Modern Identity Research Articles

National Memory, Primitive Emotion and Gender Metaphor: Tracing the Origins of Barnett Newman's Creative Ideology

Barnett Newman returned to the origins of art history and the history of artistic creation. Through expressing the experiences and emotions of the Jewish people, he elucidated the close relationship between his work and post-Holocaust memory, exploring the national narratives and cultural implications inherent in abstract forms. Primitive artistic forms and the experiences of early humans with the external world played a significant role in Newman's creative philosophy, conveying a transcendent perception resonant with primal emotions. Additionally, Newman's works reflect the complexities of gender identity and the conflicting struggles of self-perception and bodily experience. His art holds unique significance and value in challenging conventional perceptions, initiating pluralistic dialogues, and exploring gender metaphors. Centered on Newman's creations and discourse, this study elucidates the sources of his creative philosophy, captures the artist's creative intent, and offers a glimpse into the process by which modern individuals, amid tragic circumstances, seek and construct self-awareness and modern identity.

Negotiating Modern Identity

Much of the problems associated with contentious identities in contemporary India can be traced to British colonial ethnographic constructs and categories which tended to rigidly fix identities which had been much more fluid in pre-colonial times. The colonial legacy continued in post-colonial India, impelling castes and communities to negotiate and renegotiate their identities and constitutional positions. One such community is the Lambada of Telangana. Historically a pastoral community involved in cattle breeding and caravan trade, they were designated as ‘criminal tribes’ under colonial rule. After Independence, they were recategorized in the Constitution under different denominations in different regions. Thus, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, the Lambadas of the Telangana region were categorized as ‘De-notified Tribe’ whereas their counterpart in the Andhra region were given the status of ‘Scheduled Tribe’ (ST). The Lambadas of Telangana launched a movement to demand that they should also be listed as STs on the premise that one community cannot be categorized differently in the same state, and they succeeded in being listed in the ST list in 1976. In this fight, many traditions came into circulation, including alternate histories and stories related to their origin and migration. Based on an ethno-historical approach, this paper explores these claims and counter claims of the Lambadas.

Blinded by the Light: Experience, Narrative, and Identity in Late Medieval and Early Modern Jaén

Modern histories of the shrine of Nuestra Señora de la Capilla (Our Lady of the Chapel) in Jaén, Spain emphasize the continuity of devotions at the site and the importance of tradition in local religious culture. The shrine's origins lie in the testimony of four witnesses who, in 1430, recounted in detail their experiences of seeing a heavenly procession. These witnesses, however, made little attempt to decipher the meaning of what they saw. That interpretation came only much later, as seventeenth-century authors fit it into their narratives of Jaén's central role in the “reconquest” of Spain. This article examines how successive efforts to translate the lived experiences of these individuals — in their own testimony, as reframed by later writers, and as incorporated into civic traditions — have structured the experiences of generations of local residents.

Soviet Monuments in Urban Space: Reformatting the Past

The article is devoted to the problem of transformation of the role of Soviet monuments in modern urban space. The author examines the changes in their perception in the context of cultural, social and political processes, and also shows how monuments are used as an arena for memorial conflicts. Special attention is paid to the loss of their memorial significance and their inclusion in individual and folklore practices reflecting changes in the identity of society. The purpose of the study is to analyze the mechanisms of reformatting Soviet monuments, their symbolic significance and influence on collective memory. As a result, the author proves that monuments originally created to promote ideological values acquire new symbolic functions over time. In modern conditions, they often lose their original commemorative role, becoming elements of urban folklore, tourist sites or even the basis for Internet content. In addition, their transformation, associated with physical changes or recoding of meanings, turns monuments into a tool for rethinking the past and expressing modern identity. It is noted that Soviet monuments are becoming objects of memorial conflicts, especially in post-Soviet countries, where changes in memory policy cause discussions in society. The conclusions of the article will be useful to researchers engaged in the study of memory, cultural policy and urbanism, as well as to anyone interested in the history of the Soviet heritage. The article emphasizes the importance of rethinking the past in shaping the modern urban environment and identity.

