Ethical and Moral Construct of Modern

Stoic Construct of Modern

International Construct of Modern

Representational Construct of Modern

Architecture of the City by Aldo Rossi

Technological Construct of Modern

Modern Construct of Thought

ARCHITECTURAL THINKING AND ARCHITECTURAL KNOWLEDGE

Architectural Thesis

There are fine division between two terminologies that are often operationalized when one is carrying out thesis research, i:e Architectural thinking and Architectural knowledge. The term architectural thinking is related to the cognitive and emotive response to the built environment with respect to its ability to relegate affordance. The gap that exist between cognitive, emotive response and environmental affordance can be bridged by architectural knowledge, i:e an individual capacity to rationalise architectural wisdom. The modern science believed that each issues or gap can be seen with respect to problem solving (System Theory), where each part are dismantled and understood in its capacity in networked conditions. The functionalism phase in modern architecture thrived on such belief, that architecture is nothing more than prescriptive understanding of few components. While in contrary to such paradigmatic thinking, the critical architecture dwells on deeper understanding of architectural thinking and architectural questions related to it. There are four fundamental aspects of architectural questions and their responses. The each of them proceeds into further action areas, based on individual capacity and ability to comprehend the gap in the knowledge.

Architectural questions

ASPECTS                                                                                                                                              RESPONSE

Architectural knowledge as problem-solving inquiry                                            Rationalist

Architectural knowledge as formal inquiry                                                           Tectonic

Architectural Knowledge specific to the physical contextual inquiry                   Methodical formalism

Architectural knowledge as social - political inquiry                                            Discursive

Note: This is demonstrative model and do not exist in absolute sense. They are often overlapped with each other.

Generally the problem-solving questions of “architectural thinking” are typically associated with the profession mode of knowledge production, while discipline questions are characteristics of building larger architectural questions by research, empathy and mode of an intellectual critique. The open ended nature of discipline inquiry often sets the tone of critical practice due to individual ability to combine and enable both the processes as a part of architectural questioning and thinking.

The first model typically mobilizes the architectural thinking of scales that are either restricted to limited geography or beyond the realm of architectural responsive canvas and often individual who are unable either expand the architecture question in former position or unable to correspond to  scale with their architectural knowledge. Such mode of inquiry brings about big discord between architectural thinking (research, inquiry) and architectural knowledge (reaction, forms)

The alternate model attempts to re-locate architectural question and thinking within the realm that are necessarily operational in the range of architectural inquiry (geographical and contextual)). In this situation one is able to refrentialze the study, draw relevant literature reviews so as to enable architectonics inquiry and mobilize architectural decisions. This model emphasizes the two important aspects of architectural research, i:e Gap in existing architectural knowledge and critiquing existing or established knowledge system. 

The response model for architectural questioning and thinking demonstrates that three important parameter of architectural response (architectural knowledge), i:e formal, structural and environmental are able to generate various conditions. The tectonic and methodical inquiry able to generate strong embedded conditions in architectural research while discursive method requires toalter its path to make the inquiry system relevance to architectural knowledge.

IS THERE ANYTHING AS "ARCHITECTURE OF IDENTITY"?

For a long time the issues of identity have been coming up in several conversations, and perhaps also the questions raised often on account of making "identity" as an architectural question. In taking such a position arguably there are two fundamental questions that comes up, the first being, is the question of identity only related to tectonics or what does architecture manifest through contextual tokenism?’ and secondly, ‘are the questions of identity related to Socio- Political space?’. The obvious answers would be that they form one cohesive unit. The issues and concerns here are much deeper and require methodical understanding, especially even if one has to look at architecture, identity and the city, one is unavoidably entering into the discourse of spatial practices and politics of power.

If one begins to dissect the second question independently from the sociological perspective, it would define architecture as being "legible power of material form".David Harvey in his book "The Post Modern Condition" talked about the nature of relation between power and spatial practices in that they are interrelated, as he quotes "any struggle to reconstitute power relations is a struggle to recognize their spatial bases". Perhaps what literature implies is that the architecture of the city is nothing but the "landscape of power", the built environment is nothing but a“landscape of dominance and subordination”.

Now if one begins to dissect the first question independently, it definitely raises some fundamental issues of relationship between architecture and the city. If one ignores the relationship then one is left with the tectonics as a formal operation imagining to be the locating identity. Even if one decides to take such a route, it is indeed a precarious pedagogic position, because it isolates architecture as a narcissistic object, where identity through tectonic is assumed to be a mere symbolic token towards the spatial claim. 

