Images <> Forms

In the past 3 days, I have happened to get into some intense discussions. One of them was the Interior design Jury for the second year-ites. The project was to intervene in the caves at Kahneri, Mandapeshwar, Elephanta and Mahakali. In a way, I felt that the project was a an interesting one to study interiority. The interior design studio during this entire year discussed quite mature issues. The first one was almost inspired by my fellowship research (though I may not completely claim it to be that way) and the idea of the first project developed from looking at domestic objects. Everyday objects were studied, analysed and new ideas were associated to them finally taking them to the next step for enveloping them into a space or a space that they could envelop (i shall confirm this with the faculty).

However, the two important arenas of discussion that the projects opened were: domesticity and interiority. Thus the projects were not really driven by the typical practice of interior design that happens in the city today. The arguments they generated were fairly academic. The intervention at the Kanheri Caves especially evoked a huge debate, where students decided to create a kind of historical journey through the various architectural landmark structures. These included the temple forms, the church forms, the mortuary temples at Egypt, the Moghul gardens, the Pantheon, the basilica, the Greek amphi theatre and so on. Imagine placing each of these (taking on different functions) against the Kanheri caves.

At one instance it may seem absolutely funny. Well, it is. It definitely is. But this discomfort allowed us to debate how we so strongly relate forms to functions / images to forms / meanings to images / and information to meaning. Atul's argument was not to look at the image of a church as church or not to associate the image of the temple with the temple. He argued that these functions (temple, church, etc.) were ideas that manifested into these forms. Today these ideas could be reinterpreted. Today, their manifestations could be different. (in fact, they have been different to quite an extent). Then the association between the image and the form is broken. How do we then re-constitute the image of a church? My argument was to go into the experential. But Atul cautioned me to do so! That's the beginning of a big search that we ended in.

Here are some pictures of the projects:

Animals

remaining posts

Actually I had to write a lot about my trip to Haridwar but as usual, things have evaporated by now. I had to talk about my uncle's retail steel products shop in detail. There was so much I learnt there about how reinforcements are dealt with. I wanted to elaborate on the idea of "bones of a building". Anyway, many thoughts are lost.
On the other hand, there were some things that I had to also talk about Palghar (especially new constructions). I have no zeal to write about these now. 

Open Jury at AOA

The open jury at AOA during the last week seemed fascinating. I saw such a charged up chaos at AOA after quite some time (or have I seen it ever before?). Models were all around and the back area was almost crammed up. Some students were all dressed up while others had just finished putting the north on their plans. There was a big panel of jurors - right from construction, structures, humanities to the design faculty. While students shivered, they handled and accepted 'criticism' quite bravely.

Although I still heard some grumblings from jurors on ill designed toilets, ducts, missing section lines, wall elevations as I passed along the panels, there was some really inspiring work. the one model below (yet to be put on a ground base) reminded me of Rem Koolhaas's sleeping buildings.

Forms, materials, shapes, shiny surfaces, file card, thermocole - all around. Still, I feel open juries have to be more open forums. Students still do not attend juries of their peers. Dialogue amongst students will transform the whole scene. Students must overthrow / push their faculties to perform through dialogue. Many of them craved to talk, but were unfortunately conversed only about BHK or toilet ducts. But I am sure this is to change...

A Poem / thoughts

जेव्हा मी मोठा होईन आणि माझी मुलगी मला विचारेल- '' पप्पा, तुमचं पहिलं प्रेम कोण होतं हो....??'' तेव्हा मला गुपचूप उठून कपाटातला एखादा जुना अल्बम काढून दाखवायचा नाहीये...तर हात वर करून अभिमानाने बोट दाखवून बोलायचंय की- '' ती जी किचन मध्ये उभी आहे ना तेच माझं पहिलं आणि शेवटचं प्रेम आहे...''

-Gaurav Gaikwad

Can aspirations be as simple as just being simple? Can one be different by being just like everyone else? Can one glorify the everyday like everyday? I felt the above text did that.

जेव्हा मी मोठा होईन

when i grow up

आणि माझी मुलगी

and my daughter

मला विचारेल

asks me

'' पप्पा, तुमचं पहिलं प्रेम कोण होतं हो....??'

"daddy, who was your first love...??"

तेव्हा मला गुपचूप उठून

then, quietly getting up

कपाटातला एखादा जुना अल्बम काढून दाखवायचा नाहीये

i dont want to bring out from the cupboard - an old album

तर हात वर करून

but, i'll raise my hand

अभिमानाने बोट दाखवून बोलायचंय की

and proudly point out and say that

'' ती जी किचन मध्ये उभी आहे ना

"she who's standing at the kitchen platform

तेच माझं पहिलं आणि शेवटचं प्रेम आहे...''

...is my first and last love..."

