Dil Chahta Hai

Bhankas on Nashik tour to Gauri's wedding with friends:

Dhaval ordered a paper dosa and it turned out to be exceptionally large. 

Atit: Didnt u mention the paper size? 

Richa: I can't eat the wada pav
Anuj: Why? 
Richa: Getting very heavy...
Anuj: Who? You? 

Constantly missing deadlines for Gauri's wedding function, alok had an idea (remembering college days' Gauri saying "lecture chalu hua toh missed call de") 

Alok: Lets ask Gauri to give us a missed call when she's to do the next event. 

Looking at a small aquarium at Nashik city centre overcrowded with fishes, I wondered if one could give them extra space to float.

Dhaval exclaimed, "it's SRA scheme"

In the sanctity of the Manas Hotel's cafe on the way to Nashik, we called for the waiter and said:
Dhaval: 6 teas
Waiter: ok
Dhaval: wait, do you have hot chocolate?
Waiter: yes
Dhaval: ok, them make it 5 teas and 1 hot chocolate
Waiter: ok
Anuj: wait, even I want to try it. Make it 4 teas and 2 hot chocolates
Waiter:  ok sir (starts going)
Manali: Even I dont mind it. Waiter, waiter (calling out). Make it 3 teas and 3 hot chocolates
We look at Richa, Ritu and Alok - ????
Ritu: No I want tea!
Waiter: (flustered) ok
All of us then remebered with the confused taste of chocolate milk aka exaggerated bournvita:
Anuj: Mujhe mera bachpan yaad aa gaya. Mummy aise hi bournvita deti thi.
Dhaval: abhi jaldi khatam kar
Anuj: Mummy bhi aise hi bolti thi
Manali: Mujhse khatam nahi hoga itna saara...
Anuj: Mai bhi aise hi bolta tha!


While getting to Gauri's wedding reception, it was election time and hence declared 'dry day' the next day in Nashik. We were very excited to try out wines at Sula vineyard in  Nashik. It would be open only till 8 30, with wine tasting only for that day. We debate to attend Sula or Gauri's funtion, since we are neck to neck with time. In the car:
Dhaval: Ok people fast, vote - sula or Gauri?
Manali: Sula
Anuj: I dont drink anyway, so Gauri
Richa: Gauri
Dhaval: Lets go to sula, what you say Ritu?
Ritu: well, we could go to Sula...
Alok: mujhe jana hai sula!! but let's got to gauri's wedding
Dhaval: oops! 3-all!
Anuj: Let's call up Gauri (the wedding girl) and ask : Gauri, Sula or wedding?
(burst of laughter)
We eventually pass off Sula to attend Gauri's function...

Hell is very badly done

Architectural Design // First Year


"Hell is very badly done" - Maxim Gorky

Alternatives for the above statement...by the first year students.

Cabinet of Curiosities

Graphics & Representation:

We are trying to open up worlds of the self through the construction of cabinet of curiosities - a concept used by the people involved in the knowledge production during the Enlightenment period, to store objects which couldnot be classified then into any branch of knowledge.

In our graphics class, we aim to reconstruct the self through these curious objects we collect and understand why they stayed with us for such long time and the way they become our extensions to represent ideas that we can not express through conventional means of communication. The unspoken and unexpressed aspects of our personalities take form through the objects we collect. Often filling up our cabinets, these curiosities allow us to dig further into our idiosyncrasies and the way we use them to cover up our insecurities, likes, dislikes or emotions.

Lets see where we go with this idea.

Modernity: An incomplete Project

I asked Pendse sir of the references made by many modern architects and critics on why they say that the modern project is incomplete. He answered in some ways.

One, he said that modern movement invented a lot of 'technology' but much of it remains to be explored yet. Secondly, many social theorists say that all possible forms of capitalism have yet not manifested. We are yet to see more social formations based on capitalism in our society.

I further asked him what is the 'post modern' doing then. He explained that people's belief in post modernism has gone down, and instead being replaced by post structuralism. What changes in the post-modern time is the philosophy of technology or the way in which technology is perceived in the post modern age. The emergence of quantum mechanics led or directed the post modern thought. Further the chaos theory challenged rationality.

Sandeep Pendse mentioned that even Marx accepted that rational thought is limited. That rationality has limits. These limits are opened up by theories like chaos theory. To further the project of modernity, he explained, that we still dont know what inventions like biotechnology, rooting from modern thought can achieve...

Socio cultural issues in Academic projects

These days Aniruddha (Mahale) and I keep poking fun at each other on being elitist - We keep blaming each other to be more elite (quite reverse Sarabhai v/s Sarabhai phenomenon). Not going much into the hows, I think we are just reacting to a situation where we end up interacting with extremely high class students and star kids!

However, such situations have compelled us to relook at our past and the kind of projects we did in our past. Chaitanya maintains that the profession of architecture can only cater to the elites. Architecture is a regimental profession, which orders / structures other peoples lives according to what architects think is right for the world. The great masters did that - and we enforce the students to think of the last detail, only following the Mies-an quote: "God is in Detail". We train students to think even of the hairpin that the client would put in order to suit the inhabited space.

Architecture sees the slums as a nuisance, the popular aesthetic as kitsch, the domestic decoration as middle-class and rejects ornament in its current modernist hangover. Infact, these are the most basic design sensibilities from where students develop a liking for design - for the aspirants, design is about decoration, arrangement and creativity. Most students come with a strong humble sensibility of the middle class. Architecture severely insults this sensibility, or at least it does not respect these or channel these as potential design drivers. However, I must caution myself here to be specific of my experiences and my college - Academy of Architecture, Mumbai.