If the relationship is of central concern then the reading of Aldo Rossi through his book "Architecture of the city" an important literature to begin with, where he discusses very important aspects of autonomous architecture which is a part of the city artifacts or the city structure. The word autonomous architecture is related to the way one, individually,  experiences the city as a series of urban artifacts within which the architecture is a mere purified typological variations inflicted on the city. These artifacts are seen collectively as a spatial structure ruled by laws and elements guided by architecture (of history) itself. The autonomous architecture tends to suspend itself between memory and the research object of an individual. Such negotiations give rise to a new identity which is constantly in transition. The identity is a meeting point between an individual memory, investigation and collective life and not just merely tectonics of an object frozen in time and space.

If one agrees on the initial argument about the 'Cohesive Unit’ then, lastly, the reading of cities through Michel Foucault's notion of "Heterotopia" is an extremely important literature to set the tone in theorizing identity. It gives an account of the counter spaces that are regulated and imagined within the city in its architecture. Such architectural imaginations are "counter sites" in which existing social and spatial arrangements are "represented, contested and inverted". Foucault sees such formation of real space and architecture (disciplined, regulated, controlled, associated, affiliated) as typical of the "primitive" infliction on existing social context and these "counter sites" are effectively enacted as utopia in an inverted reality or architecture as the spatial order of the Panopticon.

Photo Credit: Manoj Parmar Architects

KRVIA MASTERS THESIS 2020

"The essence of Urbanity is that the different people can act together without the compulsion to be the same" Richard Sennett

The thesis is an attempt to examine the relations among diverse processes and spatial forms that are constantly affecting & shaping our lives. In this context the urban research work allows a wider discussion and debate on various constituents of the word/ phenomena related to URBAN. It also allows the articulation of contemporary issues of different tradition of thoughts that have shaped the understanding of contemporary society and city at large. Of course no single discipline can claim the subject of urban and perhaps that is the most important reason that trajectory of urban research has moved away from classical planning discipline to economics, sociological and anthropological realm with different intensity. The current research work at KRVIA also showing such tendencies to challenge the primordial territory of urban knowledge and question the subject of city with social life, difference and divisions, politics and public places, gentrification and urban culture or embodiment and desire, anonymity and community, historical experience and social reality.

whatever could be the logic of urbanism that one intent to explore, the issues necessarily navigates through the core of division and difference, social practice and spatial borders, augmentative morphology and adaptive morphology that gives sense and meaning to the city. The four thesis projects from Urban Conservation and Urban Design program attempts to delineate the sense of urban through dissecting the variety of forces at play.

EXPLORING EVERYDAY URBANISM AND CULTURAL TERRITORIES

Suruchi Didolkar

Thesis intends to explore everyday urbanism in planned neighborhoods through amalgamation of ‘Cultural territories’ and ‘Thirdplace’ theoretical concepts to derive a framework in analyzing the everyday life in public realm (cultural+ physical), and informal user networks (social) to revive the sense of place and celebrate ‘everydayness’. Keywords: Everyday urbanism, Thirdplace, Cultural Territories, Place-making, Sense of place. 

REAFFIRMING SENSE OF PLACE: MATHURA

Jai Vaidya

This thesis addresses the fact that physical boundaries of built objects are blurred as streets weave together the edge of these objects. The thesis investigates into the cultural value of streets and the activities that create a sense of place. It aims to enquire into the role conservation can play in the streets of the old city of Mathura to reaffirm the sense of place to allow the continuity of its image and identity 

CHANGING NATURE OF SOCIABILITY WITHIN PRIVATIZED PUBLIC SPACES
Shivadnyi Barate

The emergence of café culture, privatized public spaces like shopping malls, clubs, bistros and bars that revolve around consumption, have penetrated into our social lives and have become the only “spaces full of people within a city” (Sennett, 1990). It has led to a heavy compartmentalization of spaces that we position and expand our sociability into. This research critiqued the very nature of ‘inclusive’ being drained out from the public realm & Sociability- a primary need, being commodified through privatized public spaces, due to the nature of transformation of the urban fabric and shrinking public realm. Key words: Sociability, Privatized public spaces, Public realm 

REVIVING THE HISTORIC CORE THROUGH COMMUNITY SPACES: A CASE OF ALWAR 

Sugandha Agarwal

Socially and culturally Indian historic centres are vibrant areas. Historic cores may attract those in search of temporary or permanent employment as they are thriving economic hubs. Core city areas are those places where people from different neighbouring areas came and settled years ago. This unique combination of the old and the new present these neighborhoods with a complex set of developmental challenges. (UNESCO digital library, unesdoc.unesco.org,2010). Indian historic cities can be easily identified as they have a distinct architectural character, culture, economy and social pattern, hosing typologies, water systems, streetscapes, livelihoods and communities. These existing traditional resources are unique features of the historic districts, which makes it different from the rest of the city.  Despite having undergone various social and cultural transformations historic districts often act as the symbols of the city’s image. They create the identity and the image of the city

