansion in the future, your needs, your economic needs changing in the future, economic necessity. There's so much sort of wrapped up in that, like around adaptability, um, memory, community. There's so much there. And I think to your point about that like bottom-up versus top-down, I think we often sort of, in terms of academia, don't study what may not be considered architecture with a capital A, but is in fact there's a lot you can learn, especially as we confront um the climate crisis. So I think um that's sort of where I've been approaching my work. So a project that I'm about to expand on is just getting started is looking at sort of post-disaster housing and trying to understand how people may have sort of adapted to housing that was built and sort of given to them and made their own and how they define home within these spaces that may have just been given to them and they may not have had a say in how that home would have been shaped. And I think there's a lot you can learn from how Juan would adapt to a space that maybe they didn't have that hand in, and then trying to understand where that incrementality, so a lot of, for example, in Dominica, um, a lot of housing after it was Irma or Maria, because you know, those were back to back. Um, a lot of the housing was core housing, where you get the core and then you can add on after, right? As your means allow. And so trying to understand what were some of the decisions and how people chose to add on or not, how have they been uh sort of uh navigating that post-disaster recovery? So it's really looking at some of these everyday practices, but within that, trying to understand well, how does you know, sort of other sort of cultural ideas of kinship, community, et cetera, start to filter into maybe some of those decisions. So it's really looking at a lot of those more local material practices and community knowledge and not necessarily um the sort of architecture with a capital A, as I as I call it.

SPEAKER_01: 20:47

That's a great point because I think, you know, as you pointed out, our history goes into how we build our financials, our economy, you know, certainly goes into how we build. I mean, even, you know, your point on the way that we build houses oftentimes where it's you know, granny or whoever is in Farin and we're sending money back home to exactly, you know, room by room builders. Yes, to build our our houses and things like that. I mean, in many ways, right, when we sort of like look at the catch 22 of it, it's like there is the obvious like mortgage approach to getting a house, but that's not necessarily feasible for everyone, right? Um what does it then look like for us to have this approach to building our houses? Um, but then you know, it might take a little bit longer, but at the end of it, you're also, you know, not you don't have a 30-year mortgage or exactly all of these things.

SPEAKER_00: 21:44

So yeah, yeah. And I agree, like there's value in understanding that, right? Whereas I think sometimes we think there's not value in understanding that. And even within that, you talk about like the remittances and sending money back home, but like there's also nuances, even of like land tenure and land ownership within that, right? Um, I've been looking at Barbuda um and Barbuda's sort of communal land practices that have been sort of uprooted after um Hurricane Irma, and um, and then the tensions there with tourism and development, um, and how housing and architecture sort of all fits into that. But even when you kind of dig down into thinking about community and how that manifests itself architecturally across these different types, like the yards, like in Jamaica, right? You have the yards or family compounds, and even in Barbieuda, we're thinking about some of these communal land practices, what has that meant for how housing developed and how the architecture developed because of this kind of communal land. Um, you know, and the list goes on, like how is maintenance and repair done, and like the idea of porches and shutters and things like that that may have a climatic response. To summarize, you know, I think this sort of incrementality or informality is often deemed maybe chaotic or not worthy of studying, but I think there's a lot to be learned that we can then use to think about more formal architectures, but there's a lot to be learned there, especially because it is still climatically responsive, it's social bonds, et cetera, et cetera.

SPEAKER_01: 23:23

I think that brings me to another point that I definitely wanted to sort of underscore in our conversation, because as we were sort of alluding to, you know, European, Georgian styles, et cetera, of architecture that were brought to the Caribbean, they might not have been as fully suited for our region, for our climate. Um, that also even like weaves into other conversations that we've had on the podcast about style of dress, right? And thinking of like Manley's Kariba suit, why were we wearing three-piece suits in a place that is 90 degrees? Like, you know, uh and so these conversations I think really helped to shift these narratives about what matters, um, what doesn't matter, who they matter to, right? Um, and even thinking about the appeal of tourism as well, which you've alluded to, right? That for a lot of our islands, tourism is such a big part of the money that we make. And, you know, where are the discrepancies between uh some of the the lands, some of the, you know, heritage sites and things like that that are deemed as protected, but then, you know, thinking of not only the atrocities that have happened in some of these sites, but also, you know, uh whose names are really heralded when we think of them. And so uh when you're sort of unpacking this sort of understanding of Caribbean architecture for yourself through your work, what do you think is sort of most uh unappreciated or misunderstood when sort of viewed from this, you know, Capital A architecture perspective?

