Architectural Sketches

Urban Studies vs. Urban Planning

Me: I do not understand the difference between urban Studies and urban planning. What is the promise of urban studies as opposed to urban planning?

Min: Urban studies is more into theory - like understanding the complexity of the city. Urban or architectural planning is more practice oriented. The fundamental difference is:

Urban Studies is theory: How to understand the city, 

Architectural planning: How to operate.

So, many urban studies scholars, especially urban geographers think architects do not have theory. That was the question [Gautam] Bhan was addressing yesterday - it's about theorising v/s. operationalizing. In either way, theory is related to operation. They can't be separated. But Chinese urban planning is far more practice-oriented.

On Being Urban

When does a person become "urban"? 

- Shreyank Khemalapure

We have to get rid of the urban-rural divide because most south Asian regions have been categorized under that rubric, but the sense of rural or urban is not really there. 

 - Rohit Mujumdar

Perhaps the question then is that what kind of memories does a person release from the part in order to consciously begin to belong to the city? What is the way in which "belonging" to/in a city gets worked out?

The way in which village is extended into the city...The city is a place which is layered with different kinds of rituals and practices which people bring from their original setting. 

- Prasad Shetty

The Politics of Walking

The Golden Section

Notes from 2003, Architecture School

 

Hampi

Planning for Hampi trip a decade ago.

Notes from Tapan Mittal Deshpande.

The Work of Culture

 

The Work of Culture

by Gananth Obeyesekere

Symbolic transformation in Psychoanalysis and Anthropology

The Work of Culture is the process whereby symbolic forms existing on the cultural level get created and recreated through the minds of the people. It deals with the formation and transformation of symbolic forms, but it is not a transformation without a subject as in conventional structural analysis. Furthermore, the work of culture is not confined to deep motivation in the Freudian sense. While the symbolic transformation of the images of the unconscious into the public culture is the main focus of [the lectures in the book], I do not confine myself to this exclusive domain...

Archive as Home

If the condition of home is an imprint of collection of all things that help us find ourselves, and resonate with the world at large, could the making of archive be home-making / mirror the process of home-making itself? I still need to consider , rather reconsider if the title must be reversed, that is - to say 'Home as Archive' - but at this point of time, I am almost confident that hoe is not an archive, the homes that we occupy together with others (other to mean those who are not like us, and those who therefore do not think like us) - the home can therefore never reflect individuals purely. When people collect, they hold absolute agency of including precisely those things that give meaning to their lives and existence. Here of course, I am thinking of archive through a personalised act of collection - where the archive is not a general archive, but an accumulation of those things that matter to the collector. The archive in which the collector is able to mirror his/her self is thus a representation of home, for it sets the coordinates and conditions to feel comfort and security of containing a world view which cannot be necessarily challenged. 

"What is a screen Now-a-days?" by Francesco Casetti

On scientific thought

On Theory and Interdisciplinarity

Marxism

Earlier notes on my attempts to understand 'Who is a Marxist'?

Bodies Unprotected

notes from the introduction to a session of Bodies, un-protected, an international program series that Sandra Noeth was curating in close collaboration with Anna Wagner and the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt/Germany (www.mousonturm.de). it is dedicated to the (un)protection of bodies: which bodies are worth protecting (to us) and on what basis? Which bodies will we campaign for and which ones elude our notice and action?

"
Bodies, un-protected highlights the unequal distribution of bodily protection from different artistic, historical and theoretical perspectives by bringing together experts come from a variety of fields of research and practice to engage with how we can use aesthetic, performative and discursive means to create visibility for diverse bodies and their specific protective needs. The project unfolds over the course of ten months and manifest itself in two programmes of public events in at the beginning of the project (November 2021) and its end (July 2022). In between these two phases, further events modules are taking place in an international context. They are a crucial part of the project that aims at opening up the discussion to different perspectives, practices and realities.
"