Constructive Approaches to Analysis of Constructed Identity

The article deals with the main directions and outcomes of identity research along with the expansion of the research field as a whole and concept list. The author explores an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach well established in identitarian research. By building a general outline and defining the comparative context of the analysis of identity in general and political identity in particular, the article explores collective monographs “Integration and disintegration potential of identity in history and modernity” and “Identity. Personality, society politics. New contours of the research field”. The interdisciplinary work of Tomsk scientists is structured into three parts, corresponding to the author’s methodology. This approach enables to characterize the key positions of the authors of each part, comparing them with the arsenal developed in the social and humanities. Scientific and political relevance characterize each of the dimensions chosen by the authors of the monograph, which also determines the high disputability of the proposed topics and assessments. The collective monograph edited by Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences I.S. Semenenko has 44 sections written by a team of 32 authors. The article contains an overview of key sections and directions of research, and notes the role of the executive editor, who is one of the leaders of identitarian research in modern Russia. The collective monograph is aimed at promoting the issue of identity not only in scientific discussions, but also in the public space, since identity is considered as an important development resource. Despite all the differences in format, structure, objectives and approaches, these works are united by bringing identity into the mainstream of sociohumanitarian and political science, determining the potential of identity as a resource for social development, integration (or disintegration) of the society. Analysis of the research conducted gives grounds to attribute them to the successful search for an independent vector of domestic science.

"The sort of design sophistication we were all in need of," Ernst Plischke’s design for Paul’s Book Arcade (1949), Hamilton

In 1949 a remarkable interior design for a Hamilton bookshop by Ernst Plischke was, according to the client, "the sort of design sophistication we were all in need of." Paul's Book Arcade played a pivotal role in Hamilton social circles in the 1940s, with the owner David Blackwood Paul (aka Blackwood) and his wife Janet Wilkinson, forming their own "centre of human enlightenment." The Blackwood group of friends included painter Margot Phillips, who like Plischke, was a European refugee, painter, critic, and a writer for The Listener, Geoff Fairburn and his wife Jean (also an artist), as well as writer Alexander Gaskell Pickard. Paul's Book Arcade was established in Hamilton in 1901 by Blackwood's father William Henry Paul. In 1933, Blackwood took over the management of the bookshop, reportedly as the result of a disagreement with his father, who by then was a powerful community leader. Paul's local services were a more pressing concern, and so Blackwood inherited what was a "modest emporium" with the atmosphere of a general store. Blackwood would later transform Paul's Book Arcade to such an extent that in 1949 the visiting English publisher Sir Stanley Unwin numbered the bookshop among the fourteen best in the world, and one of the two best in New Zealand. So successful was the bookshop that in 1955 a further two stores were opened, each in Auckland. The first was located on Shortland Street, and the second on High Street, also designed by Plischke. The Blackwood social circle would have a lasting and far‐reaching influence on the mid‐century architecture of Hamilton. Connections with local artists and groups such as the Waikato Society of Arts, allowed a seamless flow of European‐inspired modernist ideals to inform Hamilton's new architecture, interior design, and cultural landscape. The first built manifestation of this movement was the 1949 interior design for Paul's Book Arcade by Austrian architect Ernst Plischke. This presentation will look at the relation between Blackwood and Plischke, the architect's design for the Book Arcade, and how the Blackwood's informed design sensibilities would influence Hamilton's modernist landscape for years afterwards.

