“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.”

Tropical Modernism is an architectural style of wide open spaces connected to sprawling outdoors that is unique to the Indian Ocean island of Sri Lanka. At its core is a focus on local resources and knowledge of indigenous builders. The style differs greatly from the more widely known and contemporary International Style, which embraces minimalism and takes a methodical approach to buildings through a logical use of new materials and asymmetrical compositions where form shapes function.

“To document,” Jurgenson writes, “is to be involved with our own experience instead of passively letting it float by.”