Selling Comfort: Volkart Brothers and Origins of Air Conditioning in India (1923–1954)

This article offers an analysis of the development of air conditioning in India in the mid-twentieth century, from the vantage point of one of its largest trading firms, the Swiss merchant house of Volkart Brothers. It reveals that the marketing strategies and air conditioning installations by the firm extended and intensified exclusionary colonial notions about race, climate and civilization. The article analyzes the practice of "retro-fit"—retroactive installation of air conditioning in existing buildings in India, and "future-fit"—design of new buildings for later accommodation of air conditioning, within the context of the inequitable sociocultural framing mentioned above. The analysis is supported by a juxtaposition of the firm's external and in-house literature, which allows a rare insight into publicly advertised and privately-held notions about air conditioning. Such an investigation is deeply instructive in understanding subsequent and current architectural approaches to thermal comfort, not only in India but at a broader global level, where alternative transcultural approaches are receiving increased attention in the Anthropocene era.