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Views from Kanchanjunga

Some pictures taken from Kanchanjunga and others from my work...

History / Humanties

Humanities: Way to look at History - concepts of understanding - intangible ideas

History: What to look at in past - what exists - tangible reality

Sandeep Sir and myself often seem concerned about the disparity in students' minds about learning humanities/history. Whenever one asks him about humanities, he gives such a crisp, to the point answer, that one feels like recording it. The precision with which he speaks, I think, is a matter of age and experience.

But we discussed today that students don't connect to humanities, because they are often searching for an image to relate to, while humanities deals only with concepts of understanding history. This is complex, unless one is interested really in history. But in the western world, there is rigorous training in humanities and hence, it has been able to produce critical thinkers.

What students must understand is that history is not to be just mugged up and learnt for exams, but they are steps on which you stand and trace where we have reached. It's a measure of change. And humanities helps in understanding the relevance of change.

I used to dread history in school. But I never imagined that I would love history so much once I grew up, and also teach history and even wish to study history ahead. Perhaps it was my teacher who was responsible for my low interest in school, however, the point is that we are never taught (rather the teachers themselves don't know most of the times) why are they teaching, or why are we learning or even knowing history. If the agenda of teaching history is clear, then half the battle is won.

For some time, I have been thinking for which professions would history be more important? Some of them that I thought were the lawyers and the doctors. Laws are just historical acts. A decision passed by the Supreme court assumes the status of law. Thus, lawyers keep cross referencing 'historical ' cases to bring up new decisions (now that is completely humanities) - the ethics and morals of decision making. On the other hand, my family doctor keeps a record of 'patient history'. So he has all my records since I first visited him. Every time he checks me for any ailment, he speculates my body performance. After a few permutations and combinations, he arrives at what disease or ailment I must be suffering from and then suggests appropriate medication. his medication works fantastically.

So I wonder if one was to take all his 'history' case papers and read the history of 'disease' in the city, it would definitely show interesting patterns against the parameters of seasons, ages, genders, etc. One could do a whole thesis on the 'Health of the city' in the past 40 years. But similarly, history is important in all other professions. The key is to identify 'gaps' in thinking and build new bridges with existing or developed knowledge to break new grounds.

Architectural history is tricky, but at least in the west, there has been a tremendous use of history for basing architecture. Our inability to handle or even trying to deal with history (due to or overemphasis on culture and belief in the acts of the past) doesn't allow us to boldly question our past. The past has to be questioned to be able to step into 'a' direction in the future. Thus the past orients us to our future. Therefore history is important, and this direction is understood in the way we see our history. This is where arrives humanities. Humanities offers an arrowhead to history in a specific direction towards future. In other cases either we accept the same direction or we are direction less. Conceptually, in either case, we are aimless.

another aspect associated with history is recording it or passing it on. Most primary method of doing this is writing. And hence the second concern that arises is the lack of communication in writing. Within writing, two major problems that we face are: handling language and translation of language. Simply put, the language of expression and the language of thinking. Recently I have seen that students who have been trained in vernacular mediums express tremendously well in their own language, and are evidently weak when writing in English. The second category of students are those who have studied in English and still translate from their mother tongue to English (basically where the thinking language is different than the expression language). The last ones are those who think in English. The problem is the keeping the rigidity of expression language constricted to English. If we remove the barrier of this expression language to be english, half the battle will be won. Then a collaborative environment could be set up for translating texts in class. the problem with the second group of people is their unjustified comfort zone with their expression language. That is something that has to be broken, and can only be tackled if the student wishes to agree that there can be more richness to language of expression. The third ones are almost ready and need to understand the structure of language to be able to exactly communicate what they want. They have to work on using the right words, which convey the right sentiment and expression.

Anyway, I didnt mean to give a lecture here, but as I see and list these factors down, perhaps I will be able to tackle these three student groups in appropriate manner with history, humanities and its recording...

For KRVIA Annual Exhibition 2010

A snapshot of my fellowship:

"I work in a country where no one cares for buildings."

Chaitanya shared an interesting critique on Corrra's buildings. He says, Correa's buildings are very unclear, they do not have a diagram. What he meant was they one gets 'lost' while moving in the building.
Taking specific examples, he said that many buildings rely on external media like painting, sculptures to communicate. For example, if the whole of Cidad-de-Goa was to be painted white, the building would lose all its quality. Similarly, if  JKK lost colour, it would be a different building. However, this does not happen always.

