lecture 7 regionalism in india and search for indianness

History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Regionalism and Search for Indian-ness

History of Architecture-II (AP-313)

REGIONALISM in INDIA&

SEARCH FOR INDIAN-NESS

LECTURE 7

Nipesh P Narayanan

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http://www.civilization.ca/civil/egypt/egypte.html


WHAT IS REGIONALISM?


BERNARD RUDOFSKY ARCHITECTURE WITHOUT ARCHITECTS

• 1964– Exhibition at MoMA (NY)

– Revival/ curiosity of vernacular– Appreciation for understanding the vernacular

Hyderabad, Pakistan

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PAUL OLIVER SHELTER SIGN & SYMBOL

“Cultivated the theoretical grounds of Vernacular Architecture”

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1977


HASSAN FATHY VERNACULAR PRACTICE

“Fathy devoted more than half a century of his professional life to bringing back to the vernacular mode building tradition endangered by extinction due to the massive post war building activity”

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Mosque, Luxor, Egypt (1948)


HASSAN FATHY VERNACULAR PRACTICE

Craterre International Centre On Earthen Architecture (1984)

Development Workshop (1973)

ADAUA Association pour le Développement d'une Architecture et d'un Urbanisme Africains (1975)

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REGIONALISM – TOURISM & CULTURE

• Modern Comfort

• Traitional Craft

Modernism/Internationalism Vs Regionalism

“The polarity between internationalism which demands a global relevance for its existence and regionalism which seeks meaning and

content under specific local conditions”


HOW TO DEFINE AN ARCHITECTURE FOR INDIA?


SYMBOLIC CLEANSING OF COLONIAL IDENTITY

Renaming RoadsRemoval of Statues

Napoleon V to MKG

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SYMBOLIC CLEANSING OF COLONIAL IDENTITY

Renaming RoadsRemoval of Statues

King George V

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REGIONALISM IN INDIA – HOW?

• Post-Independence India– Nehruvian vision of a modern India

• Modernism in India– Le Corbusier, Otto Königsberger etc.


REGIONALISM – IN INDIA

• Mahatma Gandhi– Romance of the village– “India lives in its villages”




• Revival of literature– Sanskrit and the Vedas




• Revival of literature– Sanskrit and the Vedas

• Nehruvian Nation building – Glory to the past to revive the spirit


REGIONALISM – IN INDIA – Neo Traditionalism

• Study of Desert Cities– Jaisalmer

• Study of Spatial Qualities of Vernacular Buildings– Fatehpur Sikri

• Revival of Shilpaic Tradition– Craftsman’s active participation with architect


• Understanding the local building techniques and reinventing them

REGIONALISM IN INDIA – LAURIE BAKER

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REGIONALISM IN INDIA – LAURIE BAKER

• Use of refined brick masonry• On-site Laying of buildings• Extensive mason interaction• Low Cost• Innovation

– Filler Slab– Rat Trap Bond

“ Proposition of a Gandhian life-style”

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Concrete & Abstract*

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*REF: Suha Ózkan. Introduction: Regionalism within Modernism.


REGIONALISM IN INDIA – RAJ REWAL

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Jaisalmer 1982 Asian Games Village

CONCRETE

Morphology



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CONCRETE

Terraces



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CONCRETE

Street


REGIONALISM IN INDIA – CHARLES CORREA

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Artist Village, Belapur, Navi Mumbai (1983)

CONCRETE

Cluster



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CONCRETE

Cluster




CONCRETE

Cluster

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British Council, New Delhi (1987)

ABSTRACT

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ABSTRACT

Space

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ABSTRACT

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ABSTRACT

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WHAT IS INDIAN ARCHITECTURE?


BUILDING A NEW INDIA

• 5 Year plans (Soviet Union’s centralized planning system)

– 1st – Agricultural Infrastructure– 2nd – Industrial Development





• Modernizing India– Technical & Higher Education





• Modernizing India– Technical & Higher Education

“We were all impregnated with opportunities that lay ahead, and with the idea that not only could you shape that form of the physical environment, but also influence social life”

~ Joseph Stein



• Post-Partition Migration– Housing and Infrastructural needs




• Decentralized Industries– Industrial Towns





• Higher Education Policies– New Campuses





• Higher Education Policies– New Campuses

• Extended Bureaucracy – New Government offices – Institutional Interventions


THE GANDHI NEHRU DEBATE

Urban Vs Rural

The village as SELF-GOVERNING

NON-VIOLENTCASTE-LESS

Essentially a self sustaining entity

City as the epitome of modernizing India


SOCIALIST INDIA & PROVINCIAL ARCHITECTURE

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Vidhana Soudha, Karnataka (1956)


SOCIALIST INDIA & PROVINCIAL ARCHITECTURE

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Rabindra Bhawan, Habib Rehman (1961)


BILATERAL TIES WHICH GOT IN ARCHITECTS

American point four agricultural program got Albert Mayer, who helped do the first masterplan of Delhi.


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RBI Calcutta, John A Ritchie (Australia)



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TATA Centre, Calcutta, Holabird & Root (USA)



ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION

• 1913 – JJ School of Architecture– Established in 1913, it was Asia's first architecture school

• 1941 - Department of Architecture of Delhi Polytechnic– School of Planning and Architecture Delhi

• 1945 - AICTE– All India Council for Technical Education, formed on RIBA

framework


ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION

• 1949 – Bengal School– 1952 Joseph Allen Stein (HOD)

• 1962 - CEPT– Center for Environmental Planning and Technology – B V Doshi

& Bernard Kohn– Christopher Alexander was a visiting faculty and work on

‘Pattern Language’ started by studying villages of India.

• 1972 – Piloo Mody & The Architects Act


WHAT IS THE ARCHITECTURE OF INDIA?

• Modernists’ Search for an Appropriate Architecture– Chandigarh and Le Corbusier– First generation post-Independence Indian Modernists

• Joseph Allen Stein and Delhi Experiments– International yet Indian

• Architecture of the established firms/architects

• The Indian Mainstream

• Architecture of the informal


MODERNISTS’ SEARCH FOR AN APPROPRIATE ARCHITECTURE

Le Corbusier and the Chandigarh Experiment

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Le Corbusier and the Ahmadabad Association

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First generation post-independence modernists - Doshi

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JOSEPH ALLEN STEIN AND DELHI EXPERIMENTS

Moved away from the Corbusian hangover, IIC (1962)

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JOSEPH ALLEN STEIN AND DELHI EXPERIMENTS

Moved away from the Corbusian hangover, Ford Foundation Office (1968)

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THE IGNCA INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

• Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts– 1986

• Symbol of Modern India– Ambitions similar to that of Chandigarh– 200 entries from 46 different countries

• Ralph Lerner won the competition– Gautam Bhatia was placed 2nd

”From defining a new nation in 50s to

finding the spirit of India in 80s”



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REFERENCE

Suha Ózkan. Introduction: Regionalism within Modernism.

Jon Lang, Madhavi Desai, Miki Desai. 1997. Architecture and Independence. s.l. : Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195639006.

Jon Lang. 2002. A Concise History of Modern Architecture in India. s.l. : Permanent Black Publishers. ISBN 8178240173.

lecture 7 regionalism in india and search for indianness

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