Drawings and Thesis text description Credit: Suruchi Didolkar, Jai Vaidya, Shivadnyi Barate, Sugandha Agarwal (KRVIA Post-Graduate Program: 2018-2020 batch)

SHADOW-LESS CITY

Photo Credit: Manoj Parmar Architects

Architecture and cities have metaphysical presence in us. We experience them differently depending on the state of worldliness that we inhabit, willingly or unwillingly. As a result of the recent global pandemic and the subsequent lockdown, architecture and the city appears to be a dream sequence of inconsequential collapsed time. The time is warped and entrenched into inscription and description of its architecture. It is like a De Chirico painting that reveals the ‘other’ city, conception of scaling and re-represented objects that are irrelevant to its own existence and moving away from any other literal interpretation. Architecture without people, cities without events are delirious to their very nature of being.

Public places with its architecture evoke another metaphysical city without people and events, destabilizing the act of perception and comprehension, engagement& disengagement, tending to be both thought provoking & disturbing and reading & writing; all simultaneously. The city has appeared to be compelling and resonating its formative circumstances while masking its contamination of time.  It encrypts the notations that are only parallel to inscriptions of archaeology whose notation brings meaning of the unforeseen &of untold stories.

The city and its architecture becomes another world of exploration because the city slowly begins to dissolve itself into its ordinary architecture. The events and people are no more remarkable sets, rather they become unrelenting glimpses of splintered utopia. The motion-less city-scape engulfed by inexplicable moods of social estrangement.  

The doors become more sceptical and the windows suddenly become lens for voyeurism. The door that was hinged in time, opens in fear, the window that frames the unframed is morphed with memories of time. The view and the viewed are in intense conflict of existence.  The architecture and the city begin to displace itself from being framed to being the frame of the unseen. It is a strange scene of a movie that was never shot with a keen eye or was desirable of wanting. It rather was that eye which is compelled to hover with utter disdain to the silence of the shadow-less city.

MODERN HERITAGE AND CONTEMPORARY INDIA

In a country like India, the paradigm of development takes place in various forms, with entangled complexity and enmeshed priorities. The emphasis on development always supersedes considerations of historical aspects. The peculiarities of geography and the very act of conservation of historical events, acts, narratives and artifacts are often thought of as an academia and not often for action. The attitude that is largely embedded within the general psyche is that abundance is always relegated to be secondary and especially when it is attributed to geography, that has manifested variety of ideas on existence and in abundance architectural forms. This manifestation is perceived as not necessary condition to move forward, or a model for sustenance or the thought on development. The progress is generalized as an act of dissolution of historical thought. 

Such attitude brings back the classical argument that the role of history is purely a recreation of nostalgia and romanticism of the past. The position of conservation is very precarious in contemporary times especially when there is a strange absence of discipline that brings about philosophy on history of thought or history of ideas or reflexive history. Hence the entire domain of conservation is singularly focused on material based restoration. The construct of conservation philosophy needs to decoded within the act of conservation. The understanding of history should be an act of embracing tools that enabled the progress of continuity. 

The conservation domain has been monolithic-ally a new discipline which was understood predominantly by the primacy of materials and less of intellectual aspects. The subject of conservation still exist in its old domain of materials and motifs. This is perhaps the reason that everything that is ‘heritage’ is often interpreted singularly in academics, no matter how rationally or ideologically one is positioned in a given institutional framework. 

The argument is quite similar when we talk about modern heritage. The word modern, modernism and modernity are not the same yet they cannot be discussed in isolation. First of all, modern architecture needs to be interpreted in generic and specific contexts, especially within the realm of Indian modernity and modernism. Secondly, the question and the argument on whether the notion of modern comes around as an implied project of global or Indian modernity which has necessitated such an idea on modern architecture. Thirdly the question of modern is often in contradiction to the thought on conservation, at least in its conventional avatar. It means that the bandwidth of conservation and ideological position of Indian modern needs academic research for philosophical continuity, perhaps such an argument can also fracture the myth of Indian modern that has been re-created institutionally, which itself is so monolithic. 

The modern is a school of thought, a philosophy and is bounded by limitless space of interchangeable ideas. It exist or existed by sheer knowledge that has prevailed over its predecessor and the circumstances that has necessitated for its emergence and maturing. Otherwise the conservation of modern heritage shall succumb to being a tactless faux pas.