SPEAKER_00: 25:00

Yes, uh that's a good question. I think um it kind of goes back to that conversation around sort of local vernacular building practices. I think due to tourism and some of that imagery that I talked about earlier, um, we'd begin to see some of those because they have become exoticized, right? So my research talked about how the thatched roof eventually threw this, you can kind of trace how it became a signifier of a tropical ideal, right? And so it ends up being a cliche that can then get slapped on a building that then makes it sort of Caribbean architecture, right? Sort of removed from the nuance that it it once had. And so I think it then then becomes this sort of tourist signal that then feels like it's the narrative behind is it's either it's a tourist thing or it's a thing that's associated with, okay, I'm just living in a mud hut, right? It's like a primitive architectural element. And I think this idea of reducing some of those um traditional building practices to something that's either on one hand now become like a tourist applique on a resort building, or it's being reduced to something that is just seen as quote unquote primitive, then is the most misunderstood because then we lose all of the lessons that we can learn from the actual deeper meaning and climate responsiveness of those architectural elements and using that as a foundation for how we can then build on it, using maybe contemporary technologies and learn from those practices to think about how we can confront the challenges of the future. So, for example, in Jamaica, there's an organization called the Waterland Red Earth Collective. Um, and what they're trying to do is think about preservation, not just from a European, let's preserve this fort over here, or let's preserve this plantation great house over here, but how can we think about preserving some of these traditional building practices that have been deemed as not worthy of being preserving? So they are looking at these 150-year-old structures in St. Elizabeth's in the south of Jamaica that use earth. It's everything is coming from the land, um, the Spanish wall techniques, earth, limestone, traditional ways of firing the limestone using a lime kiln that you're building yourself, thatching, and really learning from Master Masons, not well, not Masons alone, but um, you know, Mr. Cummings, who we met when I took some students there, right? He is um teaching us how to thatch and kind of passing on those practices. We learn to build the line kiln and the kind of labor and love that went into that. And then that line then goes into mixing with the earth from the land. And, you know, I think the process alone, I think, was really powerful. But then seeing how those practices that are dying, but they occur on this building that's been standing for 150 years and withstood barrel that just passed and, you know, devastated St. Elizabeth's. Um, you know, there's something to be learned about the fact that this building using these materials that are from the land is still there. And yes, it needed patching, you know, and then that's part of the process, right? But I feel like there's something to be learned about you coming in with the community because we all help to patch um some places that needed um maintaining in the building.

SPEAKER_01: 29:03

I wanted to pause here for a moment to offer some quick context. You just heard us discuss buildings that survived Hurricane Barrel last year, but as many of you know, Hurricane Melissa has completely devastated the western part of Jamaica as well as Cuba and Africa. In the aftermath of Melissa, one of the 150-year-old Spanish walling structures are at the water and red earth, and knowledge and we also have to acknowledge the larger 90% of structures and area. Organizations like the Wear Collective and several other community organizations working tirelessly on the ground. Please be sure to check out the link in our bio. Your help, no matter the size, goes a long way in rebuilding what was lost.

SPEAKER_00: 30:18

But I think, you know, organizations like that are where I think the future of Caribbean architecture could be heading. Like what can we learn about this building? But think about how we could use technologies to then expand on some of these practices. Instead of just sort of bucketing these practices into two bins, either it's now a tourist cliche. So I would never look at thatch because that's like something we would see in a resort, or bucketing it as something that's primitive and not durable, instead of thinking about how you can expand on it in the in the future.

SPEAKER_01: 30:54

That definitely got to my next question in a way, because as we've, you know, spoken, we've talked about hurricanes and various other instances that have impacted us. You know, you mentioned tenement yachts, right? And people having zinc roofs and what all of these things sort of encapsulate about us when it comes to, you know, rural versus urban, um, you know, climate change and vulnerability, economic status, etc. I just sort of want us to dig a little bit deeper to underscore how Caribbean architecture can, or, you know, or you see it sort of simultaneously addressing environmental concerns while honoring the cultural, historical, social context of individuals and of the region at large.

