THE OTHER CITY

This thesis brings my earlier reading on "FORMLESS URBANISM" city of Chanod. The formlessness condition that exist in the city are valuable tradition of soft urbanism and festivals are one of them. There was time in academic world that the cohesion is a formal property and essential one for cities. The uniqueness of urban form is embedded in recognition of cohesive form of the cities. The earlier theoretical account of urbanism dealt with these uniqness attached to social and cultural welfare of the cities. The role of academics and urbanity were strictly controlled by such notion. The recent trend in research is upsetting these notion of cohesion and clarity into spatial contamination of urban form. Although the built-form & architectural heritage bestows the social and cultural personality to the city, the spatial and spectacle event adds the uniqueness to the city. 

 

The thesis attempts to conceptualize  the framework of integration for  the festivals as part of everyday urbanism. The festival often proves to be dominant priority in space and time and it generates, regulates, shapes our cultural priority and social behavior. The character of built-form is in its capabilities to arrest this moment of festivity, everyday urbanism along with sensory experiences.

"This thesis looks at festivals as a tool to examine how people behave in these experience-based urban spaces .this project sees human presences and physical behavior as potentials for spatial construction of public spaces. This study is an initiative to understand the means by which meaning is added to the form, space and character of the built environment. this thesis further argues to the traditional urban design mapping system which is planning based, and experiment with new methodologies of mapping tools which can unfold festive urbanism" : Credit: Prachi Sawant

The thesis project excels in various areas which are central to research in architecture and urabnism, namely, critical framework for research question,  methodologies for mapping and representation. The thesis has skilfully demonstrated & raised the question in theorizing & research tendencies on one side and framework for performative space on other side especially in Indian urban context.

PRACHI SAWANT HAS WON THE NIASA GOLD MEDAL AT NATIONAL LEVEL,  FOR HER THESIS PROJECT OF "UNFOLDING FESTIVE URABNISM"

UNKNOWN MONUMENTS: GWALIOR

The tomb of master Muhammad Ghaus lies near the central market and visibly close to the Gwalior fort. The magnificent architecture is not easily accessible or visible. The Muhammad Ghaus was master composer during Mughal times. The architecture of mausoleum is typologically different from many tomb structures of Maghul times.

It demonstrates the various architectural influences of time. The central burial place is surrounded by another space,  like space within a space,  which is layered with wonderful jali work. The four minarets and central tomb resemble the volumetric composition of architecture of North and Central regions. 

The next to the monument lies the tomb of Tansen. The structure is rather underplayed due to its presence next to the monument. The articulated plinth with pavilion structure for burial place defines the simplicity of architecture that perhaps attempt to the imbibe the life of masters of Indian classical music. 

SPA-KRVIA 2015

The SPA-KRVIA 2015 joint workshop, like last previous years,  it continued to explore the newly built metro transit route of Badarpur to Kashmere Gate. The workshop (Across Metropolis) along with mapping and projecting transnational trajectories, it also began to define the characteristic of each nodes and possibilities of large urban intervention that reinforces the local ethos. Incidentally each node has its own characteristics ranging from fort wall & gates, Old settlement, educational setups, sacred place and axis of major streets in New Delhi.  

The 50 students (SPA-20 & KRVIA-30) were divided into 5 groups focusing on five metro stations namely: Badarpur, Kalkaji, Janpath, Delhi Gate, Kashmere Gate. Interestingly all these five metro station collectively consolidates the notion of three cities within New Delhi, namely Pre-Colonial (Religious and Imperial), Colonial (Administration & Institutional), Post Colonial (Transnational cities within and expansionist city). The urban intervention is far more complex than earlier years as the route is bestowed with experiences of various cities within. 

The workshop title seems to be dissecting the city's evolved trajectory in incidental format as this routes are never woven into larger imagination of urban experiences. The task is formidable as much as intriguing that such transit routes are revealing the disjointed event of cities unknowingly while its interesting to note that such seamless urban experiences are becoming cognitively imagined in academics pedagogy.

The SPA model of inter-departmental approach to studio  brought the intense interaction across the disciplines and faculties. It indeed managed to bring in new ideas as dividend in terms of demography, landscape, history, institutions, sacredness, ecology, planning process. All attempting to set dialogue with new urban imagination for city with its own complexities, revealed by newly evolved metro lines.

LONDON: ARCHITECTURE OF FIERCE EPISODE

London has not much changed from imperial point of view of the city,  rather it has changed from left over city point of view. It has few blocks modified randomly and few are added too much of the desire to retain old character. The cacophony of resultant architecture of old fabric is a not far from global impetus as one notice in the Asian cities. The charming old street facades and Georgian & Gothic details are becoming medieval thought to the Neo-liberalist and post-modernist (in true sense). The city shows the struggle of its existence in its timeline. 

The distant skyline on Thames River is quite evident from Westminster Bridge. The London Eye is an epitomize trajectory of voyeurism from medieval to futurism. The architecture of the new high rise demonstrates the new episode in the inner city condition. The skyline and street experience of high rise architecture is central to an American Cities, where grid-iron allows the skyline in its rhythmic presence while street character embraces the notion of soft urban design concerns in terms of code and customs of the cities. The high rise in the medieval cities nothing more than caricature of skyline dotting up with fierce eye of its existence.  The downtown so called a through American city point of view is slowly emerging out of consolidated and monolithic activities rather than heterogeneity of American downtown. The high rises are only spitting distance from each other with phallus centric attitude showcasing the blurring ideological grounding of architect and architecture. The architecture is a model for reinforcing ideas of fierceness and architect is an agent for such ideality. 

Its important to see that architecture of several cities have different concerns coming out of different available tools. The digital absurdity, randomness of city-ness, high technology & low key architecture or low tech & high key architecture to architecture of surplus or architecture of financial crisis, all seems to pushing the cities to new episode of strange fierce struggle only amounting to city for voyeurism of strange eye.