India being a country rich in its architecture history, heritage and given its voluminous content of deep seated historical icons, should ideally be at this stage flourishing with architectural diorama. The opposite is what is visible to us at this point however. Confirmed . There has been a joint mushrooming of edifices all over the nation. Concrete is the current colonialist. And style without meaning is the furor, the ultimate proof of our pathetic stage in architecture now.
Often, I have wondered why it is that it seems more engaging to visit a foreign nation say a France or an Italy and why is that when tourists flood our epic filled land, they term us colorful? Maybe it is the way I have perceived the world so far. Maybe not. What has perplexed me is why a nation with all its invaluable inheritance has not created substantial architecture since say it has gained independence? Are we still languishing in colonial hang-overs?
The problem can be explained only if one can first grasp complete sense of the word ‘architecture’. It maybe for some simply a building with sloping roofs ( as the many angular ones you see disproportionately hanging on shoulders of houses in Kerala), for others it could mean a building which makes some kind of impression, for many elite in our country it is simply a cachet. And for the millions of poor people it is a shelter. The layers of lexicons attached to this problem/ solution that we call architecture are many. Hence a single word or sentence will fail to achieve its full meaning in its given context. To probably simplify it (though it could be a quaggy attempt) does not mean it is complex. Citing examples from a country like Finland where the climate mostly is ‘cold’, we find wood, and glass being the main ingredients in the buildings there. Why wood? And why glass? Finland is a place where wood is available in plenty considering that about 70% of the nation is covered with forests of fine wood. Adding to that are the many qualities of wood that makes it easy to work with along with factors like good heat insulation that makes wood the first choice amongst the Finns. The question of using glass as a material in cold climates again is excusable as such countries mostly endure long periods of darkness and hence sunlight is much needed for people indoors. Also is the fact that the reflection of snow fallen on the ground gives some amount of visual clarity for the inhabitants. Hence the usage of wood and glass is second nature to the people of Finland. But what perplexes me is the way the Indians have associated the use of especially glass in an urban context.
It seems to me that they have been misled in the fact that glass as a material is associated with some sort of ‘forwardness’ ( read: modernism) . This would probably explain the inexcusable use of huge planes of glass as curtain walls in a tropical country like India. This type of falsification, addressing a fast life and in the process leading people to believe our country is ‘developing’ in terms of number of ‘ glass covered buildings’ is truly atrocious. A documentary, that I recently saw clearly showed the atrocities created by the Indian architects thought that wasn’t what the makers meant to foster. What was worse was that some of the buildings were falsified more so by creating an excuse for a curtain wall on only the front façade of the edifice. An apocalyptic vision of architecture is what I could foresee with such examples sprouting all across the nation. A strategy needs to be pulled out of the bag in order to educate the masses and more in particular the ‘ architects’ who have set out to carry out such a direful destiny for Indian architecture.
Architecture isn’t something you create within a few minutes. It’s no magic. It’s a synthesis of various factors that etch from heritage, it’s very own kindred and factors like the climate, the materials and their availability, the economy, and mostly reasoning power which could wrap up the all said above. It should be the stuff that endorses our credibility as a nation. Then why is it given the vastness of our country geographically speaking and the copious populace, we still shudder to gain our own character architecturally? In fact, are not we lucky to contain within us not only a desert like Rajasthan and the fertile plains of the Ganges but also the Deccan with its heat and the paddy fields found in Kerala…and many more like that? Should not we be creating master pieces that could well explain our depth as a nation. Indeed then it would make a difference if we were called ‘a colorful nation’- not just for the colors on the lorries and clothes and rikshaws but a meaning that would explore the possibilities of our creativeness bordering with clarity? Alas! I wait for such a day.
Indeed, before we open each layer of this perplexity, we must take to the economics of India and how it tends to disturb creativeness. What we do require is a government that knows what it is doing. And in that sense know how to apply the sensibilities in the right manner. Architecture though called a creation and all that stuff in the end boils down to mere technology, materials, and in short money. The distribution of money, its fragmentation if not done wisely could lead to bad results- in short bad buildings. For a building is not merely the skin of the body but also a functioning piece of machine! If the machine is not oiled well, and taken good care of it tends to fail and so will a building. The same applies to it too! If not maintained well, and built in the right manner in the first place, in the right context, the building would not serve its purpose. My question is why hurry it all up? Is it due to the rise in interest rates or the rise in inflation, that builders especially are running around pollinating buildings at such a fast pace? Money tends to be a perpetual factor in most cases and thus timely as always related to the economy. But on a different note- economy isn’t money alone, then why is it that the architecture suffers? Probably, because the people in whose hands it is to make that certain decision on what should be built and what shouldn’t arent doing their job so well. If the planners of cities sat along with the politician, they could show them a way of how not to digress away from what is palpable.