I came to Academy of Architecture with a heavy creative cultural baggage - I learnt to 'create' things from my mother - she taught me how to make things out of waste, of giving domestic waste an aesthetic value, she taught me how to make rakhees, I saw her paint, embroider, knit - all of it that fascinated me. I came to the architecture with this 'creative' interest. The beginning of the course was interesting, but it took a weird cultural twist by the second year when we were introduced to Interior Design. I never understood the subject - I just couldnot comprehend the idea of laying out an interior. Coming from a background where a house was a collection of utilitarian objects, sprinkled with artistic pieces here and there, I wondered what to put in a large living room plan apart from a diwan and a TV case?

I never dined on a dining table - eating was still a family activity - circling in the living room where food was served turn by turn to all. There was no question of understanding the concept of a dining table / dining space. The bed was more importantly a storage object, than a sleeping one - to the extent where height didnot respond to anthropometrics, but to the height of objects to be stored / amount of material to be stored in the bed hollow. Cupboards were not about hangers, but about the safe vault and safety. Study table was always a dream - I never had one. It was only pillows which became the table when kept on my lap... In interior design, we were expected to 'design' for these 'everyday' activities. In my home, objects for these activities happened over a period of time - as and when my father could afford it - so we had a steel cupboard, a wheel table, then some teepoys, diwan later, bed even later... So all of them were incoherent (speaking from a designer aesthetic). Apparently, that is not what ID expected us to do. I struggled and struggled and wondered what I could 'design' in an interior space other than the life i lived.

We had projects like interpretation centre in the same year - a word that I had never heard of. Our faculty, in the guise of explaining the concept of an interpretation centre, ended up telling us the programs that we needed to provide. Later in the course we were expected to design large centres - a naturopathy centre for some people who would come to these places for a few weeks. As outings, we always stayed in dharamshalas (inns). This stretch of imagination from an inn to individual cottages was far too much to grasp then. Further in the course were were asked to design more elitist and polished projects -in the guise of 'large scale projects'.

One of the first questions the faculty asked our class: "So how many of you have been to a five star hotel?" (seems a very humble question, but the medium of writing doesnot allow me to explain the intonation / delivery of speech). The obvious well-to-do people raised hands. A huge bunch of us looked at each other - perplexed. A social class of students for whom, once a month food at a local restaurant was a luxury, were expected to think of being to a five star hotel. The professor continued to share more experiences of five stars while all of us kept drowning ourselves in an imagined bubble of shame. We were expected to visit such places as case studies - buildings which do not allow you in without shoes and shun you by your appearance. Convention centres, hotels, residential towers, townships - all kinds of projects which were then farfetched for a class of people like us to imagine.

I am perhaps trying to draw attention to the completely insensitive ways in which elitism was thrown upon students without understanding the socio cultural backgrounds we came from. I wonder what others thought when they were asked whether or not they had been to a five star hotel. Isn't it too personal and sharp a question that makes you conscious of your own social status? What socio-mental traumas does it create for all such people who are completely shy and may never be able to admit their insecurities due to their backgrounds? And for those who have never been to such places, how does the curriculum ever expect, in 3 months, a design which suits an elitist taste and works absolutely efficiently?

These are sensitive issues. The academia has to deal with them very carefully and study cultural patterns to be able to slowly open up students to various aspects of design, so that they do not hurt the cultural sentiments of students from socially sensitive backgrounds. The academics have to think and rethink of projects they give students to handle. In the fellowship I did with KRVIA after my graduation, I realized how   hegemonic design could be, and how soft, other systems are. We can creatively engage with these softer systems to be able to learn more about life in general instead of superimposing on ourselves a completely foreign order of living.

However, we face quite a reverse problem right now. We have a large set of elitist brats within whom a handful of people who can not afford quite many things have gotten embedded. This elitism reflects in the way they waste all kinds of resources, the general lack of concern for others, the tantrums they throw, the for-granted attitude towards their teachers, the stupid reasons they argue for, the lack of discipline - and I could go on...!

However, when Aniruddha told me how he gave over all his architecture stationery to one of such 'embedded' students, I really felt touched. If only the elitist, instead of wasting resources helped their friends who can not afford luxuries that they tend to waste, it would make such a larger difference...

Of shrinking personal space

Two things that have subconsciously held me back from doing a lot of things that I would have liked to do are issues of space and lack of company. I have only come to realise about these two now - wonder why?

The issue of space clearey appeared to me when I realized how one of my professors invested in physical books. Involuntarily I asked him - where do you store them? But this question was in disguise an answer to my lack of productivity. Why don't I produce - physical models, installations, objects, craft - all things that I once engaged in so deeply, to an extent where this physical engagement with material and the skill to handle it gave me he confidence to pursue architecture. The answer is the limitation of space. If only i had the space to store books, the models, craft objects, installations that i made, would there be a drivr to create. Creativity is always physical - since you create. could one of the reasons for my switch over to a 'person of ideas' be because of the lack of physical space!? The space of ideas and the mind is limitless. It allows you to record, preserve and maintain your thoughts without external interference or objection.

My mother is always worried of storage - of all sorts of things that make up her domestic life, her dwelling. Her insecurity with this limited shrinking physical space has subconsciously taken over me. To avoid disturbances in the physical setting of my home, I have almost stopped te process of real creation. I donot like to discard my creations. I preserve them because they inspire me to make more. Logically this chain would result into accumulation of more and more physical stuff. I donot have any space to store them. Neither does my family understand my need to create an nor do they encourage me to make, since things that I make would occupy space. I shall have to soon find a way to overcome this nonforceful hegemony.

