BATESARA: ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE

Prof. Alok Sharma from MITS guided the city tour of Gwalior. He passionately showed the heritage architecture of the city which has pre-colonial and colonial history. On several occasion he mentioned about the Batesara Archaeological Site in conversation, elaborating possible mythical significance of the place. 

The site is approximately 30 minutes drive from city center and has approachable road. The excavation site is on hill,  sloping towards west, hence the sun casts deep shadows and illuminating the temple complex almost through out the day. The conversation with the local site in-charge of excavation site explained that the entire site was under the ground and the ASI initiated the excavation and managed to restore,  almost 140 temples till now. There are possibilities of more than 60 temples yet to be excavated from site. The site in-charge was carrying an album, showing what was earlier and how it has been restored now. The effort by A.S.I is laudable as we have yet another site of temple complex dated back to 6th to 8th century AD.

As you approached the restored gateway on hillock, the site reveals the collection of quintessential objects bathed in stark sun lights, slowly emerging out of earth as you walk up. The site has varying plinths and series of miniature temples occupies the plinths like experimental models. The each temple is approximately 15'0" to 20'0" in height. The main temple however has more celebrated presence by its footprint size and height. The central water tank and temples alinements demonstrating the site planning principles and its spatial configuration. However the history of such miniature temple complex is still unknown but it seems to be place for artisans and craftsmen engaged in series of experimentation to evolve with the distinct temple typology for the region.

The complex has few temples that are very good in conditions,  while some needs extensive repair and restoration. The entire site,  as explained by site in-charge,  was like giant warehouse containing various objects and parts which seems to have left, unattended,  for many years. The A.S.I. is carefully taking each of the parts and attempting to resolve the giant jigsaw puzzle, which are left to us as a legacy of "mystery of dead presence of architectural objects of living past".

SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE BUILDING: BARODA

The School of Architecture building at M.S. University, Baroda is more than 100 year old building. The main component of construction is brick load bearing, stone lintels/ ties & wooden boarding on wooden section as floor. The architectural style seems mixed of colonial typology, Gothic arches, Mogul domes/ entrance, central large courtyard with corridor around.

The division of spaces are mainly based on load bearing grids, assembled around courtyard and axially place staircase aligned with entry point. The typology is distinguishable from rest of the building around. The building has fine proportion systems visibly on street facade & courtyard and perhaps that  bestows the building with fine architectural character.

The building also reminded on James Sterling's architecture school building at Rice University. The building definitely needs restoration as condition inside the courtyard is disintegrated over the period of time. Its unfortunate that architecture institution is housed in this finest building which is suppose to be vanguard of architectural values & its  heritage, is witnessing the slow degradation.

RE-READING MANFREDO TAFURI: ARCHITECTURE AND UTOPIA

READING “ARCHITECTURE AND UTOPIA”

MANFREDO TAFURI

VIII: Preface

The relationship between the historical avant-garde movements and the metropolis, the relationships between intellectual work and capitalist development, research on sociology and planning practices, on social-democrat  administration of the city , on architecture of America cities and on building cycle, have been the object of collaborative program to have arrived at any firm and dogmatic conclusions.

IX: Preface

What is of interest here is the precise identification of those tasks which capitalist development has taken away for architecture.

To the deceptive attempts to give architecture an ideological dress

X: Preface

Instrument of knowledge might be immediately useful to the political struggle.

2: Reason’s Adventure

The bourgeois intellectual’s obligation to exist can be seen in the imperativeness his functions assumes as a social mission.

10: Reason’s Adventure

Not having at its disposal a mature substratum of production techniques adequate to the new conditions of bourgeois ideology and economic liberalism, architecture was obliged to restrict its self –criticism to two areas of ANTI-EUROPEAN SIGNIFICANCE & FORMAL ROLE

41: Form as Regressive Utopia

City as an autonomous field of architectural intervention.

Enlightenment architecture from the very beginning postulated one of the concepts fundamental to the development of contemporary art: the disarticulation of form and the anti-organic quality of structure. Nor is it without significance that the institutions of these new formal qualities was from the first related to the problem of city, which was about to become the institutional locus of modern bourgeois society.

