This article has been published in Evergreen Rachana, August 2012 issue.
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“...an architect ought to be able to accomplish much more in all the arts and sciences than the men, who by their own particular kinds of work and the practice of it, have brought each a single subject to the highest perfection.”
“...an architect ought to be able to accomplish much more in all the arts and sciences than the men, who by their own particular kinds of work and the practice of it, have brought each a single subject to the highest perfection.”
- Pytheos; builder of the temple of Minerva at Priene.
The question of ‘academic orientation’ in the present
context is a critical one – it creates a dilemma whether to locate a pattern in
the way Academy of Architecture (AOA) has operated by far, or to chart a future
orientation for the school. The idea of “orientation” also calls for rooting
the present in the past, in order to move into the future.
‘Academic’ relates to studies that are liberal rather than
technical or vocational. It often extends to the “theoretical” or “speculative”
and is not tied down to a practical purpose or intention in the present or the
real world. An ‘academic’ person is generally more interested in the ‘how-s’
& ‘why-s’ and thus is inquiry-oriented. Such inquiry helps one to
discover the ‘self’ and defines one’s position or point of view to operate
within the complex societal construct.
The relationship between the academic space and practice has
always been contested. The perception of this issue with regards to the
functioning of AOA has always been unclear. The pressure to cater to the needs
of architecture professionals in our country in the early 60s and 70s may have
compelled AOA to train students who could soundly ‘build’. AOA has had a
reputation of training students who can handle the pragmatic aspects of putting
together a building well. The idea of a successful architectural practice then
relied on precisely that – academia thus became a dormant function of the
practice, only catering to a certain demand of the market.
However, the introduction of the virtual – the television
& computer over the 80s and 90s brought in a complete shift. The
resulting proliferating technical tools and possibilities of engagement with
multiple media challenged the established idea of ‘architectural practice’. The
consolidate practice with the single “author-architect” who once controlled and
facilitated all aspects of erecting a building dismantled itself into an
inter-relationship of a variety of consultants who now handled different
aspects of the building industry.
It is here that I want to re-introduce the idea of being
‘academic’ as explained earlier, to perhaps problematize the way in which we
look at institutions, and therefore reconsider the role of an academic space –
should such a space exist to critically address the changing modes of
production or should it merely become a default function of demand of the
market? In other words, should architectural schools enable their students to
reflect upon and think of possible newer ways of emerging practices or should
they reduce themselves to become vocational centres which equip students with
sufficient enough skills to work in architectural offices?
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Academic environments are difficult spaces to be achieved
and sustained. In our systems, academic environments require new energies to
take over existing redundant ways in which we operate and teach. As
institutions age, they have a tendency of sliding into a comfort zone where
they function through established and time tested norms. If institutions refuse
to update themselves periodically, they start deteriorating – a phenomena which
can be easily studied through the older architectural schools in the country.
In order to nurture an academic environment, we need
inspiring leaders having a wide exposure who can motivate students to take up
challenging decisions and act upon what they believe in. Academic spaces need
to help students to look within and get interested in themselves. At the same
time, it is the students’ responsibility to keep up the spirit of an
institution by taking up newer initiatives and participating in a larger
dialogue with their city. A successful academic environment will not be
possible until both – the students as well as the teachers are equally excited
about learning and teaching. Academic spaces can potentially become the most
charged grounds for experimentation.
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The projects that we tried to conceptualize for the first
year design studio over the last four years have consistently tried to evoke an
academic discussion. The design programs went far beyond the utilitarian
aspects of architecture. Programs for first year have two important academic
functions: to make students de-learn fixed ways of thinking drilled into them
by schools up till the 12th class; and to reorient them towards a field of
possibilities that can be explored through architecture over the five years.
The tools we used to construct our programmes were quite different. Instead of
the projects like cafeterias and bungalows, we offered students stories and
machines. Instead of asking students to design sanitized (minimal, clean
looking) spaces, we asked them to engage with garbage and junk. Instead of
laying out spaces like kitchens and living rooms, we asked students to program
spaces for various emotions and preserving memory. This was essentially done to
break the students’ perception of architecture as a profession of constructing
buildings and subsequently draw them towards the idea of experience and
dwelling. Students come with a heavy bias of designing an architectural form,
and crave to make objects instead of spaces. We consciously tried to question
this myth through our projects.
Changing tools of operation creates equal proximities for
all kinds of students in grabbing the object of architecture as well as
engaging with an idea. Our project “Body-Envelop” is one such example where we
asked students to document activities of a hawker in the city of Mumbai and
design a mobile work-live envelop for them. Students recorded the act of a body
negotiating the city through its clothing (the hawkers’ shop) while addressing
issues of anthropometrics and shelter in its specificities. The project was
rooted in the cultural conditions of the city and made the students sensitive
to an alternative way of space making.
Secondly, these tools allow for a wider understanding of the
field and neutralize latent social disparities (a project like a ‘cafeteria’ or
a ‘bungalow’ talk of a certain ‘class’ of economy and are fairly reductive).
Projects like “Marrying Machines” or “Garbage Warriors” invert such notion and
look at everyday objects imaginatively and derive new meanings and methods of
arriving at an architectural form.
Lastly, such programs help in conceiving newer methodologies
of approaching an issue, unlike those, where the parameters of building always
remain constant (e.g.: the user, structure, planning, services, etc). Projects
based on texts like “The Little Prince” or Kafka’s “The Trial”, although
ambitious and successful only in intent, exposed students to mediums like
texts, images, poetry and literature making a design process more artistic,
abstract and “academic” than technical.
Abstraction allows newer imaginations of form and function,
thus challenging purist ideas of shaping a building. Many projects we
experimented with also dealt in conceptual spaces. The merit of project like
“Hell is very badly done” or a “Repository for the Little Prince” is that it
demands equal thinking from the faculty as well as the student to realize an
alternative space. Through such projects, both are able to delve into other
disciplines of art, philosophy and poetry, making architecture more liberal and
holistic. These tools enable debate and discourse within an architectural
studio.
Today we increasingly find architectural practices adopt a
multidisciplinary approach – those simultaneously involving themselves in
research and building. In such view, it is almost imperative that AOA
re-establishes its academic grounds in order to sustain larger challenges that
the future holds for the architectural profession. Until then, we only remain
in search of an academic space.
Image 1:
Marrying Machines: Sewing Machine + Coffee Grinder / Viren Modi + Akshay Mokal
Image 2:
Garbage Warriors: Sleeping bag out of waste cloths and wires / Aditi Mhase
Image 3:
Body-Envelop: A hawking object-space for a corn remover on street / Namrata Lodaya
Image 4:
Hell is very badly done: a conceptual apparatus / Raashi Parmar (pic) Kartik Rathod
Image 5:
Hell is very badly done: a surreal landscape / Ayushi Singh (pic) Kartik Rathod
