Thanks to the rapid development in technology recently it is seen that the concept of “sustainability” has changed and sustainable architecture has become as a new international phenomenon. However, this too rapid development also warrants a thorough reconsideration of the aims of the sustainability and relevant architectural methods and their effects. Looking for new possibilities to combine with new methods bearing in mind the local limits of architecture, will both enrich the perception of “sustainable architecture” and change the historical understanding of the society. Moreover, this is more than an abstract idea since the tropical architectural practices, which emerged as an imperial expression in the 1930s and described as “colonial architecture” are actual examples. In spite of the fact that the rise of International Modern Architecture, a modern, hybrid approach that is both sensitive to the climate and respectful to the local with the idea of conserving energy and resources has been created in these regions. Instead of the structural, formal and functional expression of materials such as glass, steel, iron and concrete that came into use with the industrial revolution; In tropical architecture applications, there is an evaluation of local conditions regarding the existing materials and climate. Hence, this condition shows that tropical architecture is closely related to vernacular architecture and sustainability issues, and even points out that it can be considered as the precursor of the concept of sustainability and green architecture practices, which are discussed in various dimensions today. This study brings into the open the relationship between modernism and the local features of practices called tropical architecture, made by Western architects who set out with a modernist vision in tropical regions. The study also reviews the place, time, purpose and principles of the concept of sustainability in the history of architecture and further discusses how tropical modernism can be evaluated in this context. For this purpose, tropical architecture, created by synthesizing traditional and modern, was discussed in terms of these two characteristics. Along with the relationship of tropical architecture with modernism in the process of emergence and development, the work of modern architects working in colonial regions was included and the impact of pioneering modern architects on architects working in tropical regions was mentioned. In addition, the local features of tropical architecture were examined with the concept of “locality” of vernacular architecture. In addition, the relationship of tropical architecture with “sustainability” and sustainable architecture was discussed in the study. First, the concept of sustainability has been examined within its historical context. What and for whom sustainability is, it has been questioned by addressing the environmental reasons behind the extinction of societies and the contradictions of sustainability with capitalism. The common goals of sustainable architecture and tropical architecture, which are named with the principles transferred from the concept of sustainability to the field of architecture, have been revealed. This study demonstrates the essentialness of reading Tropical architecture as a precursor to sustainable architecture, beyond viewing it as a localized modernism, and discusses why it is not included in canonical history narration. The study also criticizes the existing international language of sustainable architecture studies as they cite Tropical Modernism as a supposedly archaic example for the production of new modern locales. Through the medium of this study, it was disputed why tropical architectural practices, which have many common features with sustainable design parameters and historically located before sustainable architecture, are not considered in the history of sustainability and sustainable architecture. In this context the topics opened for discussion; in the emergence of tropical architecture, it can be summarized as the lack of careful consideration of sustainable development dimensions, the weakness of the theoretical discussion of sustainability in the literature and the lack of an understanding of architectural history written from an environmentalist perspective. Considering the current (mis)understanding of the tropical architecture and absence of its evaluation from various critical perspectives, we conducted this study to fill this serious gap. The results emphasized that for a more sustainable future, designs should be made with local characteristics, climate-balanced, and taking into account the physical environment, as clearly seen in tropical architecture. Under separate cover, it is another important result of this study even in such a period of great power, architectural practitioners did not prefer to apply the modern architectural paradigm and templates in tro