Wednesday, December 25, 2019
IT LOOKED LIKE A GRAVEYARD
It looked like a government school
Or a graveyard,
I couldn't make up my mind which,
Sometimes,
They seemed like the same to me
Both had bodies,
In one they were still alive!
I was moved,
To memories of devastating earthquakes
Where children
Were trained, carefully, to take
shelter under their desks,
and so Died
A horrible death, for an education
Of little meaning!
Even
The simplest task
To save their lives was taught wrong!
All the song
And dance around alphabets and numbers come to naught.
This sudden thought,
came flooding back!
I can hear
In my head the dull tune
of their Learing by rote,
(It sticks in my throat)
The repeating of meaningless words
To quote,
As if the repeating would suddenly change
The fate of from where it is they came!
Another quake is all it will take
To take their future in its wake.
To me,
It looks like graveyard, they call it school
I suppose they know, they make the rule
24 December 2019
*this piece was born as i recalled the haunting description of the many deaths of school children in the last earthquake of Afghanistan, a few years ago, while i was on a plane to Delhi on the 20th night, in the air, with a twitter feed that informed me of another earthquake of 6.3 in the region which also carried a mention of Delhi. I was mid air when i scrolled through my phone and saw this update. It was a eerie feeling, and the in ability to get information broke me into a sweat.
It was written while travelling to Lucknow, on the 24th.
A few months ago, while in Uttarakhand, i had walked into a lonely, and desolate government school campus and wondered what the children might be learning here, and what was the education they were getting preparing them for.
This poem is fictitious, but asks both those questions.
On a more serious note i am appalled that the signboard outside of this school opposite the Saket metro station, it is quite clear why i hope.
Labels: Afghanistan, children, death, design, earthquake, education, graveyard, hills, poem, questions architecture, school, seismic, Uttarakhand
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
The Value of Architecture is the Architect - No wait!
On my Facebook feed, instagram and twitter, I read the unfortunate news
that the Hall of Nations has been brought down.
It is no difficult argument that it should not have been, or
that there are far ugliers, more ungainly and completely un-celebrate-able
buildings in Pragati Maidan (the Irony of the name does not pass me at the
moment!) that should have met this fate long before Hall of Nations perished to
it.
So the question comes to mind -How? Or why?
As a young upstart of a practice, and a young architect trying
to make headway into the world of design it is formidable kind of future to
ponder.
But I think the answer lies probably, not in architecture or
its value or how its value is perceived, but in the nature of discourse on
architecture in the country. Which even now is yet to come of any kind of age.
I happened to attend an event at IHC discussing the proposal
of National Museum of Architecture, a small group of architects and people from
allied disciplines.
Before long the discussion wound its way from architecture
to architects, and the value of keeping a repository of works of the who’s who.
And it suddenly became quite apparent how little discourse
there was, and if there was any it was more like Name-Dropping.
The discourse on Architecture is not the Discussion of
Architects. And the Value of Architecture is not in the name of the
Authorship. They are separate. The Architect may be important by a symbiotic relationship to the
Value of the Architecture, the reverse is painfully untrue.
But in that small realization I believe the discourse of
architecture may be carried out in earnest. The value of architecture is not the
name of the Architect who designed it. Its value is (and should always be)
quite clearly distinct.
Labels: Architects, architecture, design, discourse, hall of nations, indian modernism, modern architecture in india, modern india, national museum of architecture, pragati maidan, raj rewal
Tuesday, September 09, 2014
Zen Garden of Khel Gaon
So, I was visiting a client in Khel Gaon. And I happened to
see this.
On does then wonder and think.
What is a Zen Garden, is a pool with a rock and stone path
leading to red bridge?
Where do you find them? And why? And how do they find place
in Khel Gaon?
And more? What is Zen? Is it a red bridge? Or a Rock-strewn
path? Is it designed to evoke and induce a certain contemplation?
And if the label had not been there would it be apparent?
And then the most important? Why?
I will leave these as questions with no attempt at answers
Labels: architecture, asian games village, design, garden, khel gain, landscape, landscape design, new delhi, question, zen gardens
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
The Monument and other thoughts on the Nalanda University Design Competiton.
Through history, the idea of the monument has, and continues to
occupy a position of great reverence. Both as an epitaph, and as celebration of
the human capacity to achieve the spectacular. And all architecture has, in
some manner or the other, strived to realize that ideal.
How we have viewed the "monument" and how it has been
interpreted has defined the makings of architecture for centuries.
