Negotiating the Landscape Between Danish Modernity
and Colonialism:
Blok P’s Questionable Position in the Politics of Decolonization Post WWII in Nuuk, Greenland
Image Source: MBH ArchitectsAbstract:
In 1966, Denmark completed the largest mass housing block in all of the Danish realm called Blok P. Blok P was constructed during a period of post-colonial modernization in Nuuk, Greenland which used Modernism in its form and structure. Through modernization plans from the Greenland Technical Organization, like the G-50 and G-60 report, Greenland was westernized to better represent the Danish realm and Blok P was part of the G-60 efforts to concentrate the population in Greenland in order to realize this social and economic reorganization. However, in an era of decolonization, the measures implemented in Greenland and the structures that necessitated the building of Blok P resembled an evolution of colonial rule rather than the end of it. This research paper analyzes the contentious intersection between Danish exceptionalism through their colonization of Greenland,
and the subsequent postcolonial period in which modernization plans were enacted to create structures, like Blok P, facilitating the Danishization of Greenland. It analyzes the social and economic conditions that motivated Denmark’s creation of Blok P, the ways in which modernization and modernism helped perpetuate the subjugative colonial dynamic of Denmark's relationship with Greenland, and the impact these measures had through Blok P on the Greenlandic population. It finds that Blok P’s role in the fragile political and cultural landscape of post WWII colonization was not a misguided paternalistic endeavor by Denmark. Instead, modernism and modernization were mechanisms used by Danish colonizers to continue economic and social subjugation, control, and assimilation of indigenous Inuit people.
Chapter Break Down + Analysis
Chapter 1 : External + Internal Pressures Impacting Blok P’s Landscape
External —— Timing In The Global Landscapes
Internal —— Motives For Modernization: Identity and Paternalism
Chapter 2 : Weaponizing Modernization + Modernism Through Blok P
Modernization and Separation From the Past
Modernism and Primitivism In Blok P
Chapter 3 : Refocusing on Unwritten Histories Of Blok P’s Architecture
Scale : Density + Community
Function : No Room For Ritual
Form : Ornament Is Of The Past
For full thesis please reach out via email.