Quotable quotes

Prasad Shetty...

on working:

"You must work with the masters. If they match to your imagination of them, then you always knew you were right, but if they dont, at least you know why they are'nt great."

on seeing:

"The way you see is the way you understand, the way you understand is the way you intervene."

on things:

"A chair is a chair is a chair"

on abstraction:

"We don't know everything about anything"

on presentation:

"Use the KISS rule - Keep it Short and Stupid (err), you can say Short and Simple. Try explaining it to your grandmother first."

on people:

"He/she's interesting!"

on writing:

"Make it crisp."

more shall be added later.

xxx

In catching up with our ideals, we lose ourselves.

Things to carry

This is a superbly handy list that akhil had prepared for himself during the Hampi tour.
The checklist is for all things you must carry while travelling.

(the cigarettes are a part of his personal things and can be omitted!)

Contraptions

Some sketches for the Street USB
(first year orientation workshop 2010)

a chance encounter between an umbrella and a sewing machine:

Mumbai Profiles

poster design: Anuj Daga

Great works (not equal to) great people

We mistakenly construct identities of architects by seeing their works. When we see great buildings, we feel their architects too must be great. But in this process of labeling, we seldom realize that it is the quality of the work that we assign the person, and it's not the evaluation of the person him/herself. What perhaps I am trying to argue is that qualities of work need not necessarily impersonate an individual. This construction of idols in such a manner is extremely deceitful.

But the society works by evaluating people through their works. You are a good (=useful) person if you can produce good (=useful) work. There is no humanities at work here. Environments are deals made in this realm of exchange of useful work (okay, I may be gross generalizing here). Nevertheless, what I can definitely say is that every building has so much of ruthlessness to itself. But it is all immediately covered up as the building is inaugurated. Would the financier of the biggest building allow its workmen to enter the premises once the building is finished? Never! The workmen will be shooed away as the red ribbon is cut.

Correa is not as human as his buildings. His buildings are "constructed" and therefore, his identity is constructed.

Why I am thinking of all this? Because I am realizing the difference between 'great people' and 'great buildings' - and I am wondering if places must have more of great people or great buildings?

Untitled

These thoughts occur to me as I see and listen to this song:

And I wonder if my fascination with Muslim culture is because it being the "other" or with its mysticism or what? If I was to trace my association with Islamic culture, I could string together a lot of things. Perhaps the biggest share would be that I went to a school which had a Muslim Management. I did not understand them as the "other" till the 1993 riots.

But as I relate with their culture today, it seems to me that there is a lot of 'respect' in the culture - what we call 'adab' waali bhaasha - urdu, uff...you almost fall in love with it. Even the burqa / purdah has originally been a respectful custom - and this song so beautifully brings it out.

When I was young, I used to love watching Alif Laila - translated in English as Arabian Nights. Although it was very badly produced and directed, what fascinated me was the myriad magical experiences it gave me as a kid. I would wait for the protagonist of the stories to perform 'jaadu' and wait for revelation of spaces beyond unaccessible regions - it was totally fascinating. Also how can we forget the Prince of Persia that we played as kids, and defeating Jaffar - the villian in the computer game. But this also connects to Aladdin and Persia - another world to live in.

And some days back, I also listened to Rumi - and it was so soothing. Rumi creates a space around you. I think I have trailed enough in this blogpost and almost travelled the journey of Islam's passage to our country. the above song beautifully encapsulates the 'muslim' youngster and his romantic encounter within his 'closed' community. I love the slow movement of the video from him being a stranger to a lover....it is soft and likable. And the song adds to the softness.

Sometimes I wonder if I would be able to live in such surroundings (the "other")? how about falling in love like that? Don't quite know...

Kohinoor Mills

Photo Courtsey: Pranit Rawat

It's interesting how all the mill lands want to be secretive about themselves.

If the mills in the city were opened up, how wonderful it would be to understand another kind architecture that pervaded the city, that anchored life in the city. Large volumes, wide column free spaces, huge machines, loud noise, sharp shadows, big steel members - we see none of it today!

What was the industry? What is it to be in an industry (mill)? What is it like to work in a mill - in a place where the roof is 20 times above you, generously and you are handling a big monster - the machine...
Today, we see these houses of 'monsters' only through cracks in the wall, unaligned gaps in the gates and google maps. Why cant these spaces be opened for study? What if these places just became museums and still fetched huge money? Can machines be adapted for malls? Perhaps they could become sculptures - like the follies in Parc De La Vilette (Bernard Tshcumi)...

Anyway, I asked Pranit to construct an imagination of what he thinks is inside - since it is like some other world which one can not enter. Seeing this picture, it feels that this watchman is the guardian of the Garden of Earthly Delights - the Kohinoor! The Kohinoor remains unraveled and hidden for the inhabitants of the city. Makes for a perfect metaphor to the precious stone that remains unclaimed and alien to our place...