The solicitations of theorists for a revision of formal principles did not however, lead to areal revolution of the meaning but, rather, to an acute crisis of value.

158: Architecture and its Double: Semiology and Formalism.

The attempt to revitalize architecture by means of an exploration of its internal structures comes about just at the moment when avant-garde studies in the linguistic field are abandoning “ambiguous” communications and taking their place in the heart of the productive universe through the creation of artificial programming of languages.

Architectural self-criticism does not go to the root of the matter and has need to hide behind new ideological schemes borrowed from the semiological approach.

An architecture that has accepted the reduction of its own elements to pure signs, and the construction of its own structure as an ensemble of tautological relationships that refer to themselves in a maximum of “negative entropy”

182: Problems in the Form of a Conclusion

Reflection on architecture, inasmuch as it is a criticism of the concrete “realized” ideology of architecture itself, cannot but go beyond this and arrive at a specifically political dimensions.

abstract from book" Architecture and Utopia", Manfredo Tafuri

KRVIA MASTER'S THESIS - 2015

The graduating seventh batch thesis defense oscillated through various thoughts on urbanism. The range and responses are becoming wider and far open ended than predecessor. The idea of conservation is challenged with its limited framework and attempting it to be far more democratic in value appreciation. The queries were raised if conservation value system needs to acknowledge the static and dynamics of social imperatives. The conflict of old and new cities are inherent in Indian context and perhaps needs alternate framework and imaginations and such efforts and ideas are visibly percolating through the second tier city representatives. In conjunction with old and new urbanism the core issues of livelihood and heritage/ tradition remains central in recent research projects. Perhaps time will tell the depth of such investigation and its impact.

The ecology of waste and ecology of environmental systems are another set of research that has emerged over the period of five years and attempting to address the balance of preservation with development. It attempts to break the attitude towards urbanism that is constantly with the mindset of development, ignoring the valuable systems.

The notion of public and private or densities and amenities are an attempt to discuss the idea of “right to the cities”. The research is configured around the physical attributes of urban form, users, ownerships along with time and natural surveillance to such amenities. The research seems to reconfigure the incidental/ evolved urbanism with projected urbanism. These are apparetn issues/reality with most of the historic cities across the nation.

The spatial configuration, sense of place or identity is attempting to overcome the system analysis of urbanism by regulated bodies with spatial analysis. The research perhaps needs to address the issues of interpersonal competencies along with various social transactions. The distinction between public realm (spatial condition for transaction or interface) and public space (physical condition for pause) is still blurred but closely scanning the tactical responses on time scale.

The research needs to get further sharpen in key areas of Inquiry, Methodology & Representation. If distinction among data, information & knowledge is articulated somewhere in the process than impact of research and demonstration can have embeddedness with wider reaching consequences.  

CONSERVATIVE CONSERVATION

A lot has been said on conservation especially world has turned this discipline into a fashionable and niche-able commodity of past. This is perhaps true in urban forms of traditional Indian Cities. The traditional urban architecture and its conservation broadly divided into three broad categories: Ideology of Conservation,  Practice of Conservation and Technology that need to be employed. 

Architecture and Urban form that embodies the regional values,  needs to be understood and its implication of them being conserved on larger interest of the cities. Such artifacts need to be conserved on its formal properties along with long term conservation plan. This two ideological positions are often at conflict with each other but one thing is clear that conservation is not an attempt to conserve the past but to preserve the present. It is moral obligation of present generation to pass such artifacts to next generation in the state that they have received from previous generation.

The domain of conservation is slowly slipping away from archaeological sphere but in the process the scope of conservation has widen beyond its conservative approach. It perhaps does have its own virtues as conservation needs to be integrated largely with the development but complexity that arises from such wider approach is the paradoxical extremities of development versus conservation. 

The visit to Ajanta caves happened after 20 years. The formal change in the large landscape as a part of conservation plan was apparent. It seems to have larger heritage  management plan being implemented along with restoration, traffic management, environmental concern to the caves and its sculptures & paintings. The caves approach is made easier with ramps and satires along with signage. However the Ajanta caves project can not be the pilot project for conservation/ restoration our pre-industrial cities and their historic core.