In
the light of this fact, the exhibition from
the 13th to 18th of May 2013, at the National Gallery of
Modern Art hosted of entries to The Nalanda University Masterplan and
Architectural Design Competition holds forth pertinent questions.
I had the good fortune to be
present while Rajeev Kathpalia explained the workings of their winning scheme,
to which BV Doshi added an after-word, a clear and succinct description of the
overall vision that the scheme sought to create.
And (as always happens)
while Kathpalia explained we did have the odd-ball question, “Doesn’t your design
look a little Arabian?”, and as one might expect from schemes with water
channels - “So this will be a bit like Venice?” and by the tone and the time it
took for and answers to emerge, I am sure these had him stumped for a bit!
There were eight schemes in
all. I write this piece is not to take you through each, or to make a comment
on the nature of the architectural exercise the schemes sought to undertake.
That would be a wider and more studied critique than I attempt here.
But as I walked from scheme
to scheme, and studied the broad framework of each masterplan, a thought
emerged, largely aroused by the need or attempt across all entries to be Net
Zero. In the real and true sense this is impossible, however, as benchmark of a
sustainable design it is a worthy intention.
Without going into the
specifics of each one could broadly divide the scheme into two types.
The scheme by VastuShilpa
Consultants easily the most sophisticated of the former collection – which would
contain 7 of the 8 exhibited. Doshi and Kathpalia’s scheme is evolved and
articulate. A careful and clearly intentioned assembly of architectural and
spatial experience that modulates scales, and controls space, enclosure and
openness with a deftness that rivals Kahn and Corbusier. The philosophical
underpinnings and the architectural control clearly define a scheme of great
brilliance – a monument of the 21st century.
Hundred Hands + Allies and Morrison, in clear contrast refuses to allow that monument. In a display of iron-handed control - of scale, of enclosure and the street, and building typology, that in my opinion draw from a intrinsic understanding of climate. The scheme is an assembly of variations in a theme, some subtle, some stark, as illustrated by the curious sheet titled “Catalogue of Buildings” used in the Masterplan. In its refusal to employ the inventory of canonical devices of modern architecture, and the superhuman scale, the scheme makes a pertinent question to the practice of architecture in a moment of deep cultural as well environmental consequence.
And it is precisely in that fact that lies the question and argument I am attempting to raise. If one understands the physiognomy of the monument and the making of monuments through history, it is this question the two natures pose together and by virtue of their inherent opposition.
I will not get into the
discussion of energy, material consumption, or building craft. My question more
addresses the stance the monuments represents as an expression of humans and
their relationship to (read dominance and control over) the systems of this
planet.
Can architecture , and its
creation, in its unavoidable intervention into systems of the planet, afford
the creation of monuments?
Is it right to perpetuate
the notion of human superiority and dominance? Is it appropriate to encourage
and accept the consumption of a limited planet.
Is it allowable to
perpetuate the romanticized notion of modernism and its super-human scale when
the planet seems to be crisis?
What, then, is to be nature
of the monument that reflects a realization of human life as intrinsically
co-joined to the larger and wider systems of life and sustenance?
With the ever-growing
pressures of development, and the pace of modern technology should we expect to
rationalize and limit the demands we make on the planet and its systems that
sustain life including human life?
I believe the question, now more than
ever, needs asking.
images : ajonline/uk
Labels: architecture, Architecture in India, design, Hundred Hands, Monument, Monumental Architecture, Naland University Design Competition, Nalanda, sustainable, Vastu Shilpa Consultants
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Housing - and a certain sadness
If the present statistic is to be believed, as much as 24.1 million dwelling units are required by the year 2012, of these 88.1% are required for the what the governemtn has classified as LIG, EWS and BPL. A minimum of 30 million units are needed by 2020.
The national housing short-fall, only looks to be getting larger.
There was a time, in pre-liberalized India. In the era of the welfare state, when India was the leader, nay a torch bearer in the arena of social housing. It was time when the DDA housing competitions were setting the bar, and architects of an almost now faded era were giving the throngs of India’s new urban populace shelter, that even today are regarded as highly coveted. A time when the Press Enclave Housing Society and Tara Apartments in Delhi alone, were giving new direction to the idea of an group housing.
In the last 30 years, a lot seems to have changed.
The mushrooming of satellite towns, and suburbs, the Spawning of Gurgaon, and the new economy have turned the tables on the notion of housing.
Also the increasing presence of private players, and bye-laws that refuse to acknowledge the needs of less financially fortunate citizens seems to be driving the agenda of most urban housing enterprise.