Kanchanjunga, he says doesnot even have a clarity of 'entrance'. You wonder when you enter the building, "where to go"? I agree to this, having seen and experienced the building recently. Adding to this, each flat in the building is different, so you constantly keep losing orientation. (imagine a maid working at 3 houses in the same building! she would go mad!!).

One standard critique that everyone has for Correa's buildings is that they are not detailed enough. The edges of the buildings, the railings, the steps, or even the windows or any damn thing. Nothing looks 'tight' in Chaitanya's words. Also, although Correa may be a world famous architect, he has not offered anything to India for which "people would come from outside to have a look at". He was perhaps mentioning about the 'iconicity' of a building.

Another point he made was that his buildings do not have a 'tropical' character. A tropical building would be a building with a private-semi open verandah (long) and then opening to sky building. This is where, he says, the courtyard typology fails. His buildings don't even speak of the tropical character through colours - which are bright and whites. Rather, he chooses earthy and more rural colours.
His remarks are relevant.

However, in the past week, Correa has hinted answers to all these questions in our conversations with him. So I will defend all the critiques from Correa's side one by one:

Correa operates through the Hindu ideas of myth and reality. He believes in the hindu philosophy of the universe and this philosophy accepts things with their chaos. There is no black and white like the western philosophies of how we came into being. Thus, although his buildings start with a process of structuring space, he ends up making complex movements in the building that resonate with the central idea of the philosophy of ordering chaos (which he explains as multiple layers of order).

While talking, he said that he loves to introduce paintings, suclptures on walls because they, he assumes, are not a separate element of the building. He says that in our culture, a person staying in the village feels that painting is an integral part of the process of house-making (like the warli, madhubani, kutch houses). He also mentioned that even critics like Kenneth Frampton are not able to appreciate the paintings he makes on his buildings, because there is a lack of cultural experience.

"I work in a country where no one cares for buildings." he says.
further, he says that "I did most of the Government projects using the contractors of the State Public Wards Department, like the Sabarmati Gandhi Ashram or the Vidhan Bhavan and the Bharat Bhavan Bhopal. You can not expect pristine lines and finishing when you are working with local people. These are not priavte clients which can spend so much on precision. Infact, I feel the unfinished-ness adds to the quality of the buildings. Even the indian khadi fabric looks beautiful because it doesnot form clean straight lines. The undulating warps and wefts give character to the cloth, it echoes our culture." And he also ties it up with the philosophy of Hindu culture/philosophy. But those interested in seeing crisply finished Correa buildings, see the Champalimaud Brain and Scientific Research Centre in Portugal. Here, the client was a private company and they could afford being precise. To sum it up, he himself feels very sorry for all his ill-maintained buildings.

So I shall keep updating more of such discussions and debates whenever possible.

Time for a one liner:
"Manmohan Singh is a cross between a kitten and a mouse"
(he acted it out too)!

Charles Correa - a charactersketch

As a small child, Correa loved to play with toy trains - in an interview he said. He wanted to study something that would give him equal amount of satisfaction and that's the reason why he joined architecture. On his table 81 years after he is born and 50 years after he started his practice, one can see a number of toy trains. I have still not asked him which one is how old, but lets see if I get an opportunity to make a mini questionnaire for him.

The table is exceptionally low, and shows him tall even when he is seated on his chair. The table has plenty of pencils and pens, weights, cars, his numerous awards, collectibles and gifts from all over the world and animated sculptures.

 

 

Correa is a hardcore modernist - he believes in a plan, and he doesn't like any one speaking or informing in the present tense. For example, yesterday i told him, "'A' is working on transferring videos to the computer" - and he almost lost it and said, "where do you learn this language from, the language of the present tense? what do you mean by 'he is doing' - like 'she is cooking in the kitchen' - 'i am doing it'... what do you mean? we all are doing something, he is not sleeping over the table, he is definitely doing something - but that doesnot mean anything. But if you tell me what he did, or what is is going to do or finish by today, that is what makes sense. This is why the condition of our country is like that, there is no accountability...(shrugs)...'contractor is doing that' - what do you mean?"

The first taunt of my work with him.

but this is not the time to evaluate his thoughts, i feel. I must know him more to be able to understand a personality like him. He has presence.