The Role of Cultural Heritage in Shaping Modern Identity: A Comparative Study of Eastern and Western Perspectives

Cultural heritage plays a crucial role in shaping modern identity, influencing both individual and collective experiences. This paper examines the impact of cultural heritage on the formation of modern identities by comparing Eastern and Western perspectives. It explores how traditional practices, rituals, and beliefs contribute to identity in Eastern cultures, with a focus on ancestral worship and family heritage. In contrast, Western societies emphasize the preservation of tangible cultural heritage through museums and institutions. The paper also addresses the tension between cultural preservation and modernization, particularly in the context of globalization. The findings underscore the importance of balancing heritage protection with contemporary development and the role of education in this process.

Embodiment as a manifestation of national intonation in modern Ukrainian popular vocal art

Relevance of study. The phenomenon of embodiment is considered as a mean of identifying national identity and a way to avoid standardization of performance in modern Ukrainian pop (modern) singing. The concept of "intonation" in modern vocal art is interpreted not only as the actual purity of sound, intonation, but also as a fundamental cultural phenomenon, the core of musical performance skill, which is based on a bodily determinant. The important role of bodily intonation in the formation of the performer's cultural national identity is substantiated. The main aspects of the metamorphosis of body intonation in modern singing, the transformation of the body image of the Ukrainian pop singer from the times of the USSR to the present are highlighted. The positive and negative aspects of globalization and Americanization are analysed. In particular, the consequences and influence of the integration of world vocal techniques on the understanding of the national dominant are investigated. The necessity of adapting world vocal techniques to the body of the Ukrainian national vocal pop tradition is substantiated. The importance of further development of modern Ukrainian vocal techniques based on national materials is proven. The practical aspects of applying knowledge about embodied intonation in the professional activity of a modern Ukrainian singer are analysed. Works presented by several groups of sources considered as the theoretical base of the considerations in accordance with the problems and tasks of the research: philosophical works, works on musical art, interpretology, ethnosociology. The research methodology combines the methods of musicological generalizations, musical comparativistics, methods of analysis and synthesis, and the method of performing self-reflection. The main objective of the study is to investigate the phenomenon of body intonation in modern pop performance through the prism of national and global perspectives; to prove that embodied intonation is an extremely important component of the performer's pop musical intonation, which carries a national authority. The scientific novelty of the presented considerations is that in Ukrainian musicology, the issue of national body intonation in the context of the globalization of popular music culture is investigated for the first time. The conclusion summarizes the results of the research, points out the perspective of the musicological examination of embodied intonality as a way of preserving national identity in a competitive Ukrainian modern singing art.

Renaissance Self-Fashioning after 44 Years: Hybridity, Conversos, Individuation, and littérature totale

Abstract While Stephen Greenblatt’s 1980 book, Renaissance self-fashioning: from More to Shakespeare, was methodologically innovative within the field of literary criticism, his work also grew from the roots of Jacob Burckhardt’s old cultural history, and his method of new historicism developed alongside the new cultural history. Although certain parts of Burckhardt’s arguments have been discarded, the work of Greenblatt and others has continued to build upon his foundation. Courtiership, anxiety, and the relationship between outward and interior identities, text and context, hybridity, and individuation are all useful concepts for constructing less monolithic understandings of early modern identities. With a European scale, this article traces early modern historiography and literary criticism from the nineteenth century to 2024 and introduces historical examples of identity formation from early modern England, France, Iberia, the Italian peninsula, and the Holy Roman Empire. The article reflects upon early modern examples of self-fashioning in the light of Burckhardt, the Annales, Greenblatt, and others who have contributed to our understanding of agency and identity up to the present day, arguing that these historians and literary scholars have worked together to answer questions that are fundamentally psychological in nature.