In the recent days I realized that while i went for so many talks, discussions, seminars in the past, those have reduced to barely a few now. Thinking over it, what makes the idea of attending academic events boring in the first place is the lack of company now. Earlier i had a group of friend amongst whom, someone or the other would be willing to join or vice versa. Gradually we started dispersing. After graduation, close friends went on to study abdoad, some got married, some got busy wih their jobs....this issue seemed to resolve itself when I made new friends with whom i almost set a new culture of engagement. Soon, they also moved away - for studies, work or found partners. Prasad shetty keeps pointing out very correctly perhaps - "he needs a partner". Sometimes I like to doubt him, but i know he is probably right. I have not being going out since i do not have any company to go out with, further i donot have people who share my kind of temperament to discuss my ideas wih. This has started having conssquences on my space of ideas too...

With shrinking physical and intellectual space, I feel choked. I must resolve these issues and come to a middle ground solution soon which shall free me of these things that are pulling me back. I must grow, only because I can. And i must find alternatives of growing too.

The Aesthetic of Dirt

Only if we develop an eye to appreciate dirt around us, will we fall in love with our environment. To be able to discuss dirt further, one needs to set up a framework for the definition of dirt. What is dirt? What are the conceptions of dirt? How is dirt constructed? What is our cause for repulsion towards dirt? How is it possible for other living beings to be with, live in or even consume something that we may consider as dirt?

One could argue through Luis Bunuel's free form surrealist films The Phantom of Liberty (scene) investigations in such areas of perception. His surreal work on the dining table where people sit on commodes and laugh about what they consume brings a darker side of the way in which our system is codified. Speaking of 'Sexuality and Deject', Bataille says:

"...The place for filth is in the dark, where looks cannot reach it. Secrecy is the condition for sexual activity, just as it is the condition for the performance of the natural functions.

Darkness thus surrounds two worlds that are distinct but always associated. The same horror banishes the sexual function and excretion to the same darkness. The association is given in nature, which brings together and even in part mingles the organs. Of course we cannot determine the essential component of the aversion provoking the nausea we feel for both kinds of "filth." We cannot even know if excrement smells bad because of our disgust for it, or if its bad smell is what causes that disgust..."

However, beginning to describe dirt in order to be able to only appreciate my environment (since one man cannot clean the entire surround, neither can one convince all to behave civil and neither can one impart values or awareness towards health or hygeine), one may look at how is it formed and what are the natural aesthetic patterns it geneates. To follow a conventional framework, we could begin to analyse dirt through form, colour and material. After all, most works of art are primarily understood through these parameters.

Then, one must begin to understand culturally the nature of dirt a society produces. Because, the character of dirt that each society produces is a result of an engagement with the kind of material available to tem for all kinds of consumption - social, physical, technological, etc. Then again, the scale at which we discuss the notion of dirt is important. Are we talking of domestic dirt, commercial dirt, dirt at a locality or urban level, technological or machinic dirt - because 'dirt' takes on different meanings , infact different nomenclature at different scales. For example, organic dirt may be referred to as garbage, commercial dirt as waste, machinic dirt as junk, and so on. But then, one must find what lies at the heart of dirt - what common theme binds the definition of dirt? I think one can debate it from two sides - the personal and the public. But if one considers 'public' as the summation of the 'person' then there has to be some idea which ties or pins down the common understanding of dirt. There has to be something inherently repulsive about dirt for all societies to reject dirt. But these are really large questions and would only lead to theorising dirt.

In the meanwhile we must define a field of discussion. The idea of dirt in public realm is the area of concern. The fact that india is represented as a 'dirty' country is the reason for this investigation. But there is no need to look at a large geography like India since te conception of this land itself is problematic and one hasn't even explored the whole of this country to generalize ideas. Let us talk of our city. Something that is very close to us. More specifically, let us talk of the route which we take from homes to our workplaces. Can we consider dirt as a part of the aesthetic we encounter everyday?

(thought under construction)

Rashomon

I finally saw Rashomon directed by Akiro Kurosawa, yesterday. I had heard so much about the film that the situation had come to an extent where i had the film with me and hadnt watched it for the longest of times. (there are hundreds of such films which i havent watched although i have them - all my kind of films, yet....perhaps it's the ease of the medium. Films communicate too easily and leaves very little room for imagination. It fills in rooms for image, music and text. A lot is already fed to the viewer. I like to struggle with a subject to form a conception.)

Rashomon seemed to be a dilapidated, vandalized, haunted Japanese gateway. It already revealed the brilliance of the director - a half broken gateway allowing itself to be fragmented, burnt and still 'used'. Standing erect in heavy rain, it provided shelter as well as ruined itself. What else could a building in this stage of its life do? In getting ruined, it told multiple stories of its situation.

The structure of the film was very much like 'Rashomon' - where either one tore it apart or imagined the wholeness of it. Both seemed impossible. While each character of the story tried to construct the reality of the film, the viewer is still left to wonder if here was a reality. I am reminded of Nietzche's comment on truth - "Truth is like a woman". Of course that is a very sexist statement. But the question he raises about th truthfulness of truth is something that could take form through a work like Rashomon.

Which reality do we believe and why should we believe any reality? We construct our own imaginations, amongst which, our life is one. Often suggesting sharp moral and ethical dilemmas of human nature in trying situations, rashomon constantly urges you to think , rethink your position. It invites you to make a judgement and yet stops you from arriving at a conclusion.

In the reality of life, we end up making conclusions. Our life is a construct of conclusions we make. History evaluates and reopens these conclusions taking us back into the acts. History presents to us the framework of events, like the semi built / semi dilapidated structure of rashomon, further complexified by the meaning and connotations given to it by the society. We are to make sense of it - a real one for iur real life. We have to either complete it or rip it apart piece by piece to be burnt in time.

