Women Architects Disrupting Tropical Modernism: The Socially Engaged Work of Jane Drew and Minnette De Silva.

The legacy of Jane Drew and Minnette De Silva encompassed both rupture and tradition. As modernist architects working largely in tropical contexts, they mastered innovative technical repertoires. Yet they also counter-proposed a socially sensible approach to design through groundbreaking participatory methodologies that extended well beyond the climatic emphasis prevailing within the Tropical Architecture movement of the 1950s. Disconnected from the global, ahistorical, unornamental and achromatic principles suggested by the larger Modern Movement, their work also explored and promoted vernacular regionalisms. While Drew endowed modernism with a regional shell, De Silva excelled by critically disrupting its deep core. Furthermore, as women architects, they challenged restricted patriarchal fields. Through an exploration of their exemplary work in Chandigarh and Watapuluwa, this article discusses how the approaches of Drew and De Silva allowed mid-twentieth-century architecture to reinvent itself, embracing exciting beginnings while assimilating disruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]