Exploring conflicts between traditional Shona practises and post-colonial modernity in gender roles in Stephen Chifunyise’s Oh My Grandfather

This article explores the intersection of gender roles, traditional Shona culture, and colonial legacies in Stephen Chifunyise’s play Oh My Grandfather (2018). Set in post-colonial Zimbabwe, the play highlights generational conflicts within the Matanga family, reflecting broader societal struggles. It explores how patriarchal Shona traditions continue to dictate gender dynamics, which are largely oppressive toward women. The article focuses on the roles of Morgan and Dorcas, who navigate between these traditional expectations and modern, Western values, creating what Homi K. Bhabha terms a ‘Third Space’ of cultural hybridity. The article discusses how Chifunyise critiques rigid gender norms while advocating for a balance between preserving cultural heritage and embracing modern ideals, such as gender equality. By highlighting characters like Dorcas and Tandi, who resist oppressive traditions, the play suggests that cultural practices can evolve without perpetuating injustice. Ultimately, Oh My Grandfather provides a nuanced exploration of the complexities of cultural identity in contemporary Zimbabwe, advocating for an integration of tradition and modernity that promotes a more equitable society.

Shanghai and the surreal: Urban renewal as an inception

Inspired by surrealism as a concept and form of interpretation, the inquiry put forth in this article works to reveal how the dream-like image of contemporary Shanghai channels a deep-rooted propaganda endeavour. Using my observations of contemporary treatments of lilong – with particular focus on the tableaux featured on the outer walls of sealed neighbourhoods, as well as the staged recreation of lane life in a shopping mall – this article proposes a more critical understanding of the urban renewal and approaches deserted lilong neighbourhoods as sites of rejected memories, and subjects of multifaceted visual and material reproductions. Due to the eviction of residents from lilong to make way for a future-facing, homogenous global city with strong Chinese characteristics, what I term as ‘memory struggle’ ensues. As a city growing amid numerous cultural and political forces, shaped by conflict and migration, Shanghai’s urban landscape presents layers of conscious and unconscious, real and unreal; perhaps offering its own form of surrealist artwork. Closer reflection upon various surrealist forms on the surface of today’s Shanghai proposes that, however, the city’s evolutionary mechanism runs contrary to surrealist concepts of unconscious liberation. Rather, the dream is manufactured to (re)create memories and spaces in service of ‘national history’ and ‘modern identity’. Nevertheless, when read through a surrealist lens, the mask of this dream ‘Shanghai’ communicates hidden truths about Chinese dreaming and urban renewal.

Nurturing Professionals: De Facto Maternal Roles in British New Woman Novels, 1880–1900

Abstract This article situates the modern ideals of female motherhood and professionalism in the fin de siècle creation of the professional New Woman in Britain, and posits that future feminist discourses would find value in identifying similar strands of commonality with underrated historical feminist movements. Presenting snapshots of nineteenth-century British novelistic plots, this article shows how altered settings and character types in early, mid, and late Victorian novels do not diminish the Western investment in marriage and procreation as the future of culture, civilization, and hegemony. The article then analyzes how late Victorian narratives reconceptualize maternity as civic duty. Consequently, the physicality of biological motherhood and the complex Victorian epistemologies about sex and sexuality are relegated to animality with distinctly classist and racist connotations. Unwanted birth, along with its discomfiting relationship with infanticide in Victorian society, is subtly pushed into the sexualized realm of the lower classes or foreign, other races. Finally, this article explores the figure of the maternal professional woman, de facto non-biological mothers to childlike figures in the interest of civic duty that emerged, fairly clearly, from the discursive construction of the proto-professional New Woman in the fin de siècle. In this way, this article argues that the ideal of the New Woman gave rise to the modern notion of female professionalism that is nurturing and maternal, and involved the rearing of both biological and non-biological children.