SPEAKER_00: 31:42

Yeah, so um, as we all know, I think across the Caribbean, uh, we contribute the least greenhouse gas emissions. I forget off the top of my head what the percentage is, but we contribute very little compared to, you know, kind of other nations, but then are gonna be one of the most affected. Um, and so that does open up a lot of vulnerabilities. And I know we mostly talk about hurricanes, right, as sort of the main um kind of vulnerability, which we do need to pay attention to. But one of the things I've been looking at as well is that there are other vulnerabilities such as heat, extreme heat, and how that ties into how we design and build, how we think about labor, et cetera. The Island City Lab in Jamaica, they had a really interesting series in looking at the impact of heat and sort of urban scapes, whether it's the need for more trees and shelter, to how that ties into labor and how we need to start preparing for that. So, how does that relate to maybe drought and farming and agriculture and where what's architecture's role within within all of that? So definitely architecture has a place in thinking about the vulnerabilities to climate change. But within that climate change vulnerability, there are all of these other pressures that have to be untangled. So we have rapid urbanization, we have tourism-driven development, which sometimes um, especially post-disaster, can butt up against how we think about development, housing precarity, you know, so there are all of these other vulnerabilities that are also, you know, causing intense pressure. And um I think that goes back to why we should maybe be looking at um some of these other bottom-up systems to help to solve and respond to some of this crisis, right? So how can incrementality that is already happening anyway, right, be maybe used a bit more intentionally when we're thinking about um urbanization and how we how we think about housing and providing housing to people? How can some of these locally sourced materials that have been proven to be storm resistant that honor these sort of histories and social context, right? So going back to the Jamaica example, the Spanish walling, thatched roof techniques that Waterland Red Earth, like thinking about the earth as uh Waterland Daub as well, thinking about the earth as a building material, how can that be maybe studied and improved upon to confront some of the future climate crises? So I think there's a lot to be learned from these practices and then improved upon. I'm thinking about um Vernelle Noel as well, as another example. Uh, she's a Trinidadian architect, and her work has focused on computation um in design. So thinking about how we can basically use robots to help us build and um in a nutshell. It's more complex than that, but in a nutshell. But her work is, I think she calls it situated computation. So really thinking about we can train robots to um learn some of these crafts and cultural practices that may be dying. So what I found the kind of the most interesting work was that she was working with a wirebender in Trinidad and kind of trying to understand how this craft of wirebending for these elaborate mass costumes was dying, that craft was dying, and thinking about how she could create a code basically for this craft practice and then teach the robot, basically have robots help with um kind of creating these structures. So the goal was twofold. One, that you can try and save these crafts by understanding them and then sort of replicating it and building on it, but then two, that you can use the technology to build on it even more and maybe expand on it. So I think her work is a really interesting way to think about how you could apply it to help with some of these threats to the Caribbean, like building on these practices, but infusing um technology. The last piece I would say is we touched on a little bit before, but maybe could be more formalized into terms of policy, is going back to that community knowledge and really embracing community knowledge as a um a way to think about resilient Caribbean architecture that can withstand all of these threats, um, including housing. So there's an architect in Puerto Rico. Um, her name is Omira Rivera Crespo. She teaches at the University of Puerto Rico. And um, we all know that Puerto Rico also was uh devastated by Hurricane Maria. And a lot of her work after the hurricane has been thinking about what resilient housing means? How can we think about housing if we're rebuilding, how is the housing going to be resilient to the next storm? And she really went into communities and did a lot of community engagement work. So with community engagement work, we are coming in as architects and saying, community, you have the knowledge, right? We don't have the knowledge because you're living in this community. And that's the approach. There's a lot of tools around participatory work where you're trying to tease out and work with the community to and co-create designs and think about their knowledge as being the kind of forefront. And so she did a lot of that work and found that resilient housing in that context in Puerto Rico, in addition to you know, the sort of more technical aspects that will help it to withstand the next storm, she found that resilience wasn't just about that technical aspect. It was very cultural and community-based. And so a lot of the prototypes ended up being around incrementality again and being able to self setting up systems for self-building and thinking about how instead of saying no, you shouldn't be self-building, it's saying, hey, these are maybe toolkits that can help you self-build in a way that the detailing is going to be better for the next storm, right? So I think some of that work was important because it's honoring those traditions, but improving on them instead of saying, no, you should not be doing this. So I think those are just a couple of examples I think um we can learn from and expand on when we're thinking about how to confront all of these pressures and vulnerabilities in our region.