Badran at Academy

Academy in a long time hasn’t had the privilege of having a person as renowned as Rasem Badran. The Jordanian architect was invited to share his thoughts on architecture for the Annual Lecture at the Academy. In our endeavour to work towards finding a language to deal with the issues of fast globalization and changing cultures, Badran’s lecture was appropriately themed ‘Tradition and Modernity’. It would be worthwhile to reconstruct the summary of the lecture through the conjunction of the title. ‘And’ signifies the temporal property of two things happening at the same time in Badran’s work. This is seen not only in his work, but the representation of his work too. Two questions that I must raise at the outset are: Does the technique of representation guide the kind of architecture we make? Can a certain kind of architecture encourage a specific kind of representation?

Badran introduced the audience to his background thought process through his sketches right since his childhood till his thirties. He spoke of his fascination towards aeroplanes and his interest in photography. Often taking photographs from aeroplanes (elevated space); he found similar patterns in the vaguest of things. Grids of houses with lines of buses, city skylines with lipsticks and cosmetics,  reflections of sky in water with farmlands on ground – all these pairs of images brought out a dialectic of issues that Badran’s work deals with. This ability of linking up contexts in different scales was unique of Badran. Further he used these images to establish his position within ‘and’.

Badran believes that the hand is the transcendental medium through which one converts thoughts in the mind to an expression on paper. Therefore hands are the means to the material manifest of our minds. Drawing is therefore an intrinsic process towards realization of all his work. Badran’s sketches are rigorous, attempting to structure a social space through his architecture, which he recorded in his childhood sketches. Therefore he works towards drawing the essence of this cultural space into his present work.  One reads in his drawings, dialogues between the past and the present. His work is familiar, yet new; it recalls the past yet suggests a future...

His work came across to be extremely urban – one that would only follow a systematic analysis of the context of the site, linking an architectural project to the larger dynamic of the city. Drawing axes, movement and sectional study diagrams, his architecture is an attempt at ‘place’-making. His buildings seemed like always there, his housing projects were almost civilizations. He successfully breaks down his monumental programs into smaller portions which become spaces that are absorbed by the city. His buildings are never pretentious and never express any desire to stand out. Infact, they blend in their surroundings often bringing a fresh experience of an otherwise everyday space. This can be particularly noted in his projects with religious programs.

Towards the end, Badran shared some of his contemporary works which showed the constant struggle to balance his ideologies with his next generation of architects, including that of his own son. He urged the audience to believe in the potential of the hand over the mind of the computer. This conviction comes across very strongly through his method of working. The vertical buildings that his office now handles too show signs of breaking down the monumentality into smaller fragments – perhaps to achieve a certain territoriality, a feeling of emergence from the ground. It seems he maintains it through his representation – the non changing browns of his sketches echo a certain connection to the soil.

Badran over the next two days interacted with students at Academy over his sketches. His dialogues through sketches re-established into the young minds, a love for drawing as well as their own contexts. 

Drawings

Techno Cultural Schisms

Today morning as soon as i entered office i saw parmeshwar and we involuntarily struck off a casual conversation. He passing told me that he forgot his mobile phone at home. As he was leaving, he remembered something and turned back. He asked me if he could borrow my phone to make a call at his home. Initially i felt he wanted to inform his parents that they must not call him during day in case they wanted to contact him. But he went on saying later that he must inform someone at his him to switch off his phone.

I offered him my new touch screen Samsung ace and he was perplexed. He honestly and boldly requested me to dial his residence number passing a quirky remark on 'touch screens'. I enjoyed it. He waited patiently for his mother to pick up and respond. As soon as his mother picked up, she herself reminded him of the fact that he had forgotten his mobile at home. Going on further he asked his mother to switch off his phone. He waited for his mother to get his phone and then began: "press the button on top left and the bottom left...', and then kept on repeating... Although his mother tried hard, she couldn't figure it out. He went on explaining her to press the 'red' button. She didnot register. Paro silently gave up as if he already anticipated his mother's failure. He concluded suggesting her to get it switched off from his father.

This is the story of our struggle with the technological revolution. We crib, talk, try, cry and adjust with technology. We use universal references like top, bottom, red, white, etc to make others understand about it. These references too fail. The idea of serial pressing and operations donot work. Manuals of technical languages for operating gadgets fear away the older generations. The older generation would have been happier if they only had to press a single button. Or just pick up a call like that on the landline. For some.like marketing people, such struggles become USPs of their innovated products that resolve some cultural issues in technology. Others build up on agencies that can demonstrate to them...

Inspite of all this, i think we can only get to the next level of technology digesting the half baked developments in this sector.

Naiharwa / Kabir

Note the Lyrics. Personally, I like the Kailash Kher version more from his first album Kailasa.

To be read with this post on dagagiri

Seven Social Sins

Internal aggressions

Why does one look to move away from one's own context? What is the need to travel? Why does this occasional internal desire of fleeing away occur? Which kind of space constructs such circumstances? Are these implications of social space? One of the prime reasons i want to go away from my place is because it has remained too conservative for a very long time. From parents to seniors to friends to students to most colleagues, all are so narrow minded and so closed to the world that this place seems almost suffocating. The social institutions bask in their own rotting principles and it is almost impossible to overturn the educational instituions anytime soon. Hypocrisy is another large value, the inheritance of which always puts a fake mask on the name of progression. Everyone claims to be open, but want to be in their own comfortable positions. It is like a moving wheel just lifted slightly above the ground. Everything seems to be happening but we don't seem to be moving ahead.

We have hardly been productive, since we seldom commit. Commitment is a responsibility. Every responsibility has risk. Perhaps that is why we fear to commit. Being productive would mean opening up ourselves for judgement. If we become productive, we can look back and see we have created and thus can evaluate ourselves. We hardly leave such traces behind thus making ourselves difficult for interpretation. Perhaps that is why we are a land of mythology and poetries. We take a lot of pried in our history of non-building or the idea of nothingness. Everything is layered and open for interpretation. For some time, i too would have loved such layered past since it allows deep penetration. But it also makes us an extremely slippery and uncommitted race.