How I wish that was the case, but the proof lies in what is around you! It seems not they have been whiling away time on what they should not. This is one reason why our country is yet to deliver to the world an architectural marvel or quote itself as a ‘world of many architectural excites’! since independence. One could debate on this as to if I have turned a blind eye to all the historical monuments that had brandished our nation hither and thither. To me that would be equivalent to being a turn coat. It is the mere presence of these sensible monumental kindred that endorses even more the fact that we are simply throwing away our goods! Definitely, India is developing but is it not only in terms of computer literacy and maybe nuclear energy? What we could have done with the enormous flora, and landscapes, we have not. And that is a sign of us failing at development. If one takes a look at any big city in India today, it is merely a dumping yard for foreign trash barring the very few that have legitimacy. Somehow the thinkers have gone into a recluse and we find our architecture going into celibacy. The nihilistic buildings with all sorts of funny styles, senseless interiors, and illogical use of materials is a proof of this. A recent development in this idiosyncrasy that I noted in Bangalore was the sudden crawling up of houses with ‘ linear transformation’ in their essence. By that I mean a somewhat weird looking buildings, with colorful walls, cut outs for some sort of design composition and all in all houses that look like they could act in a movie which could be called ‘couture house’ and yes my humorlessness ends there. It seemed refreshing in the beginning, then it seemed suddenly out of place and then very much out of context. Why would architects suddenly all jump into the bandwagon called ‘contemporary architecture’? And to top it all they had dared to name it that!
To me there wasn’t anything contemporary about it. It was neoplasticism infused with a set of creators searching high and low for their identity. That is what it was. It seemed to me that suddenly these very architects woke up to the de Stijl movement and became Theo van Doesberg fans. Again and again we come back to the same stand still- we walk around in circles on the lookout for an identity, to quench our ever growing thirst to be recognized and we do it all the wrong way. We have framed our minds that we cannot overcome certain issues, certain parameters and re-create that ambience that did prevail in our country eons ago. Then we were not poor, but we are poor now and we are still stuck with that.
On a careful look at a monument like the Red Fort situated in Old Delhi, the architects could probably understand what architecture meant to the people who did live within it. It is far from Promiscuous. As a child, I had gone into the Lal Quila and found myself amazed at what I did find in there. To mind comes first the Canal of Paradise, the water channel that I understand carried the water from the nearby River Yamuna into the fort between the marble Pavilions and the Hall of Public Audience. The vindication for this was that water flowing would cool down the buildings making it comfortable for people inside. Speaking of water cooling methods, the ‘rang mahal’ apartments for the royal ladies also come to mind as it was cooled using similar methods. By quoting such a delicate example of a water body trying to cool the building I am not trying to discourage mere ornamentalism in buildings but merely trying to point out that there was a time when digging a canal had a point. A more suitable example would then be the city of Mohenjodaro and Harrapa. Have not we all learnt about their cities at that time and age having:
· a grid plan
· public buildings suggesting high degree of organization
· structure built of bricks of different kinds
· The great granary having bays to receive goods carts
· Ducts for air to circulate beneath the stored grain to dry it
· Advanced urban sanitation systems
Well, at least maybe this exposes the fact that there was a time when common sense was applied to city planning and building of a civilization.
I can grapple on with this, what irks me is this fascination amongst architects now to allow their ‘clients’ to help them ‘borrow’ from the foreign fundamentalist. Then create a sliced up and diced up version of what they steal. Is this so that the outsiders feel more at home when they visit? Or is it so that the insiders feel like tourists in their own land? I fail to understand.
Solutions to this are many. However above all it plainly conquers the fact that one needs to apply learnt stuff into the product. An application will do, and it can create wonders. After all doesn’t common sense form the basis of it all?
Perhaps, we need to tackle this challenge at the grass root levels itself. The institutions themselves must take care to ensure that the right to teach lies in wise hands….maybe then we will be able to see a change- something that will assiduity for authenticity.