(English translation mine)

Marriages are extremely political affairs in our social space. With marriage is the marriage of two families, thoughts, work patterns, lifestyles, bodies of two groups of people. These groups may be from the same caste or different. When they are same, its called "arranged marriage" while the second is "love marriage". The poem for me gives an allegoric account of one hidden below the other.

Does it really mean what it means? Why this contemplation that one will get married when one grows up (here, grow up implies an age beyond the normal)? And the dream of a girl child (a subtle unlikely choice - I refer to the political social space) asking the father - "who was your first love?" - and why would a daughter pose her father such a question? How old is she? Did she just ask him after he encountered a fight at home, or he's feeling low, or she read something or her mother told her some old incident....?

Procrastinating the answer, the author/father chooses not to go to the cupboard and bring out an album, but simply assumes to point at the lady in the kitchen. Why? What does the album hold? What emotion does the gesture hold? Of regret of the past? Was there someone? Who was she? Why it did not work out? Why the compromise? On the other hand, what is the 'pride' for? Why would he proudly point out? Things that put me in thought.

And families live like that. In our society, love marriages are still so hard to be convinced, especially if the boy and girl are of different castes.

More than that, this is the picture that the poem frames for me:

The daughter sitting on the father's lap - who is waiting for the dinner to be served. He's wearing a white loose pyjama and a brief staring out of the window. The kitchen is a room made by the curtained separation. The cupboard lies in the other half. Bare minimum requirements. Yet, the daughter (you seems to be very young) maintains the innocently serious tone. The father reacts like every other father - a father who is like the closed cupboard - reticent, rather someone, who would not open the cupboard and discuss that album, which might have hidden stories. Instead, he would foucs on the present - the reality of life, the reason of his own existence - the lady across the kitchen.

Don't we live in this domesticity?
But on the other hand, it may also mean completely the opposite.  Isn't that beautiful?

(I do not know the poet)

Videos from North India

The pace of Haridwar

Sunset at the airport

Crossing Ghaziabad

Haridwar / Mussoorie

Bones of a Building

My uncle has a retail shop which sells steel for construction activities in Haridwar. The story goes that my grand uncle was appointed as the Project supervisor when the Tehri Dam was being constructed nearby Haridwar. Since it would be a project which would go on for long, my grand uncle decided to make a house there. The house which therefore exists there is more than 50 years old. Although my my uncle was deported to Mumbai to learn better jobs to earn a better living, he was too far away from learning different things. He did not study much. Hence, he would not be able to grasp things so easily. After trying multiple odd jobs for varying months in Mumbai, he decided to go back and settle in Haridwar. 

Panoramas

Haridwar is a small town along the banks of Ganga. It is one of the beginning points for the famous hindu pilgrimages of Badrinath, Kedarnath & Gangotri. All three places have their own fascinating histories. Ganga at this stage is still pure enough to have a dip into or to see through the waters. The riverflow was gradual (unlike that in upper parts of the hill), so one could actually engage with the river. It did not make noise and allowed you to gaze at it quietly. Perhaps it would become more fierce in summers.

Hardwar has; one can say - a sacred centre, a business centre and an administrative centre. I will not be able to locate it on a map since my notion of this geography is very experiential. The pace of Haridwar's life is comfortable, and I shall substantiate and write about it in another post. Amongst recreational places are the ghats of Ganga, and the multitude of temples around. In the lane where my uncle stayed, there was a very weak idea of a community or a neighbourhood. These would be redundant and fancy ideas in the context.

However, nearby hill stations like Dehradun, Mussoorie, etc are interesting places to go for excursions.

Colours

It was almost the end of winter and all things were in a state of transition - the temperature, the skies, the attire of people and the colours of the place. Not only the trees had new leaves on them, they changed colours throughout the day as sun filtered through them. The Ganga was green against the bright brown hills. Everything was cold. 

Shadows


And I kept observing layers of shadows on things and wondered how would I draw them? All shadows of the  multidimensional word became flat graphical shapes which could be transferred on to paper. Light played with the objects and the objects firmly smiled back bearing the shadows, giving meaning to light.

Some due explanations

In the last one week of tranquility, I could articulate answers to two questions that I have been stuck with since quite some time:

1. Why I obsessively write?

2. Who is blind?

The first question was posed quite honestly to me by my students in the beginning of this academic year. They would sheepishly ask me "why do you write?". I did not really have an answer then. But as I now think of it, what I have been noting down during lectures since then is concepts that I could never explore earlier. There have been so many things that related to me so closely which still did not occur to me as a student. The difference I feel is that earlier I noted down information, while now I note down ideas. Nevertheless, without the information, the concepts would not have been as richer as they appear to me now. The answer to the first question appeared to me after my reading of Calvino:

"I'm one of those who write because they can't handle speaking; sorry about this folks... ...That morning I was on the trams early and I saw people reading the things I had written, and I watched their faces, trying to understand what line they were up to. Everything you write, there's always something you're sorry you put in, either because you're afraid of being misunderstood, or out of shame. And on the trams that morning, I kept watching people's faces till they got to that bit, and then I wanted to say:"Look, maybe I didn't explain that very well, this is what I meant," but I still sat there without saying anything and blushed."