We take a great pride in this legacy of ours. I am fed up of such slipperiness. Perhaps this is not an age to afford slips. I can not slip now to damage my crucial bones. I need to stand and therefore develop a position to be able to open up different perspectives. Perspectives will allow multiple views. Poetry shall follow - after all, i began my life with it. I want to go out to become more rational to be able to appreciate my own context of irrationality. Irrationality perhaps may not be a correct word that exactly defines the spirit of this place.

Although they say that the grass on the other side is always greener, still at least from here, other developed countries seem to be much more progressive and receptive to different ideas. "My world" is only a construct of my own limited exposure. It is made up of people i know and things i am around. I need exposure to make comfort with the place i live in. I need to know if other contexts are as difficult to live. I want to test if i can stay with myself for long enough to produce ideas.

Peeling History

Falling buildings have along railway lines of western suburbs have revealed to me another layer hidden behind the facade of an existing interesting building. Layers of urban fabric morph into new forms in the process of which they expose glimpses of hidden cultural manifests that are never available to us otherwise.
One wonders how to capitalize on such events to record moment which will be soon lost to the monsters that will again cover the temporarily revealed history.

The city is an evolving script which changes its own interpretation depending upon the position of the viewer. The changing visuality through the door frame of my train compartment manifests the above idea in reality. It seems as if suddenly someone decided to cut a new section through the everyday city.

Academy of Architecture: Studio Space

Fruits again

Terrace Cultures

The absence of terraces in high rise buildings has disrespected an old atmospheric culture of people in India. People in India share a distinct relationship with the sky and celestial bodies. They begin their day by worshipping the sun and eat their food on certain special.days only after seeing the moon. Festivals like Id and karva chauth are so closely tied to the worship of moon.

High rise buildings hide them off, create difficult viewing tunnels. Pent houses further eat up terraces. The space of the terrace in a building which was once public and readily available to every member of a building has now been lost to wealthy people who prefer to live above everyone commanding grand views of the city. This reflects the capitalistic culture of the city that has eaten up old customs and traditions which people still follow.

Gardening, kite flying, feeding birds, keeping offerings for birds after deaths are all activities intrinsic to our culture which kept terraces as an active place. Even when buildings were four to five storeyes tall, one wouldn't hesitate to run to a terrace during the evening where everyone would meet up, play, walk, etc. Although four storeyes still maintained terrace culture, seven made it difficult. Later, these were too sold off to the communication companies or advertisement companies, to earn money for individual societies. Communication antennae occupy large amount of space on terraces and leave no space to move. Further, their installations are hurtful. Similar is the case with advertisements that come up on buildings. I remember going to a friend's house to view the Halley's comet when it crossed across Indian skies during the '90s, the then recent tall building completely blocked the view of the north sky from my old house.

Thus, the new urban forms have disregarded these very activities of people through which people connected to the world outside them. The sky scrapers have not left any room for people's engagement with the sky. Forget terrace for people, we do not even have enough open space to run out to in case of fire. We thus do not appreciate the different shapes of clouds, the hues of the evening sky, the moonlight or the pole star - which we all once gazed at through our benevolent barsatis. The sky is perhaps the only space which forces us to think that there exists another reality beyond our own. It allows us to penetrate deep into it and takes us to a macrocosm that we are only made familiar of primarily through our mythological texts. It is the space which the grand mother points at hinting to the devil's house and the place from where Santa Claus arrives. That patch of sky, which has stitched the quilt of memories is now a luxury of the past. Shrinking into the balcony, the terrace shall soon disappear (or has it already disappeared?) as an architectural gesture which allowed human imagination far deep into a cosmos that once chiefly structured our lives.

Why Vertical Studio gets low response at AOA?

It is clear thar students who opted out of  NASA did so because they wanted their share of relaxation time. They perhaps avoid NASA so that they could avoid any extra work. In the competition between  NASA and vertical studio, the latter will never afford to take the lead since
1.  NASA always shall suck up the enthused students.
2. Remaining students would never give their 100% to the vertical studio.

It is therefore critical to reconsider the assumptions that we made regarding  NASA and students participating in it. Firstly that we assumed that  NASA doesnot produce highly analytical work and that its analytical methods are age old and have never been revised. Other assumption we made was that students working for  NASA donot undergo all round development. In making such a categorization, we subconsciously grouped the people not participating in  NASA as wiser. We completely forgot or misread that people not working for  NASA are those who are generally uninterested in extracurricular activities. Their priorities are different and their interests do not fall completely within the realm of architecture. However, the vertical studio, over the last two years have revealed strange results.

Methods of  NASA may be outdated, but students who are enthused unquestionably gravitate towards it and within their boundaries and cone of vision, produce just decent work. These are students who have the skill and motivation to take initiatives.  NASA undoubtedly attracts the better of the student lot - perhaps because the end product is defined and predictable.

This makes NASA a preferred option. There is a format to it which academites have mastered. They love to work within that and keep winning. It is something like being a Lata Mangeshkar and singing only Bollywood romantic songs and winning a filmfare award consistently for multiple years. However, if we were able to bring these students out of the fixed thinking framework and show them what the world is doing, and make them believe that they can conceptualize, initiate and work on newer and more interesting projects, it would be a great departure. On the other hand, if they also understand that they needed to revise old frameworks and challenge existing practices of researching in NASA, they would be much more receptive to what is going around them. Unfortunately, the NASA award at the end of the event is too lucrative for them to understand and push projects that they undertake towards knowledge production.