Sex / Gender

I learnt the essential difference between Gender and Sex today:
Sex is something biological. We are born with it.
Gender is a social function. It depends on the way you are brought up.

What it implies is that
Not acknowledging eunuchs as an alternative sex is a grave issue.
On the contrary, a woman may have different expectations with planning versus a man. (Gender issue)

I kept mixing sex and gender in my argument on "why should there be separate seats for separate sexes in buses, or separate compartments in trains". Today it is clear to me that these divisions are social and not biological. Thus, where I may argue that women are equally physically capable as men, the difference is only that the society doesnot see them as so. Thus it is a gender problem, and not of the sex.
However, Gender is a construct of Sex. In simpler words, Gender is a subset of sex. And this creates a lot of problems - the problems of perception, the issues of trans-genders, and so many more. In our times, gender is trying to become the universal set. Thus there are cases of people wanting to change their identities (social construct) by transforming themselves biologically!

That's quite a backdoor entry!

But I think this definition becomes crucial in the understanding of Feminism, the discourse of the Body, etc. We shall be discussing this in our humanities class later this year. It will be exciting....

Development Plan

Do we really need a development 'plan'?
A plan is a very modernist conception. A plan first defines an achievable objective assuming that all the parameters will be under control (which is a fallacious assumption), and goes on to execute to achieve a specific goal.

In case of a development plan, 'development' implies a process which is incomplete/incremental while the 'plan' contradictingly talks about a finite, static plan of action. Thus, the term "Development Plan" is ironic. Such a plan is never planned for a developing city/region, it assumes a particular growth (most of the times, it works with older statistics, on the basis of which the future may be (inaccurately?) speculated). What then, is the actual value of a plan?

The plan considers 'resources' as finite. Is it so? Are resources finite? Resources are biological processes - cyclic in nature. Thus, can we think of cultivating resources for the future rather than always getting entangled in the idea of effective consumption of available resources? We always miss out this point. The idea of sustainability also has always been about limited consumption for prolonging use of available resources and never about cultivating more resources for future. 

Land is finite for development, Neera Adarkar said. But we have already pushed this limit by reclaiming huge amounts of sea - and thereby creating land. Look at Dubai, Mumbai, Japan - I think one can give so many examples. Japan's proposals of development projects on sea are ready! So can we really consider land as finite? Today, land is 'generated' - after all, land is just a surface for developers. It is only the environmentalists or some other activists who think of land as a resource. Otherwise, land can be created!

We love the post modern ad-hoc conditions of the city. We love to celebrate the hawkers, we love to talk of the slums, we love to talk about the 'new' urbanism or the pluralism of the post-modern city.  I think that no city would function without its three basic tiers - the rich industrialists/corporates, the aspiring middle class, and the lower class people. This hierarchy is definitely the key to the success of the city. Each city has to plan for the rich and the middle class and allow the slums to exist. If one wants to eradicate the slums, he/she has to be ready to pay Rs. 5000/- per month to the house maid who washes utensils at his/her house. Only then one would be allowing the right amount of hygiene to exist in slums. In other words, a house maid can only afford a slum in Rs. 500/- that we pay now.

A very interesting and reasonable answer that Neera Adarkar provided was that we (primarily the middle class and the rich) have to acknowledge the fact that the poor get 'free houses' by the government, in case they do so, and not compare it with our status, making it a 'rights' issue. To give an example, we feel too cheated on issues like reservations (we know the kind of protest that went on for long) - which essentially were possible solutions for eradication of illiteracy. Unfortunately, reservation policies were tactically exploited by people who were ineligible. 

To begin with, perhaps we have to define, what kind of people are we looking to occupy our city? If the city is a system, then I hold my three-tier theory's presence for the city's effective functioning. Modernist notions (which we still follow today by defining our goals as achievable) consider all people as equal (and thereby divide resources equally). The relation between the three tiers and consumption of resources by these may be unequal - even completely contrasting. The fallacy of the modernist method may be its failure to allocate wrong amount of resources to wrong kind of people. Right now, resources are distributed based on availability of money. There is no relationship established/studied between the three tiers and consumption pattern . If money does not remain at the centre of planning process, perhaps something could be achieved, However, if money is to pivot the function of development, we are bound to have the same cycles of problems again. At the same time, desires and aspirations can not be handled through modernist planning principles since:
1. They can not be quantified
2. They are not finite (Buddhist philosophy).
(therefore, the whole premise of this vertical studio for me, is fallacious. Since it talks about executing a strong modernist action plan and discusses the city as the post modern condition!)

Anyway,

I could keep on talking, and this could become (or has already become?) a research paper.

For the time being, I propose that we re-name the next "Development Plan" as a "Development Framework". Unlike a plan (which works with fixed entities), a framework allows and adjusts according to changing systems & resources. We have to develop frameworks for future and not plans. Yes, as Neera ma'am said, they could be prototypes - small pods. What I recall is Japan's "Metabolist Movement" which acknowledges change and brings it to the centre of development. We are yet to understand it perhaps...