Monday, April 01, 2019
Of Architecture, Museums, Oversimplifications and the Taj
I am tired of hearing
that the Taj Mahal is fantastic architecture
and
it so follows that if people can
appreciate the Taj, they can and must have good Architectural taste.
I'm paraphrasing, but thats pretty much what was being expressed.
That’s like saying I
must know good food because I follow Gordon Ramsay on Instagram! But I turn
up my nose at the local Aloo-Tikky joint. (Or I watch Masterchef Australia!)
And, no, a tomb made
by an emperor to remember a dead wife in an exercise of monumental excesses,
arguably the most intricately and ornately decorated still would not be my
benchmark for good (let alone great) architecture in the subcontinent.
To me it is an object
in the landscape.
Like a icon, a flag, a
post, appreciated and viewed singularly for its place in the distance in a landspace, as an place to be photographed before.
A marvel of
construction, proportion and shape, and craft, definitely but architecture?
Also the common discussions
around the Taj, rarely, if ever, go to the Char-bagh, or the Masjid and its
mirrored Aaram Ghar, or how it fits in a larger landscape or urban precinct,
those I have heard only in the confines of architectural conversation
between very lettered conservationist, and architects.
No one I know thinks
of the Taj beyond its celebrated imagery, its marvel of an Object-in-a-Landscape
and the phenomenal pictures it lends itself to from every angle, like a finely
crafted curiosity, that attracts travellers from all continents to marvel at
its perfection. It is a wondrous tourist attraction, surely, but is it
architecture? We could argue that.
Does it fit the
Vitruvian Ideal? Commodity, Firmness? Delight? Or the 10 markings of
architecture? How does it address climate? Or shelter?
Does it belong on that
bank of the river? Or is it contrived, Kind of like the Guggenheim at Bilbao?
And the word is divided on Ghery’s Bilbao( i’m being polite when I say divided,
but we will leave it there)
But that isn’t why I
started out on this.
As the epitome of the
Mughal Tomb, does it automatically become great architecture? And even if
it does (although i’d argue it doesn’t) does an ability to appreciate the Taj,
an easily acquired (sometimes considered a default human birth condition even) automatically
translate into an ability to appreciate and recognise good architecture
elsewhere?
Or is that some sort
of oversimplification?
Or more,
condescension?
I’m tired of the logic
of this - the ability of recognition and appreciation of established and over
exposed examples of classical architecture(and I write architecture to address
all the examples we may come across) being touted as a demonstration of an
ability to appreciate architecture in all its complexity in its much less
tourist-loved and academia obsessed vernacular and contemporary models that
populate the places and spaces of our everyday lives.
So why am I raising
this?
So there has been talk
about a museum of architecture for a while now and i’m wondering how we or
anyone will go about deciding what is good architecture and what merits
inclusion and what doesn’t.
(And please don’t throw
the “buildings designed by eminent architect” criteria at this, if it weren’t for
the name, there isn’t much to most of theose buildings in most cases.)
The Architectural
press and the glossy journals do an awfully bad job of this, with an absolute
lack of any kind of critical investigation, where firm invariable contribute
both written and visual material and articles are more like author monologues
of “design” celebration, even when there is little design and less to celebrate
about it.
So how else?
The contention that if
you can appreciate the Taj you can appreciate good architecture is, well less
talked about, the better. And even then i’d argue that the Humayun’s Tomb complex
is possibly higher in Architectural value as well as in its opportunities for
learning and demonstration of Architectural thinking and purpose than its Agra
Cousin, that is more an exercise in aesthetic brilliance than anything
else.
But to me it doesn’t
end there, to a culture and a consciousness that views life as cyclical and regenerative, a
tomb being the bench mark for architecture for the living is somewhat ironical
If you said temple?
Would I have the same Discussion? And if you are going to bring up Khajuraho? My
response is an emphatic YES! And for possibly the same reasons!
So lets not bother to
revisit the argument.
Much of our
appreciation and acknowledgement of our own architecture comes from the volumes
of Fletcher and Tadgel, who did a wonderful job of documenting our historical
monuments, but seem to have been driven by a collectors view, of cataloging,
classifying etc these structures with a Art Object view on them. While the
documentation is exhaustive, it speaks little of culture, tradition, life,
landscape (but being dead monuments mostly, you cant fault that), almost a
taxonomists delight, those, but do very little for an understanding of
architecture as frame for human life.
And nothing for the
humbler cousins, the vernacular of the varied geographies that make up the
subcontinent and have nurtured life for innumerable generations but have been
skipped by schools and architectural historians in the their ever westward
looking view (barring for a token study somewhere in the earlier years of
architecture school)
Also, most of us at
architecture school are taught to appreciate buildings as architecture because
a certain name is attached to them.
So how would you
appreciate a good example of Kumaoni House?
Or wait,
Would you appreciate a
good example of Kumaoni House if you raved about the Taj Mahal? Or would you
Rave about a Matharoo Building because you find the Lakhmana Temple in
Khajuraho the finest example of temple architecture?
I think not,
The world’s rife with
oversimplifications, but as an architect, oversimplification of architecture
I’m not very good with!
P.S. i thought i'd post a picture of the Taj, but sadly i don't have one of my own, but im sure the internet will flood you with a million pictures of it in less than 0.08 seconds, as for the Kumaoni House, please visit Kumaon!