However, I personally do not think that we have been able to produce good enough work through the vertical studio to be able to challenge the cult of  NASA . In my vision, it shall never even be possible. Until the better students themselves understood that knowledge production is different from just documentation and analysis and that it's a serious affair (don't conflict it with the seriousness of winning an award at an event), we shall keep struggling for good product from our vertical studios. Vetical studios according to me are much more progressive, innovative and exploratory. They are more open, unlike the closed circuits of NASA where data is consciously guarded. Vertical studios also expose one to a variety of people - highly respectable people from various disiplines. It is so much more exciting to talk to them on wider issues and use ones skills towards learning more about a field. I think vertical studios must be tried apart from  NASA period to see if my above theory is true. I am quite confident that the results will be different.

Drawing on the Phone

Sent from Samsung Mobile

First year and theoretical design

I think most of the times, the grand conceptual ideas that we craft out our first year design projects from are not received as intensely as desired. However, this shall always be the case with first year since they are in the initial stages of learning the basics of architecture - from its vocabulary to the issues. Much effort is invested in getting them out of the literal interpretations to explore the poetics. Theories, that we hope to realize into real space, thus waste themselves, although sometimes they do manifest interesting results.

On the other hand, first year projects always end up being conceptual manifestations or translations of theories. These turn up to be what a practising professional would otherwise produce as the first iteration of a theoretical understanding. Thus, i believe that first year projects that i have been involved with have immense potential to substantiate theoretical discourses at a preliminary level. It would be really exciting to work with an enthused student on poetics of space right in the first year, where a student does not accept crits but develops ideas and sharpens his/her mentor's sketchy thoughts. That I think would lead to the success of not only a design, but a design studio.

Art - Expression - Imagination

Can one reduce one's life to be just utilitarian? Why did humans start to paint, craft, dance, sing or write? They are not related to any of our basic needs of living. The intrinsic human need to express is what creates meaning for existence. Is meaning so important for existence? Perhaps it comes out of the desire of the self to go beyond the body. It manifests the need to conquer a larger world, that doesnot exist here. It comes out of the exigencies of the individual for a universal exploration. Through such expression, one makes imagination possible. Imagination allows the self to go beyond the real and existential.

What is the need for sharing imagination? Why do people share imaginations? Why do they ask others to join them with their imagination? Perhaps in imagining a new world, one makes a new social space, which still exists within the current one, and by default is lived through the institutions of the present space. Fears of being singled out, or social exclusion perhaps force us to share imaginations. Through this they try to validate their new imagined social space. Expressions are also probably tools to validate imaginations. The form of Epressions belong to the real world. Hence imaginations become acceptable to some extent. Some believe in them, some remain intrigued, some question and others remain unaffected. Many others consume them.

When expressions are consumed, they take the form of entertainment. Entertainment has thus become an industry. It sucks in a lot of people, emerging into popular culture. It has made its own multifarous institutions. Institutions although validate expressions, they end up guarding them. Art is thus the domain of expression, which gives meaning to life. Architecture has the possibility of engaging with all forms of expressions. Thus it becomes unmanagable and complex - the mother of all arts. We have reduced it to construction and buildings.

If students realize this intrinsic connection of architecture with art, they could start looking at all forms of expression with a close eye. They would only then appreciate and acknowledge expression of human life.

Mumbai Joy: A Critical Reflection

The AOA Vertical studio 2012 "Mumbai Joy" will come to an end tomorrow and we are here, waiting at the college to get all the prints for the exhibition organized. We have about 40 A0 and 8 8' x 4' panels to be printed (it's 12.00 am right now) and the printer has just started printing our sheets. All of us are wondering when will we get the final prints and I am here, sitting with Ajey waiting patiently for our prints to arrive.


Ravindra Punde and Rohit Shinkre were here for some time during the late evening. We couldn't help but get into a self evaluatory, self critical mode. We were discussing about how the Vertical studio turned out to be, although not in much detail. but thoughts keep crossing my mind on this issue and I wonder what I got out of the studio.


I do not really know if the studio has been a success, or even close to success, whether there has been any positive aspect that the student body sees. There were various possibilities and opportunities of learning in the "Mumbai Joy" studio, where we aimed to map cultures of Mumbai. We selected 10 areas of research which included celebrations, films, theatre, food, festivals, gymkhanas, fine arts, crafts, music and cricket. Each group had a team of 20 students and 2-3 faculties. We wished to map Mumbai cultures, a serious, rigorous effort to understand distinct patterns of the city we live in.

I will now begin discussing gaps, lags in communication between the students and the organizing team. Later, I will try locating the problems. Lastly I would try to open up possible strategies for our future operation.

Preparation:
We prepared as faculty. We prepared a final compiled 'intent sheet' with each of these sub groups. In order that student got enough time to decide and choose their area of interest, we floated an e mail, rather an e mail form with the entire description of the exercise along with a registration mail which asked them to choose their first three preferences among the 10 areas. I think we were prepared.

Later, we individually submitted our  methodologies of working and compiled it to understand each others' way of working.

GAPS:
1. It seems that many students assumed the studio to be a workshop where they would be trained in their area of preference.  For example, many in the fine arts group thought they would be involved in the production of paintings and artwork if they registered with this group. Students in the 'crafts' group  thought they would make craft. Some students opted for food since it seemed too playful. This clearly suggested that many students did not read the introduction of each of the sub groups carefully. They did not understand the intent of the studio. They didnot ask for clarifications. We as faculty assumed they understand well.

2. Faculties thought that students would be enthusiastic to channel their energies in their areas of interest and that every student must be able to relate to at least one of these areas. We assumed students would be eager to know more and research on these subjects. It wasn't the case.

3. Vertical studio meant the formulation of groups vertically - across classes. There are two divisions - aided and unaided, in the college and very few students interact. We thought this would be a good opportunity for students across classes to know and learn from each other. However, I found personally that there was hardly any intermingling or strong interaction between them.

4. The 10 groups, we idealized, could work independently. We never thought of overlaps or sharing of information except the Mumbai map.

