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The bedroom doors are flush with the elevation, keeping the experience meditative and non-invasive. Banswara white marble accents in the living-dining pockets pay homage to the clients’ nostalgic ties to their home city, Bangalore.

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The kitchen has a discreet entrance, as the door slides into its pocket, and in true fashion, the “orb” is a spherical door knob that inserts itself into a slot. Once inside, the cabinetry, drawers, and storage are finished in light wood with recessed handles. The matte white overhead cabinets meld into the ceiling. Mushroom-toned granite countertops and dado punctuate the light-toned kitchen.

Sliding wardrobe shutters with white sheer embroidered fabric sandwiched in glass.

Yadnyesh Joshi

A wooden bed back with limewash finished niches and a white marble top has a soft, luxe boucle headboard.

Yadnyesh Joshi

Moving through the space, one instantly feels the harmony linking one room to the next, with a neutral backdrop nestled amongst the raw textures, natural stone, and light wood. The bedrooms were designed in response to their occupants. The designers have addressed the compact dimensions without overwhelming the room—a vanity, mirror, and bed are integrated into a bedback with removable cushions. Tiny niches are fitted with onyx stone orbs illuminated with soft light, casting a soft glow in the bedroom.

The bed in the parent’s bedroom is a reclaimed wood framework with cane infill and white marble wall cladding that extends onto the floor.

Yadnyesh Joshi

A study-cum-vanity terminates with a tall mirror. Decor from House of Soko and a white clay wall sconce by Hatsu accentuate the space.

Yadnyesh Joshi

The parents’ bedroom has a wood, rattan, and marble grid as a backdrop. Indian block prints are incorporated into the wardrobe shutters, paying homage to their roots. A study-cum-vanity was designed and positioned by a window overlooking the sea.

“In my view, minimalism isn’t about sacrificing detail; it serves as a canvas for showcasing details that mirror your context, history, and inherent personality within a space”, Sanyukta concludes. The apartment is a testament to melding the organic and linear and focusing purely on natural materials; they have crafted a place of solitude and peace within a dense urban environment.

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While, in the beginning, modernism may have been a tool of imperial power, it rapidly morphed in post-colonial hands to become a symbol of new freedoms and the possibility of a utopian future. The exhibition showcases models, drawings, photographs and ephemera that chart this journey, alongside a 30-minute film that explores modernism’s role in shaping decolonisation and constructing new national identities. “The story of tropical modernism is one of politics and power, defiance and independence; it is not just about the past, but also the present and the future,” says the exhibition’s curator Christopher Turner, who is also the V&A’s keeper of art, architecture, photography and design. “We deliberately set out to complicate the history of tropical modernism,” he adds, “by engaging with and centring South Asian and West African voices.”

These voices include Indian architect Aditya Prakash, a leading contributor to Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret’s monumental Chandigarh city project, and Ghanaian architect Victor Adegbite, who returned to Ghana from the USA at the invitation of Kwame Nkrumah, the country’s first leader following independence from Britain in 1957. Adegbite managed Nkrumah’s “reappropriation” of modernism, designing Black Star Square, a parade ground built over capital Accra’s former colonial playing fields. Prakash, meanwhile, though clearly on the receiving end of Le Corbusier’s overbearing nature, paid tribute to the Swiss French titan’s vision of Chandigarh. “[He] wanted to show a modern democratic India, and he succeeded by using equal elements to create a rippling, beautiful rhythm,” he reflected. “He was rather brash and impatient—he treated us like uninitiated children—but he helped us to realise our own country.”

The model of the Chandigarh High Court (Photo: courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Scala, Florence).

Some of the most interesting buildings in the show are little known globally. Among them is Mfantsipim School, a secondary school in the Gold Coast (now Cape Coast), designed in the late 1940s by British architects Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry. This duo was known for its adaptation of modernist aesthetics to the African climate, prioritising function over ornament—although the filigree façade of Mfantsipim School displays a little of the latter.

Visitors may leave the V&A pondering another pressing contemporary issue—or at least, Turner hopes they will. “As we look to a new future in an era of climate change, might tropical modernism, which used the latest building and environmental science available then to passively cool buildings, serve as a useful guide?” asks the curator. Forged in the crucible of dying empires, modernism’s most enlightened moment may be yet to come.

“Tropical Modernism: Architecture and Independence” is on at the V&A London till 22 September.

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