Kant's Philosophical Project

on Political Economy

On Writing

It's ironic that a forum on writing is one in which we all are compelled to talk, for as a writer, one's recluse has primarily been the space of the text where you don't have to face an audience. The difference between speaking and writing, if one may draw attention to, is precisely that (or analogical to) between theatre and cinema or live singing and playback. The writing desk essentially allows you to take retakes, it allows you multiple rehearsals. This stage is for speaking - and speaking the right things at once - and it thus puts you in a pressure to be alert at every moment. The piece of writing has the luxury of being on the wrong side, circulating within in circles, accumulating soft criticisms (or criticisms softly), contemplate, meditate on them and keep building up ideas. To speak is not the same.


Writing is also a work, an exercise in organising thoughts, particularly of a scattered of a mind that is distracting itself in multiple directions due to the open field of referents it is invariably suspended in. Writing is a task in putting order to seemingly stray array of thoughts that are produced as well as consumed, and weaving these into some kind of story to bring a coherence for the sake of meaning, or to create a meaningful world that could be inhabited or make one's place in an open undisposed field.

More discussion here with Nisha Nair Gupta 

on 5th September 2021, which was also Teachers' Day in India.

The Kitchen Ballet

 

The Kitchen Ballet

JIIA Issue (1960s)

borrowed from Sonal Sunderrajan's blog.

Received couplets

Voh mujh se poochh raha hai ke tera haal hai kya
Batao inn dinon yeh bhi koi sawal hai kya

- Javed Akhtar (?)

Nikaal laya hoon eik pinjare se ik parinda
ab iss parinde ke dil se pinjara nikaalna hai.
- Umair Najmi

ik raat vo gayā thā jahāñ baat rok ke
ab tak rukā huā huuñ vahīñ raat rok ke

- Farhat Ehsas

Jo chahte ho so kehte ho chup rehne ki lazzat kya jaano,

Yeh raaz-e-mohabbat hai pyare tum raaz-e-mohabbat kya jaano

Alfaaz kahan se laaoon main chhale ki tapak samjhane ko,

Izhaar-e-mohabbat karte ho ehsaas-e-mohabbat kya jaano

Hai farq badaa ai jaan-e-Raza dil dene mein dil lene mein,

Ulfat ka ta'alluq jante ho rishte ki nazakat kya jaano

Aal-e-Raza Raza

हताशा से एक व्यक्ति बैठ गया था 

व्यक्ति को मैं नहीं जानता था हताशा को जानता था 

इसलिए मैं उस व्यक्ति के पास गया 

मैंने हाथ बढ़ाया मेरा हाथ पकड़कर वह खड़ा हुआ 

मुझे वह नहीं जानता था मेरे हाथ बढ़ाने को जानता था 

हम दोनों साथ चले दोनों एक दूसरे को नहीं जानते थे 

साथ चलने को जानते थे

--

मैं इसलिए भी वतन लौट कर नहीं जाता,

कि मुझ गरीब की इज़्ज़त यहां ज़्यादा है

--

main sochta hoon bahut zindagi ke baare mein,

ye zindagi bhi mujhe soch kar na rah jaae

- Abhishek Shukla

--

जो स्वप्न मुझे नहीं आते थे 

वे कहाँ जाते थे?

- रुस्तम 

hamesha der kar deta hun

hamesha der kar detā huuñ maiñ har kaam karne meñ 

zarūrī baat kahnī ho koī va.ada nibhānā ho 

use āvāz denī ho use vāpas bulānā ho 

hamesha der kar detā huuñ maiñ 

madad karnī ho us kī yaar kī Dhāras bañdhānā ho 

bahut derīna rastoñ par kisī se milne jaanā ho 

hamesha der kar detā huuñ maiñ 

badalte mausamoñ kī sair meñ dil ko lagānā ho 

kisī ko yaad rakhnā ho kisī ko bhuul jaanā ho 

hamesha der kar detā huuñ maiñ 

kisī ko maut se pahle kisī ġham se bachānā ho 

haqīqat aur thī kuchh us ko jā ke ye batānā ho 

hamesha der kar detā huuñ maiñ har kaam karne meñ.....