5. We assumed students to have drive and skill to be able to analyze things around them.

PROBLEMS:
1. There was a clear case of mis-communication in the intent of the studio. We aimed at mapping (document+analyse+represent) and it turned out to be a documentation project.

2. Students had no idea of research. Our fourth year students are no equipped with enough training to accumulate and assort data.

3. Vertical studio groups did not interact vertically. Student groups did not mingle much. Many did not attend, many shuffled. All data remained isolated.

4. Field studies were unsuccessful. Students didnot have methods of observation or any idea of conducting surveys, interviews or taking pictures. They had no clue of "what to document", or what qustions to ask. They remained limited to questionnaires handed by us. There seemed to be very little effort from students to dig out information.

5. I found a serious lack of drive and initiative in the entire groups. No one waited for their panels to be printed and put up. Students had no attachment to their work or no excitement to see their work displayed.

PROBLEM LOCATIONS:
1. We get a large amount of student group highly under-informed and under-confident. Students new to the city, shy students and those coming from non-English backgrounds find it extremely difficult to communicate. I too was an under-informed student and particularly had no skills for architecture, except modelmaking. However, I had the drive.

2. Research has always been assumed to be an activity that is subsidiary and something that is 'all talk', which does not fetch money, and can not fill the stomach. The relation of research to design is seldom explained to students. Further, this gap widens due to over-emphasis on production of designs and drawings.

3. Faculties differ in their schools of thought, but make them personal issues. As mature individuals, we need to appreciate each others' theoretical positions and widen our spectrum of vision. However, the root of the problem lies in faculties pouring in from diverse groups, schools of thought and opinions. Recently, the age divide may be another big reason for the incoherence and intolerance of ideas.

4. Design at Academy is looked at in a very constricted manner. Architecture students are hardly made to (note the assertion) interact with other disciplines that are housed by the same building. Neither do students  capitalize, nor does faculty encourage or force. All remain happy in their own comfort zone.

5. As a corollary to the above point, I believe students can take larger initiatives to bridge these gaps. However, I find students are unmotivated, who see no point in discussing any issues beyond marks, and do not take any step towards making design education well rounded. Neither are they exposed, nor do they want to expose themselves. Internet seems to be a safe hideout and prevents physical exploration of our own city. Generally, the kind of students we are getting seem to be uninterested and hardly care for design. They are here for a degree and want to score good marks.

POSSIBLE TRAJECTORIES:
1. We need serious orientation programmes for students towards architecture and its scope. Further, we need orientation programmes for all sub-disciplines under the purview of the discipline of architecture. Students need to be engaged in the programme of architecture only if they understand and are willing to invest their maximum time in it.

2. Research programmes have to be initiated and they have to be funded well. This will possibly bring in a reassurance in the activity of study through documentation and analysis. There needs to be research method courses at all stages of the architecture course. Examples of research and its practical usage has to be spelled out from the beginning. The fact that research is closely related to pragmatic problems and is a respectable and viable industry has to be established.

3. Faculties may not be selected by word of mouth. They must be rigorously interviewed and their past work  and credentials has to be taken into consideration. They must be qualified and mature enough to teach.

4. Design programmes have to be reworked. Exchange programmes need to be initiated. Interaction between various design institutes must be made compulsory and students should be made to understand other methodologies of working.

5. Counselling for students joining the stream is required. We get a lot of students whose true passion lies somewhere else and due to cultural pressures, end up joining a professional course like architecture which is considered to be the toughest of all courses. We need to admit students based on their motivation levels, not as per their marksheets. The reason why most colleges abroad seem to be successful is because they choose their students. We have no choice. We have to accept what is given to us.

I wish to end this post here. It is a highly personal, narrow and restricted evaluation of the entire situation and much of it may be incorrect. However, it is a documentation of my experience of this entire studio that keeps me agitated enough to not make peace with the system, and thus maintaining my drive. All faculties felt students did not  perform to their capabilities. But the landscape and nature of problems encountered by every one may be different. Thus, the above account may be completely invalid. Also, it is restricted to only 5 points in the framework. There are many other aspects to our non-success. On the other hand, the above points could have been supported with examples or cases - which one intends to skip only to maintain the length of this summary and preserve the integrity of the student.

Overall, it has been an event which has consumed a lot of resource and time to excite a small section of student body which would have taken the extra initiative even otherwise. I believe, it was a greater opportunity for the faculty to understand the diversity of the practice of architecture and to mould their subjects to the specificity of the place they live in. The generic nature of information that the students are fed with meanwhile widens the gap between a student's practice and their immediate context. This further leads to strengthened belief in objectification of architecture.  I hope after reading this post, there would be reactions, and I would be glad to receive them here.

Intelligent v/s the Wise

Looking at smart people I have started observing what makes some smart people different than the other? How does one describe the specificities of different kinds of smart people? The ultimate adjectives, which seem reasonable measures are the intelligent and the wise.

I am a big fan of the wise instead of the intelligent. How does one characterize the two? Through my understanding, here are my distinctions between the two.

Firstly, let me make clear distinction between data and information. Something purely factual (a first hand reading of any situation) is data. It concerns with hard reality. We generate information through collection of data. The study of information creates knowledge. Thus the intelligent are those who are controlled by and in control of knowledge. The intelligent work within set knowledge systems and operate through this understood and accepted system. The intelligent will be able to help you with all kinds of things that exist in the real world. They talk of facts and their synthesis. You can trust them on the authenticity of information. Their skill lies in memorizing and processing the memory to get the right information at the right time. They work exceptionally well within structured environments. These are the people made for the cities – they can impress people and make their way out of situations, through legal and technical knowledge in their respective fields.

However, the intelligent could make mistakes in non-structured environments. They are highly susceptible to fall into traps of incorrect decisions in places where no formal knowledge systems exists. Wading through such field is the expertise of the wise.