As I watched him closely, he had dense silver white eyebrows, almost like a camel. They almost make a chajja over his eyes. And he keeps fiddling with his eyebrows. And they are always unsettled. His ears, as Dhaval puts it are 'elephant ears' - they are large. His spectacles are like those of Corubsier - jet black, round and big. There is no ambiguity in its colour (not sparkling silver-grey or golden-yellow or copper-brown). They are just BLACK. He writes and overwrites over tracingpapers and almost wastes tonnes of paper every year. Because he doesnot reuse any paper for printing twice. And because of fear, employees make so many errors that they end up printing everything thrice. Also, he has a habit of 'seeing' the correction at every stage - so every small incremental improvement is printed. Seeing is believing for him. 

I wonder how all his pencils on the table are always sharpened - they are always sharp. The papers are crisp, the pens are clean, the tracings are neat, the checkered pad is fresh. That is his characteristic.

"How did you get interested in archiving work?" he asked me after 4 days of my meticulous work, "You are really good at it, i am really glad..." (he waited for me to answer)

and almost articulating and editing my answer, I said "I was always interested in research and even during my research last year, I was very particular about noting down things." and I stopped fearing he would judge me on what I said.

One liners by him (more to come):

"A woman can't be 5% pregnant" 

(implying that you have to completely be involved in anything you do)

*I joined Charles Correa Associates as an archivist on 29th Nov. Don't know how long this journey will be.

New money

Ahmedabad Panoramas

In order:

1. Ahmedabad Textile Millowners' Association (ATMA)
2. Centre for Environmental Education (CEE)
3. Sarkhej Mosque
4. Hussain Doshi Gufa
5. Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT)
6. Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya
7. Calico Dome

All pics copyright: Anuj Daga

Photo post

Now a days, I keep taking pictures of things that keep trigerring random thoughts in me. These days I keep feeling so lost that i tend to find meaning into everything, every action that happens around me. Here are some strings of thoughts that the following pictures have invoked (note the larger idea/reference below the pictures):

The shadow pattern of a flat grilled window on a warped cloth was so fascinating that i wondered if it implied any thing for designers to consider.
























Descartes - Grid - Distortion


The convex canopy casting a concave shadow reminded me of my Graphics class that always used to stir up debates of resolving sciography of objects.






















Graphics - Sciography - 3D to 2D

During Diwali, in India, it is customary to decorate the space you live in. If you look around in the night time in Diwali, the city buildings merge with the black sky and all we see is glittering colourful lights with which each house is decorated. chains of lights patterned on the grid of iron grills of windows, canopies of trees flooded with LEDs, lanterns, soft lights - all make the city even more spectacular. The picture of a bank below, with sparkling lights and ad hoc decoration speaks of how the staff must have wanted to do it with love, but ended up just putting things on the ceilings, walls, or cabinets.























Urban Aesthetic - Ad hoc arrangements


On my trip to Hampi, I got this bottle bag from a bamboo workshop in Anegundi. My mother ended up using it as a flask in the house to hold flowers. She also wound the snake around it that I got from the same place. This tiny piece of arrangement (the flask, flowers, snake) kept changing very frequently sometimes from day to day, while sometimes morning to evening!
Now it's no longer there.























Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki - Domesticity - Aesthetic


the potential of children to use every space as a play space in a busy city like ours in commendable. Look at this child resting on the bus stand and dreaming as if he's in a playground!


















Architecture & Play

What originally used to be my house for the first 15 years of my life is now a full fleged workshop for my father who is an engineer. When i look at this house today, I wonder how we lived here - in a tenement literally 10' x 10'. Today we barely have any space to even lie around. It makes me so conscious of my body, which has grown big, adult and cannot accommodate the cozy space which this house once created. But other than that, also the fact that how every bit of engineering material was available for play - wires, registers, magnets - all of them.
















XS - Extra Small / Chawls


The barsati on which we endlessly played - where neighbour friends would call out peeping inside the house, and we would sneakingly get out leaving our books on beds. This also used to be a peripheral garden for my mother. The smell of rajanigandha during the night would fill the entire space. The sharp shadows that the moon light would make, the rains in which we jumped out here - it was fascinating.








Public space

and also that an arrangement of multiple similar looking things can look so good. neatly arranged across a small vacant patch against the railway lines - almost lined up to the tracks.











Repetition - Arrangement and organization