“Cauldron of Conspiracy”: Conspiratorial Tropes as Modes of Critique in Ḥabībī’s The Pessoptimist and Saʿdāwī’s Frankenstein in Baghdad

Abstract This article uses the concepts of “conspiracy” and “conspiracy theory,” along with their literary tropes, to theorize resistance to the colonial ideals of modernity in Israel and Iraq and to contest the oppressive developmental temporalities associated with this modernity. By analyzing Imīl Ḥabībī’s al-Mutashāʾil (The Secret Life of Saeed, the Pessoptimist, 1974) and Aḥmad Saʿdāwī’s Frānkishtāyn fī Baghdād (Frankenstein in Baghdad, 2013), I show how tropes of conspiracism and conspiratorial thinking are deployed in both of these novels to critique myths of linear progress—often used to justify the Israeli occupation and the U.S. invasion—despite the divergent historical periods and contexts out of which the two texts emerge. In their act of contestation, the novels leverage alternate temporalities in connection to conspiracism, such as the cyclical time of suffering and exploitation, or the apocalyptic time that offers release from said suffering through ending time altogether. Yet in both cases the tropes of conspiracy are ultimately shown to have little explanatory or emancipatory value and high human cost. Both novels thus thematize the analytic and critical limits of conspiracism.

Fluid Modernity and Virtual Communities: An Analysis of the Popularity of MBTI on Social Media

This paper, rooted in Zygmunt Baumans theory of modernity, examines the formation of virtual communities and the characteristics of liquid modernity as manifested in the widespread phenomenon of Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) on social media. As a psychological assessment tool, MBTI has pervaded social media platforms, engendering virtual communities characterized by high fluidity and consumerist tendencies. Through participatory observation and online ethnography, this study delves into the MBTI virtual communities on the "Xiaohongshu" platform, exploring their consumerism-driven formation mechanisms and cultural attributes. In modern society, virtual communities exhibit dynamic stability and structural elasticity, with identity constantly being reshaped and redefined within these virtual spaces. The popularity of MBTI underscores the anxieties surrounding identity in contemporary society and reflects the liquid nature of modern identity formation. Under the influence of technology and consumerism, virtual communities have emerged as a significant social form in modern society.

Social Problems of Islam in Modern Indonesia in Muslim Academic Periodicals

The purpose of the article is to analyse the modern Muslim intellectual tradition in Indonesia in the context of analysing the social problems of Islam. The novelty of the study lies in a comprehensive and comparative analysis of the main trends and directions in the development of Muslim social thought in modern Indonesia. Methodologically, the article is based on the principles proposed in intellectual and social history, which allows us to perceive Muslim intellectuals involved in the study of the social problems of the Ummah as an imagined community, and their ideas as invented traditions. The article analyses 1) the theoretical and methodological foundations of modern Indonesian sociology of Islam, 2) national specifics and regional features of the development of Islam in Indonesia in modern Muslim thought, 3) the problems of transformation and contradictions of the radicalization of Islam through the prism of understanding and interpreting this dimension of the modern social history of Islam. It is assumed that Muslim intellectuals make a significant contribution to the consolidation of modern identity by analysing both the social characteristics and characteristics of the Ummah, as well as the threats faced by the Indonesian model of Islam in a secular society in the context of the actualization of the ideas of radical Islam. The author's main conclusions include several points: 1) professional Muslim intellectuals make a major contribution to the development of modern Muslim sociology, 2) specialised journals published by Islamic universities play a leading role in the production and relaying of social knowledge based on Islam, 3) modern Muslim intellectual tradition is the subject to fragmentation, but, in general, the scientific tradition of the Ummah actualizes moderate trends in Islamic Sociology, based on the principles of interdisciplinarity.

Defying the gravity of “dominant parent” Sino-foreign JVs Chinese state leadership and control of Eurasia Aviation Corporation, 1931–1943

In 1931, Deutsche Luft Hansa and China's Nationalist government came together to form the Sino-German airline Joint Venture (JV), the Eurasia Aviation Corporation. Eurasia plied the skies over China and beyond, as part of its mandate to project newfound state power in a global infrastructural race to prove its technocratic capabilities and modern identity. By tracing the founding, development, and dissolution of Eurasia Aviation Corporation, this paper seeks to overturn the paradigm of the “dominant parent” enterprise where the foreign side controlled the destinies of Sino-foreign JVs. Using epistles and contracts between Luft Hansa, the Executive Yuan, Eurasia, and the ministries that had purview over the Sino-foreign JV – as well as using aerophilatelic catalogues, route networks, and Chiang Kai-shek's lectures ( Chinese Citizenry and Aviation) – this paper proposes that Nationalist state actors were capable of formidable and strategic stewardship over the business that transcended the quasi-equity on paper.