Photo Credit: Manoj Parmar Architects 

ARCHITECTURE AND NIHILISM: MASSIMO CACCIARI

The author attempts to establish relationship between philosophy and modern architecture, critically examining the avant-garde endeavors to the social and political manifestation of metropolitan set up. It is an outstanding theoretical plunge into scholastic and polemics of most complex debate on aesthetic-philosophical nature of architectural theory. The author has audaciously challenged the metaphorical thread between architecture and philosophy that has prevailed in intellectual tradition of architectural theory and urbansim. 

The three chapters navigates through the authors philosophical trajectory, from Marxian trending to German Urban Sociologist tradition, along with Adolf Loos work and other prominent architectural events. The first chapter is dedicated to artistic representation leading to Loos's Architecture through the argument in " The Dialectics of the Negative and the Metropolis" The Nihilistic position is arising from the tragic eschew of negativity of metropolis, amounting to language of contradiction and sign of alienation of its Architecture. The second chapter on "Loos and his Contemporaries" attempts to frame Loos's architecture being anti-expressive, dismissal, anti-synthetical and un-compositional. 

" That artistic choice is searching for neither salvation nor consolation nor escape: the great, tragic form of the artists mentioned by Cacciari can do nothing but be analogus with the negativity of the metropolis. They describe obsessively, present the hard lines of alienation in the most literal senseof the term, alius, other, always different, never coincident with anything, never reconciled with a supposed origin or nature" (Introduction, xxxi). 

The Loos's attack on ornament perhaps has nothing to do with stylistic attack but rather emanates from the position of being metropolitan critic and logic. The utopia and artistic representation often are positioned in alignment of capital and driven by metropolitan logic. Such positions are ambiguous and hinged on "unresolved dialectics". Similarly the Otto Wagner releases the idea of city as an image of community, is an attempt to liberate metropolis form the vampire of speculation through artistic form. Perhaps he could reintegrate the ideology of werkbund, and Viennese secession, which is nihilistic in nature. 

The second chapter on "Loosian Dialectics" & " Loos and his Angels" begins it argument with critic on functional architecture. The use value in capitalist sense can not have quality to manifest. Every teleological argument is ornamental in nature because it can not be represented due to its inability to surpass its functional value. " if handicraft is "left alone or uncontaminated with the idea of architecture, will naturally express the historic tendency towards its value". But if handicraft value is mystified and subjected to poetic subjectivity or object of exchange value, then it will tend towards the ornamentation. The artistic act of representation as about gratification of ego,  necessarily comes to be destined for teleological end. Similarly, the Loos's idea on ornamentation and crime is not an act of de-materialization, rather an representation of an architectonic thought.

The authors brings in variety of argument in the sense of historiography and also cutting across the disciplines, and making un-ventured connections. This book is a must reading for those who are not content with the normative format of architectural criticism and has desire to expand the intellectual debate on architectural trending and its rationale.

Photo Credit: Manoj Parmar Architects

ARCHITECTURE OF SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT: ENRIC MIRALLES

Architecture has wider, longer lasting impact and influences on people than any other art form. It is perhaps debatable conversation to begin with when initiates to write about architecture of specific building. But, if, the argument is built around the fact that some work on Architecture take its own time to be responsive than any other art form, perhaps there is a question of timelessness or permanence begins to emerge in debate which in case of other art forms would be remotely connected to people except limited to its historic value. The discussion becomes more acute and concern as one attaches the question of national identity or pride or object that embodies the national functioning of democratic values. The responsibilities that architecture has, to render beyond its objectivity,  is of highest form, in addressing the question of permanence and functioning of democratic values.  

The Architecture of Scottish Parliament on first thought defies the question of identity, the explicit sense of belonging and collective iconography in contextual sense. It rather navigates through city structure, topography and intangible history of place for locating its intangible regional presence. It attempts to move away from iconographic commitment and representational liabilities (in context of regionalism) that architecture requires to, in order to be responsive and to be embedded in explicit sense. The building is ahistorical, and unfashionable (to para-matrix trenders). It enslaves the stages that inspires with silence and drama of unquietness along-with mysteries that insinuate themselves into the world of imagination for democratic values. Kahn parliament building has subtle meditative and arduous quality, indirectly suggesting the functioning of governance; Corbusier capitol complex has quality that embodies the highest form of reason and path towards emerging world. The Scottish Parliament moves away from monastic and explicit presence of monolithic history or singularity of utopia that modernist propagated. Rather architect preferred to hinge the multi-valence presence of empathy, turbulence of micro-metaphors, quotation and iconography of unknown with generosity to its public function.  

Miralles work embodies the empathy, the reason of unknown yet presence of an imagined world. If the parliament building, continues to magnifies the aspiration of land and people along with harmony of multitude of desires and imagination, then it will not be exaggerate to state that Architecture has emerged with the timeless quality and continue to stay as an appropriate building of our time. 

Photos Credit: Manoj Parmar Architects