-Wind in a City, Numbers in the Dark and other stories, Vintage

While that's pretty much the thought that goes on as I put things down, another thing that slowly has appeared to me is that language is a very limited tool of communication. And if one was to articulate everything one thinks and imagines through language, it becomes very difficult to word it - and there lies the challange of putting something across exactly as you think through language. But I am for layered meanings - all which may be right. I like to write in a way where metaphors and puns add to the dimensions of text. And I have yet not found my way of writing. But perhaps the blog is just a way to develop my skill of writing.

To put it simply, sometimes, we find it very difficult to put down or express what we exactly want to say. Writing is about how one negotiates this difficulty. Earlier, I never understood what one meant when he/she said "I like writing / writing is my hobby" - but I think now I clearly know that writing is about negotiating the terrain of communication.

on the other hand,

The question about "who is blind?" was raised to me at all possible forums where I presented my thesis. And while I tried to procrastinate the answer at all the times, there were times when I sincerely replied "I am still to find an answer...I don't know who is blind". To be frank, I also asked this to Prasad Shetty, since he was the one who pushed me to investigate into the blind. But I think, he too was not prepared at that point of time to answer it. Anyhow, I waited for a long time (about 3 years now) to be able to frame an answer to this question in such a way that it defines all dimensions in which my thesis could be interpreted in (as mentioned earlier about layered / dense writing). Here it is:

A blind is a person who does not have a vision of his own. The blind believes in the world about which he/she is informed, without investigation. The blind's reality is a borrowed one. Blindness is the inability to have faith in one's own reality of existence, because one can not see.

I would stop at that. But I would have loved to detail it in the way Guy Debord writes the 'Society of the Spectacle' or Gerog Simmel writes the 'Metropolis and the Mental Life'. In some ways, I find a lot of juice still left to be extracted out of my thesis. I say this because I am not satisfied with what I wrote in my dissertation. Kaushik (Mukhopadhyaya) told me after I presented my thesis at KRVIA that "the Cinema for the Blind can not be an architectural project. It can not be a building." And although it echoed with my thoughts too (because cinema and blind both negate each other all the time), the B Arch thesis had to be form-al. The thesis had to end in a building. But what I never got an opportunity to ask him was, "Then what it could be...?"

Now I feel quite relieved. May be there is a poetic way in which I can answer the question of the blind. And I could explain the terms in the answer too. And the articulation of blind in such a language allows me to have a dual narrative running through my architectural intervention - one of the physical handicap and other of the social handicap. Most people do not agree with the duality of the thesis. But I would take a Venturian stance and say, "I am for either/and; I am for plurality of meaning."

However, there is no point elaborating over this because at no forum, have I had the opportunity to engage in a kind of debate on the language of architecture I adopted. Was the project so convincing for all, or was it too difficult to critique? I wonder.

Building New Grounds

a

I was pretty amazed by this student's work on our latest Architectural Design project (Building New Grounds) which asks them to design a space anywhere but land. I coaxed her to float her dwelling in the air and asked her to explore the properties of a bellow (blowing air). She came up with this fantastically resolved mechanism which, although we could not harness directly, but serves as a great conceptual model for use in the future. (although I have my doubts if this girl herself really made the model), but I only cared for the fact that it put me to thought about how could one push this idea into an executable one!

In the class, a lot of experiments were being performed. Some one got a blower and tried to float thermocole discs (like space ships) in a tube of air. Others were sketching out aerodynamic forms or fiddling with plastic models...it was quite interesting a class to be in.

I have myself sketched so many ideas for this project that I am excited to sit and render them at length. Although I won't be putting them up now, but it has turned out to be an exciting project for all of us. We are hoping to have interesting ideas come up which not only spur complete new imagination, but also get students thinking of the issue of future/ism and going about it the sustainable way.

I would have to sit back and write on all the projects that we have done by far with the current first year batch - because they have a lot of content to elaborate upon. The studio briefs, I feel are multi layered and open up varieties of discussion, at the same time can be traced to interesting histories in the area of art or architecture or socialism. However, at this point of time, students would not know all of it. But I like working with a class as a team of 40 minds. If each student is able to create credible work, the 40 portfolios can be substantially used to generate an argument / case for pushing the boundaries of knowledge. Anyway, that happens definitely in the post graduate course elsewhere, but I am glad that we were naturally able to achieve it here, although we had no intentions of doing so.

Notes from class

Perfection is contagious. Even the struggle for perfection is contagious.

You are your project.

Shortcuts don't add nuance to anything.

Don't go to your teacher for information.

Knowledge will never grow unless you teach.

Right-wrong की चर्चा किसे करनी है?

Make new mistakes. Don't repeat old ones.

An idea (should) live in a building.

-Chaitanya Karnik