The microbial cataclysm that forever changed life’s history

After a full century of search, evidence of Darwin’s “missing” pre-Cambrian fossil record was finally discovered in the mid-1950s. Unsurprisingly, given the then widely held belief that Precambrian life was not only unknown but unknowable, the initial report engendered widespread skepticism. Nevertheless, new finds soon followed, discoveries that set the science on its present course by establishing the role of O2-producing phototrophic cyanobacteria as prime components of the Precambrian biota. Remarkably, however, many of the newly found ancient specimens were all but indistinguishable from cyanobacteria living today, a similarity that although bolstering their interpretation as authentic fossils raised questions about their apparent lack of evolutionary change. As the Precambrian fossil record has become increasingly better documented over recent decades, the seeming identity of modern and fossil cyanobacterial taxa has been repeatedly confirmed by workers worldwide. To accommodate these extraordinarily long-lived taxa, a new category of evolutionary rate-distribution, hypobradytely, has been added to G.G. Simpson’s classic listing and a second group of hypobradytelic Precambrian organisms, the microbial components of sulfuretum biocoenoses, has been discovered. Both of these groups originated early in earth history, the origin of O2-producing cyanobacteria ∼2700 Ma ago producing an enormous upheaval of the world’s ecosystem -- the microbial cataclysm -- as they supplanted long-established oxygen-intolerant anoxygenic photosynthetic bacteria to become the predominant primary producers, the fundament of the global ecosystem. At least three principal characteristics of these early-evolved hypobradytelic prokaryotes, both cyanobacteria and sulfuretum bacteria, have contributed to their striking differences in tempo and mode of evolution from those of the later-evolved Phanerozoic biota: (1) Their lack of outgroup biotic competition; (2) their within-group competition-minimizing ecologic preferences; and (3) their phenotype variability-limiting asexual mode of reproduction. Clearly, both the tempo and mode of evolution evolved as the cyanobacterially induced microbial cataclysm forever changed life’s history.

Examining the Relationship between Cultural Globalization and Marriage Spaces: The Mediating Role of Modern Identity

Aim: The purpose of writing this article was to investigate the relationship between cultural globalization and marriage spaces, relying on the mediating role of modern identity. Methods: The research type was descriptive and survey methodology was used. The total sample size consisted of 271 students of Al-Zahra University (S) who were married between the years 2020 and 2023, and this number was able to fill out the Mirzaei’s (2021) Cultural Globalization and the Kianpour et al. (2015) and Afsharian (2021) Modern Identity Questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed and interpreted using SPSS and AMOS softwares. Results: In terms of effecting the dimensions of the dependent variable (spouse selection spaces), the highest rate was related to the relationship between individualism and the unsupervised spousal selection space (0.77); this means that the higher the level of individualism, the higher the number of unsupervised marriages and vice versa. The lowest level of correlation was also seen between the variables of using Iranian music and the atmosphere of passive supervision in choosing a spouse (0.16). Also, relying on the Sobel test, it was determined that the value of this statistic in all variables is greater than ±1.96, and this means that the modern identity variable has played a significant mediating role in the relationship between cultural globalization and spouse selection spaces. Conclusion: Considering the limitless expansion of communication and the internet and virtual space that is accessible to everyone, the religious-traditional fabric of Iranian society, as well as the decrease in the marriage rate and the increase in the divorce rate in the current era, it seems that the authorities should adopt appropriate policies and providing basic and important schemas by experts and university professors is more and more able to return the atmosphere of marriage and choosing a spouse to the past and its traditional state and also to overcome such alarming statistics related to the categories of marriage and divorce. In other words, it is necessary to think of measures to pay attention to the rich traditional culture so that the identity of Iranians does not suffer from contradictions and conflicts.

