“A cross section of colonial technology”?Zooming in and zooming out on a photograph of a 1930s German trade fair

Abstract

Abstract The starting point of the article is one selected photograph depicting a fragment of an exhibition on the so-called 'tropical' or 'colonial technology' (Germ. Tropentechnik, Kolonialtechnik) from 1934, which was part of the spring trade fair in Leipzig, Germany. This particular visual source serves here as a starting point for a reflection on the specificities of the German discourse on building in the tropics. This discourse started during Germany’s colonial era but, as several archival documents and publications from the 1920s, 1930s and early 1940s prove, did not stop with the 1919 treaty of Versailles and Germany’s loss of its colonies. Such continuity of German technical expertise has been so far overlooked in the international scholarship, especially regarding the domain of architectural and urban planning for the tropics. From this particular photograph, I am zooming out on the set of broader research questions. Apart from connecting it to the colonial ambitions of the time, the 1934 Leipzig trade fair which is evoked in this source might be simultaneously also linked to the entrepreneurial thinking of the period. It testifies of a visible interest among smaller, specialized companies in the particular typology of a lodging for the tropics, or so-called Tropenhaus, a domain of construction that seems not to have preoccupied larger, general contractors from the German construction business. Finally, this particular photograph can be linked to discussions on construction materials suitable for usage in tropical climate zones.