The chosen model of almost all housing development is the tower block which is high return-low investment friendly but hugely energy intensive. Or in other cases the American sub-urban housing district, where everything requires a car. (Except of course for the very exclusive, but that will scarcely reflect on the overall trend.)
The transferred costs, to end users scarcely ever seem to be part of calculations that are made, either in terms of energy footprints, or in terms of long term implication of ownership. This even before we begin to discuss the nature of the living environments, where all available surface is parking lot, and residents are cooped into holes that go as high as the eye can see.
It is no secret that the masterplan (flawed as it is) and the FAR intense by-laws have a huge hand to play in manner of such development.
I write because as I witness the rise of the Gurgaon model, and its many clones in numerous cities across the subcontinent (Bhutan, Nepal, included) I am at the same time aware of the housing elsewhere, that is accessible, livable, economic, and pleasurable.
I see a huge opportunity wasted, a torch blown out, and millions with no choice but to submit to bad design, high living cost, and the sheer strain of urban living in India.
As an architect, it does bring a certain sense of sadness to see (those possible) arenas where we will live our non-work lives, bring up our children, and inhabit with those we care for and love are lost every day.
Labels: design, dwelling units, housing, housing in delhi, housing in gurgaon, short-fall, social housing, urban housing
Thursday, September 08, 2011
Of Bread and Columns
A building, carefully designed and well done, is always a pleasure to walk into. Many-a-time the sheer complexity of project realities see a well-intentioned idea rubbished as it is built in haste and hurry.
Making good architecture is like baking bread. The most simple of ingredients – flour, yeast, salt, water - there are no one million recipes to chose from, and yet there is bread and there is bread. The making, the ferment, the kneading, and the sheer utter patience of waiting for the honest dough to rise oftentimes make the difference between one loaf and the next. Between bread, and bread.
Making good architecture is like baking bread. The most simple of ingredients – flour, yeast, salt, water - there are no one million recipes to chose from, and yet there is bread and there is bread. The making, the ferment, the kneading, and the sheer utter patience of waiting for the honest dough to rise oftentimes make the difference between one loaf and the next. Between bread, and bread.
If you have eaten bread baked at home, made from yeast watched over till it rose to the perfect height and then kneaded with love and effort into the perfect ball of dough, and then baked for an hour and half, to then turned out and glazed with butter and egg-white, you will know what I mean.
So too, I think, it is with buildings, what goes in is usually the same, but the skill and the patience of the kneading hand has, always, a telling consequence on the aftermath.
That is what I encounter every time I walk into one of J A Stein’s buildings. Their simplicity, and directness of address never fail to amaze me.
But what makes me write this post are the columns at the gymnasium of the American Embassy School. Simple, stark, purpose-shaped concrete, beautiful and solid, yet elegant. Standing robust and proud, to the eye that cared to notice, and not doing more.
A simple column, in a gymnasium can be an architectural delight, a sheer pleasure to behold. I, for one, stood there, amazed for a good few minutes. This, a hall of very beautiful columns in concrete, a rare pleasure. The brilliance is hard to miss. The sheer clarity of purpose, in shape, in form, in feel, in colour, in scale, all suddenly unfolds, like layer upon layer of carefully crafted toffee in the mouth.
There is very little that separates good architecture from bad buildings, and yet there is so much. Simplicity most often, and that is the hardest thing to do. In an age of visual gymnastics, even harder.
There is always some thing to take back from a walk in any of Stein’s works. Something always makes space in the memory. Like now, a fair–faced concrete column, they don’t make them like that anymore.
Or, do they? But you will have to look. Or wait for the smell to waft through the air, and pull you there, like good bread.
Labels: architecture, building, cast, column, concrete, concrete column, design, fair-faced, purpose, school, Stein
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Two Lines
Its funny, or more correctly, odd, that there are these things one believes as a designer or an architect, but rarely do we find the exact word to express the idea in its purity. In some manner the pencil and the clarity with which it marks paper renders many of us mute. The idea the shape it gives rise to, or the form it engenders seem to arise of a direct and un-mediated connection that perfects itself over years of training, and practice.
And at the unexpected moment, a piece of paper with the words of some till then unknown person find their way into your hands. And those words make perfect, absolute sense, words which you had been looking for, thinking of, dreaming of but never found.
Two lines in a poem, written by some one, found by some one else, printed and handed over to yet another person, and in that moment when they fall into your own hands and you read them they take new life.
“….But the thing worth doing well done
Has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident…”
Marge Piercy
Words that explain the idea I chase through every line I draw and everything I endeavor to do and of how I think of myself and the architect I strive to be.
Labels: design, expression, idea, shape, value