It is yet difficult to define if the wise make their way through intelligence. Let’s assume that the wise are intelligent by virtue of their ability to contextualize any kind of data (they do not understand data through knowledge structures). They operate in the field of information, more basely, in the field of data, making their own meanings and readings that are highly contextual to different environments and situations. In this view, the wise are intelligent not because they can memorize all the data, but due to their ability to grasp new data for a particular scenario efficiently and quickly. The wise work with human response and behaviour. In this sense, the difference between the intelligent and the wise is similar to the nature of scalars and vectors respectively – while one is, in essence, quantitative, the other has multiple transforming aspects (like direction, momentum and acceleration) to it which makes it quantitative in the realm of (in  the purview, subset) of qualitative.

The wise are thus able to foresee new knowledge systems / structures and are able to take tactical decisions. Due to their ability to contextualize any kind of information, they are always at their toes and are able to take logical decisions, which bear results for the time being. The wise may not be able to give long term decisions, they may be able to frame a decision that is relevant for the immediate action. In long term, thus, the wise may make mistakes. But also, they may give creative outlooks towards the future. There is a value to this creativity, this leap that the wise takes for the future based on the assumptions of the current. The intelligent may be strategists. They may not conceptualize futures based on current conditions, but imagine new conditions for the future. In doing so, the intelligent miss out on a lot of humour and wit. But the intelligence of their decisions can be harnessed through following their plans.

Another important distinction one can make is the amount of rationality that the intelligent show versus the wise. The intelligent would always have a high level of rationality as compared to the wise since they rely on very safe back up like factual information. The wise use personal logic and bring in a lot of subjectivity to the interpretation of existing data. Also, they rely more on personal experience than objective case studies. While the intelligent would build up a decision based on a range of case studies, the wise would use personal history to give an output.

This post is under construction. It may continue if more ideas occur. Meanwhile, suspended. 

Update

For a long time I have not posted. This is not because I have not been involved in writing. Instead, I am writing all the more. I was very busy writing my personal statement and research proposals for various places. In this process, I had to really really think hard on myself to understand my interests. I think I have achieved a great extent of clarity on my trajectory now. Although it's not completely clear. But every time I think of a new project or research, I clarify my theoretical position. Thus, this process has been quite enriching. For a long time, I thought of uploading all such work on my blog, but I finally refrained, because I just wanted to keep all these things to myself.

On the other hand, I have been manually writing a lot of things - since the computer is a tool which makes me dwell too much on perfection. So i end up losing a lot of ideas. When I write manually, I am not thinking about the correctness of language or the use of words. I mix and match, and mostly I am translating from Hindi to English. So such write ups are really crude. But they help in vomitting a thought out. I take time later to refine them and make these ideas crisper. I have accumulated pages and pages of such text.

There were some other writings which started off really well and were interjected by circumstantial events. The link is lost, and so, once I reconsider them, I will be able to produce a lot more writings at once. Subjects come and go. Strong ideas and thoughts pass across the mind. Sometimes, student work in nascent stage makes me think a lot, and I am able to give a good feedback to a lot. But later, I feel all that thought must be recorded. Lectures must be transcribed. A lot of times, after I finish my lectures, I sit in my room and write what I spoke...It makes so much sense. Students ask questions which help to clarify concepts.

I will take time to collate all such writings and scribblings into tangible output. For the time being, I have made a good compilation of my earlier works into a portfolio, which I really like to gaze at. I keep flipping and feeling the pages and writing all the time. I hope it makes the same impact on others who see it. It's called "Idearchive" - a hint Siddharth (Nadkarny) gave me during an informal chat...

I want to write about the nature in which my phone has gone out of order. It has started behaving weirdly. Being a touch screen, 1/3rd of it has become insensitive. the middle 1/3rd is partially sensitive and the right most part is intact. So I have to constantly be very informed to press at the wrong place to press the right button and execute the right information. For example, the "yes" and "no" button are on right and left on the touch screen. But I end up saying "no" to every thing that occurs with the phone. The key pad types absolutely absurdly. If I have to say, "Sorry to have missed you", it writes "Sorry to have kissed you"! Messages are completely going for a toss!!  It's really funny and I am looking forward to theorize it...How? Imagine a skewed phone - like a man looking crooked, performing unexpected operations and landing you up in imaginary landscapes! One could construct an interesting story out of that! Of all unintended things one did, which opened up a new perspective of life...

Of all "no's" that became "yes" and vice versa. Of all messages that went to wrong people and did interesting connections. Of all unwanted cancellations, of all numbers you dialled wrong...It could be revealing...

I have always imagined such an exercise with archaeological space. When at the Sun temple Modhera, where we saw the intricately carved temple stone blocks numbered and lined up to be reset on the facade, I wondered if all those numbers mixed up, would it change relationships between people? Wouldnt it challenge our whole belief systems, mythology, and all those narratives...An exploratory exercise in challenging history could be fictitiously constructed.

However, there are other things going on. The vertical studio where we have too much to explore and only a few sincere, interested students. I could just indulge in writing about all the 10 areas that have been selected - there are so many stories out there, so much to learn and also produce knowledge. We just have a bunch of extremely lackadaisical students who do not want to do any thing. Either their futures are set, or they do not have futures. It's as black and white as that, perhaps...

I am handling the visual culture group and there is so much to talk about it that I can't contain within myself. I am just waiting for students to bring up some amount of enthusiasm and eagerness to work. Then, I am sure we will achieve something. So, finally, writing is going on. soon you will see a lot of it. It is in the process of cooking up, and it will be served soon. The application process is already over and I can get back to attack this space again!

Academy of Architecture, Annual Lecture 2011-12

Poster Design: Anuj Daga