SPEAKER_01: 38:49

I'm especially glad that you brought up policy because I think in a lot of ways, you know, our populations are certainly growing, changing, evolving. But then between whether it's, you know, Jamaica or Puerto Rico or any of our other islands, there have been several conversations about access to lands and homes, right? Um, who has the financial means to own some of these homes? And while that is maybe not an architecture um concerned, right? Because if if we're building, we're building, but also um it changes the demand, right? And then also in a lot of ways changes design because still some local people um have access to lands to build to, you know, continue to expand things and the technologies um community practices as you outlined for us. Then uh we're just gonna get like a bunch of new contemporary housing that is owned by expats, and that's a whole another conversation for another day. But I think in a lot of ways, these these sort of what I'm trying to say is all of these things work together very seamlessly in ways that we don't always consider more or less.

SPEAKER_00: 40:04

Yeah, no, you're right. And I think you brought up you it may may not be an architectural problem, but I think land tenure and access to land is um especially going back to the policy piece, right? Because if you don't have the land to build, but and then you're working within a framework that says, okay, you need this title and you need XYZ to then sort of formalize things, then there's that barrier to even being able to build. And I think that's something that's come up even in this post-disaster context as well. And we've seen that in a few locations where sort of what it means to own a piece of land is not necessarily formal. See that in Puerto Rico with Amira's work, right? And a lot of sort of legal aid organizations where you know land has been just handed down through generations. And so you may not have a title that says, this is my land. And we see that across the region, right? And so that has been a barrier to then quote unquote being able to like formally uh kind of build within the systems that exist. And I know in Puerto Rico they had to do a lot of work with all of these legal aid um nonprofit organizations to change some of uh what FEMA, because they were trying to get FEMA aid, how FEMA was maybe counting or acknowledging ownership compared to what actually existed on the ground. So even though it's not an architectural end, I think there's a a place for architects within that conversation, as you said, in terms of maybe advocating for policy change, especially when it comes to not just land and housing after disaster, but the impacts of tourism and what land is deemed for the local population, and then what land is deemed for the tourist or the expat and speech access in some in some islands. Um and you know, how we sort of navigating that. I think it may not be a purely architectural problem, but there is a role for architects to be a part of pushing for policy change. Um, I always tell my students that, you know, you should be out there if you ever get an opportunity to be on a historic preservation committee or a zoning committee, or somebody asks you to have a seat on this council, um, you should say yes because that's where a lot of the um change is going to happen. Like sometimes we need to start with the policy piece before we get to all of the architectural piece. So I try to encourage my students to really get active politically if they if they ever have the opportunity or interest to think about change on that level.

SPEAKER_01: 42:59

Certainly. I think you know, we can't underscore particularly beach access, um, which is a big problem throughout the region. And how, you know, resorts have that's that is a future episode. So our listeners are definitely contested beach, yeah, always. Um, I uh definitely do, you know, want to shift a little bit because I always ask this question of our guests, but I think because our episode today is focused on architecture, I won't necessarily frame it in the same way, although you can feel free to answer it uh whichever way that you'd like. But I usually love to hear from our guests where their you know favorite ways that our conversation shows up in popular culture. Um, and that could be, you know, through music, through songs, um, etc., through books, but also I I think, you know, just definitely given your expertise with the region. Um, this could also be sort of your favorite um, you know, buildings or however you you seem fit to define architecture in the region, um, some of your favorite examples and how you think they really showcase the region in a beautiful light.

