Building history: Historiography of architectural history in South Asia

Abstract

Architectural history informed the colonial government in their creation of an Indian empire, helped the self‐fashioning of the princely states, and eventually became the source of national narratives for the countries of India and Pakistan as they were carved from British India. The historiography of architecture in South Asia is therefore significant as a tool to understand political processes. Several studies on architecture in South Asia are limited to debates about built forms and their chronology, and not as reflections of society at large. The reception of architecture through time is at least as important as the creation of architecture, and the scholarship on architecture is a societal index of this reception. This essay reviews the study of architectural history in South Asia in order to trace the trajectory of the field. South Asia commonly includes the present‐day nations of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives and was largely congruous with British India in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.