This chapter discusses how colonialism transformed the architecture of both colonizers and the colonized. Between 1800 and 1940 every country in Africa and most countries in Asia came under European or—more rarely—American or Japanese control. Europeans introduced new architectural and urban planning ideas in order to propagate their own authority as well as to create familiar environments for themselves. The results, however, inevitably differed from their models. Meanwhile, new indigenous elites deployed imported architectural forms in order to modernize in a process that eventually encompassed resistance to foreign rule, while existing elites deployed precolonial architectural precedents in new ways to buttress their own claims to authority.

The first global history of architecture to give equal attention to Western and non-Western structures and built landscapes, "Architecture since 1400" is unprecedented in its range, approach, and insight. From Tenochtitlan's Great Pyramid in Mexico City and the Duomo in Florence to Levittown's suburban tract housing and the Bird's Nest Stadium in Beijing, its coverage includes the world's most celebrated structures and spaces along with many examples of more humble vernacular buildings. Lavishly illustrated with more than 300 photographs, plans, and interiors, this book presents key moments and innovations in architectural modernity around the globe. Deftly integrating architectural and social history, Kathleen James-Chakraborty pays particular attention to the motivations of client and architect in the design and construction of environments both sacred and secular: palaces and places of worship as well as such characteristically modern structures as the skyscraper, the department store, and the cinema. She also focuses on the role of patrons and addresses to an unparalleled degree the impact of women in commissioning, creating, and inhabiting the built environment, with Gertrude Jekyll, Lina Bo Bardi, and Zaha Hadid taking their place beside Brunelleschi, Sinan, and Le Corbusier. Making clear that visionary architecture has never been the exclusive domain of the West and recognizing the diversity of those responsible for commissioning, designing, and constructing buildings, "Architecture since 1400" provides a sweeping, cross-cultural history of the built environment over six centuries.