SPEAKER_00: 44:11

Um, I have a couple. I I think ranging from literature, so love uh Jamaica Kincaids, a small place, because you know, she talks about Antigua. Um and that has been a very famous one on the show. Yes. Um, and I think I mean it resonates for me in some of the uh relationships between tourism and um the built environment and but also some of these stereotypes around people and place. Um, so I'd say from literature there, um, I know Derek Walcott he meant he meant mentions architecture, maybe not as explicitly, but maybe as metaphors around memory and colonial legacy. Um, but I think in terms of um some of my favorite spaces, most recently, because I took some students to Jamaica last spring, and that resonated with how we can think about memory and history um in downtown Kingston. So it was the Kingston Creative Collective and the Waterlane Murals, which I think is an interesting pop culture example because now it's like Instagram spot, right? And video spot. But I think there's a story there about how you're kind of overlaying this art and murals over this colonial fabric that's creating this new identity, a place-making, a sense of place that people now want to come to. So I think it's really powerful, even though I know some people may dismiss it as just, oh, it's like Instagram place, but I think that also helps to bring a new story to the forefront than just the sort of sunse sand narrative, right? So that resonates with me as well as a kind of pop culture. And if there's tons of space similar types of spaces where art and architecture and the urban environment sort of intersect across the region. And so those are the types of spaces that I find um super interesting and powerful and maybe speak to how we can envision the envision the future.

SPEAKER_01: 46:19

I agree. I'm a big fan of Kingston Creative, and I think it blends well with, you know, our past and the our present and even future, right? Um, the work that they're doing in terms of preservation, of as you said, the murals upholding, you know, various figures in Jamaican history, et cetera, um, and still making it sort of, you know, design and what we in our can sort of contemporary sense.

SPEAKER_00: 46:45

So yeah, and I think it's like even the power of art to change, because I on that same tour, we went down to Fleet Street and looked at some of the murals there as well. And so I think there's a lot there around art architecture space that I find really, really interesting, um, that also feels sort of community-driven, which is as as you could see from this conversation been a been an interest of mine. And and I know that's those there's like similar initiatives across the Caribbean. So those are the types of things that I find interesting.

SPEAKER_01: 47:16

Um, for my final question, I think, you know, just for us considering the balance between preservation of history and historical architecture. Um, we have indigenousity, modernity, all these things that we have to consider. Um, what are sort of some of your recommendations for maintaining a sense of cultural identity in our architecture? And how do you envision the future of Caribbean architecture as it continues to negotiate all of these things, whether that be aesthetics, history, identity, climate, realities, et cetera?

SPEAKER_00: 47:51

Yeah. So I think I would say maybe preserving, thinking about how we preserve practices, right? Um, as opposed to just the image, right? Because I think if you think about preservation through a more practice lens, you begin to understand more depth within what should or shouldn't be preserved. Um, even some of the kind of modernist um examples across the region, right? There's so much sort of history and um kind of narrative behind some of those buildings, right? Like tropical modern buildings in Jamaica were thinking about, and across the Caribbean, we're thinking about how do we represent ourselves and think about our identity post-independence. And it was about shedding a colonial past. So architects like Colin Laird and um Wilson Chung, and you know, sort of all of these Caribbean architects that were really thinking about how architecture could shed the colonial past post-independence, right? You could see how if I were looking at preservation through that lens and not just the sort of aesthetic of it all or the postcard of it all, it may help to challenge why maybe certain modernist buildings that may not be sort of deemed as historic in through the colonial lens, maybe worthy of preserving because of what they meant politically, but also how they operated in terms of the climate. So I would say if you're thinking about preserving the practice, it may open up new ways of thinking about preservation that are beyond just typically what gets preserved in terms of sort of these colonial architectures. It may help to expand it on either end of the spectrum. Um, and then I think that also opens up ways to think about how these practices could evolve in the future because we can learn from them, and then think about you know technological advances in in the future. So, yeah, I think that's a good way to tie in identity while embracing innovation because you're focused on the practice, not just the image or the postcard.

SPEAKER_01: 49:56

Thank you so much for sharing. I think I tremendously learned a lot from our conversation, just sort of beyond what I think is already out there and helping us to really underscore and understand ultimately what architecture from our own perspective looks like. Um, and the really key and you know integral part of maintaining that for future generations, for who we are and how we continue to evolve. So thank you so much, Professor Doom, for joining us. Yes, it was great having you for our listeners point. I will be sure to you know link the books of of various resources and other work out there that's being done on our website. Um if you have any further questions on Caribbean Architecture, feel free to send us a DM or at CircleFacts Pod, all over social media, and let us know what you thought. And so uh till next time, we hope you enjoyed. Thanks for tuning in at CircleFacts. Visit circlefaxpodcast.com for more information for each episode. Follow us at circlefaxpod on Instagram and Facebook and at circlefax on Twitter.