MUNEER NIYAZI

Kaat lo zuban, aasuon se gaaunga

Gaad do beej hoon main, ped ban hi jaunga

Sunn rahe jo mujhko beshumar pyar unse,

Banata geet main Par main khud bana hoon tumse

- Gully Boys

"In matters between people, there will be no closure, there can be no closure. We are always in the middle of things, and that is how we will leave—in the middle of things. Life has no neat balance sheets. Some get away with more than the rest. And that is alright. "

- Manu Joseph

देता फिरता सफ़ाई किस-किसको, 

मुस्कुराना ही मैंने छोड़ दिया

नयी लाशें बिछाने के लिए ही गड़े मुर्दे उखाड़े जा रहे हैं ...

शाम को मिलते हैं पैरों से लिपट कर बच्चे, 

बस यही रहती है दिन भर की कमाई मेरी

Shabe furkat ka jaaga hoon farishton ab to sone do, 

kabhi fursat se kar lena hisaab, ahista ahista

जिन्दगी की दौड़ में,

तजुर्बा कच्चा ही रह गया...

हम सीख न पाये 'फरेब'

और दिल बच्चा ही रह गया...

बचपन में जहां चाहा हँस लेते थे,

जहां चाहा रो लेते थे...

पर अब मुस्कान को तमीज़ चाहिए,

और आंसुओ को तन्हाई..

हम भी मुस्कराते थे कभी बेपरवाह, अन्दाज़ से..."

देखा है आज खुद को कुछ पुरानी तस्वीरों में ..

चलो मुस्कुराने की वजह ढूंढते हैं...

तुम हमें ढूंढो... हम तुम्हे ढूंढते हैं...!

- गुलज़ार

अधूरा आगे है, मुकम्मिल माज़ी है 

लगा दे दाँव पे दिल, अगर दिल राज़ी है।

- गुलज़ार

मुनाफ़ा छोड़िये लागत ही मिल जाय, 

हमें शोहरत नहीं इज़्ज़त ही मिल जाय

--

कौन ज़ालिम है यहां, ज़ुल्म हुआ है किस पर, 

क्या ख़बर आएगी अख़बार को तय करना है....

--

आँख में पानी रखो होंटों पे चिंगारी रखो, 

ज़िंदा रहना है तो तरकीबें बहुत सारी रखो

--

जवानियों में जवानी को धूल करते हैं, 

जो लोग भूल नहीं करते, भूल करते हैं

--

स्वभावाला औषध नाही

There is no medicine to remedy one's nature.

-Marathi Saying

अपनी गर्दन पे किसी और का सर लगता है, 

ऐसा लगना तो नहीं चाहिए पर लगता है

"On one level, wisdom is nothing more profound than an ability to follow one's own advice."

baat ultī vo samajhte haiñ jo kuchh kahtā huuñ 

ab ke pūchhā to ye kah dūñgā ki haal achchhā hai

On certitude and doubt

"Persist and verify…The power that we abdicate to others out of our insecurity — to others who insult us with their faux-intuition or their authoritarian smugness — that comes back to hurt us so deeply… But the power we wrest from our own certitude — that saves us."

Rosanne Cash / excerpted from Brainpickings

Tidbits from Ranciere

Aesthetics is a shared experience.

Politics has aesthetics. People who can't politicize can't produce aesthetics / beauty

Art doesn't occur before aesthetic experience.

The objectification of the experience of aesthetics is art.

Social revolution is the daughter of aesthetic revolution

Education or production of knowledge is about emancipation

thinking about the capacity of performing politics. The capacity to politicize

aesthetics as contemplation (opposite of action)

---

Architecture is a way of defining life

Architecture is supposed to define new ways of inhabitation, of defining life.

Art produces a set of relations.