Analysis of cultural and identity transformations in the modern world

The issue of identification is becoming critical in the context of globalisation. On the one hand, globalisation stimulates the processes of cultural rapprochement and mutual infiltration. On the other hand, it is sharply criticised because of the desire to preserve one's culture and, accordingly, one's identity from "Westernization." The development of digital media exacerbates the problem of self-identification and socialisation of people through integration into virtual reality and the formation of online identities. This requires identifying the main trends of modern cultural and identity transformation and their careful analysis in the context of globalisation and the formation of the information society. The main methodological approaches of our study include constructivism, which allows us to identify the critical areas of identity construction in the global world, and structuralism, which identifies its main elements. Primary research methods: analysis of documents and sociological survey data, correlation analysis and case studies, synthesis, deduction, induction, generalisation, and systematisation. The study found that migration is a critical factor in modern identity transformations. Thus, it contributes to the launch of diametric processes: on the one hand, it influences the emergence of a hybrid identity as a product of cultural synthesis, and on the other hand, it actualises the processes of ethnic, religious, cultural, and national identification. Cultural globalisation promotes the exchange and borrowing of cultural values between peoples. At the same time, it increases resistance to Westernization by introducing practices of cultural isolation and a return to traditional values (cultural and religious). The formation of internet identity brings to attention the problem of constructing a virtual identity that is significantly different from the real one.

MODERNIST HERITAGE OF KARACHI: AN ARCHIVAL OF A COLLECTIVE MEMORY FROM AN ART DECO LENS

“To look at emotion and desire in architecture is not to discount the simple fact that most buildings have a practical purpose. But that practical purpose is rarely pursued with perfect detachment or indifferent calculation. To build and to inhabit are not small actions, and it is hard to undertake them with coolness.” Rowan Moore's text ‘Why We Build’ talks about desires shaping and giving form to the spaces we inhabit (Moore R. 20213). Practicality is always underlined by a necessity that gives rise to a desire. In my grandparent's house from the ’50s, all the interior spaces of the house were clustered around a sehen1. The spaces were connected by a seamless concrete floor, commonly present in most houses built in the ’50s and ’60s. This had a very practical purpose to it. Every summer the whole house was hosed down with water. Because of a seamless floor that connected all the rooms to the lounge and the lounge to the sehen, water could easily flow outside into a drain in the sehen. It proved to be sustainable in many ways as it lowered the temperature of the whole house for most of the day. There is a very simplistic desire behind a concrete floor. Domestic spaces of such a typology are nostalgic and a part of a collective memory of houses and apartments from the 50s and 60s. Many houses in Karachi within areas like North Nazimabad, P.E.C.H.S., and Bahadurabad are examples of a regional language that developed in these two decades. When it comes towards nostalgia and memory we often find the built spaces that preserved a memory were heritage from the colonialist period. A built reminiscent of power and dominance. But there is another kind of collective memory that talks about the simplistic details shared earlier. This detail is a part of a typology that speaks to another kind of heritage. A heritage that we reclaimed in post-colonial times. Using the lens of Art Deco homes, the paper studies the transformation of a global movement into a local aesthetic. By recording the narrative of the inhabitants of these structures, this research can create a conversation about the sensitivities we have towards these vernacular techniques that developed a modern and brutalist-inspired heritage for the city of Karachi. The city’s heritage is more than the colonial architecture found in the old town. These modernist structures present another kind of heritage, unique to the architectural vocabulary of Karachi, and represent a climatic sensibility that developed over the 20th century, building a modernist identity of Karachi’s architecture. Keywords: Modern Architecture, Art Deco, Post-Colonial, Collective Memory Nostalgia