Badran at Academy

Academy in a long time hasn’t had the privilege of having a person as renowned as Rasem Badran. The Jordanian architect was invited to share his thoughts on architecture for the Annual Lecture at the Academy. In our endeavour to work towards finding a language to deal with the issues of fast globalization and changing cultures, Badran’s lecture was appropriately themed ‘Tradition and Modernity’. It would be worthwhile to reconstruct the summary of the lecture through the conjunction of the title. ‘And’ signifies the temporal property of two things happening at the same time in Badran’s work. This is seen not only in his work, but the representation of his work too. Two questions that I must raise at the outset are: Does the technique of representation guide the kind of architecture we make? Can a certain kind of architecture encourage a specific kind of representation?

Badran introduced the audience to his background thought process through his sketches right since his childhood till his thirties. He spoke of his fascination towards aeroplanes and his interest in photography. Often taking photographs from aeroplanes (elevated space); he found similar patterns in the vaguest of things. Grids of houses with lines of buses, city skylines with lipsticks and cosmetics,  reflections of sky in water with farmlands on ground – all these pairs of images brought out a dialectic of issues that Badran’s work deals with. This ability of linking up contexts in different scales was unique of Badran. Further he used these images to establish his position within ‘and’.

Badran believes that the hand is the transcendental medium through which one converts thoughts in the mind to an expression on paper. Therefore hands are the means to the material manifest of our minds. Drawing is therefore an intrinsic process towards realization of all his work. Badran’s sketches are rigorous, attempting to structure a social space through his architecture, which he recorded in his childhood sketches. Therefore he works towards drawing the essence of this cultural space into his present work.  One reads in his drawings, dialogues between the past and the present. His work is familiar, yet new; it recalls the past yet suggests a future...

His work came across to be extremely urban – one that would only follow a systematic analysis of the context of the site, linking an architectural project to the larger dynamic of the city. Drawing axes, movement and sectional study diagrams, his architecture is an attempt at ‘place’-making. His buildings seemed like always there, his housing projects were almost civilizations. He successfully breaks down his monumental programs into smaller portions which become spaces that are absorbed by the city. His buildings are never pretentious and never express any desire to stand out. Infact, they blend in their surroundings often bringing a fresh experience of an otherwise everyday space. This can be particularly noted in his projects with religious programs.

Towards the end, Badran shared some of his contemporary works which showed the constant struggle to balance his ideologies with his next generation of architects, including that of his own son. He urged the audience to believe in the potential of the hand over the mind of the computer. This conviction comes across very strongly through his method of working. The vertical buildings that his office now handles too show signs of breaking down the monumentality into smaller fragments – perhaps to achieve a certain territoriality, a feeling of emergence from the ground. It seems he maintains it through his representation – the non changing browns of his sketches echo a certain connection to the soil.

Badran over the next two days interacted with students at Academy over his sketches. His dialogues through sketches re-established into the young minds, a love for drawing as well as their own contexts.