Cultural colonialism has rightly been rejected – but China’s protest shows that authoritarians can also weaponise tradition
This year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, titled Laboratory for the Future, was inaugurated on the same day that the leaders of the G7 industrialised nations met in Hiroshima. As different as these events appeared, both signalled the end of globalisation. Both also displayed the promise and perils of a fragmenting world.
Of all the arts, architecture is the most globally homogenising. Erecting tropical copycats of Paris and London was a staple of European colonial policy. Today, the same glass-and-steel tower blocks dot interchangeable financial capitals the world over.
