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Dwayne Smith Alexander

Dwayne Smith Alexander

Architectural designer and Associate at Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA), based in New York City.

Jul 29, 2026

2:41
But one of the things I found interesting was other people asking, what is colonial design? What does that even mean? And how does not designing something that's colonial even look like? What is that?
2:54
So those are the questions that I ask literally every single day on every one of my social media accounts, right? Because when you go into a place like Rome or Greece, you can find the Parthenon, you can find the Colosseum, you can find individuals who designed or created just, let's just say guidelines or rules with how architecture should be built in essentially the world.
3:13
And sorry for the history lesson, but I have to give you the context.
3:15
That translated into, you know, classical architecture that spawned into many different kind of design styles until we reached modernism.
3:24
And the reason why I give you that context is because when you look at Jamaica, to answer your question, colonial architecture really references the history, a really, in my opinion, negative history.
3:32
But nonetheless, it is the history.
3:33
So while I don't feel like those buildings should be completely eradicated because it does represent Jamaica, I think that moving forward, When you look at Jamaica from the 60s to now with emancipation, just the culture has had such a robust level of growth from ska to reggae to dancehall.
4:33
And then I think I can run back.

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