Indus valley irrigation around 4500BC
Large scale sewer system in 2700 BC
Sanchi Stupa - 4th century BC
Grand Anicut Kaveri - 1st - 2nd century BC (still being put to very good use)
Tanjore Temple - 1009AD
Monuments standing as testimony to the architectural genius of India. The list of monuments could go on...
I just came to know that the architects for the Chennai secretariat are from Germany,
Bandra Worli sea link had UK based design consultants etc etc etc
We seem unable to be able to design, construct and maintain big infrastructure projects on our own.
What happened to the Indian architectural mind? Is this the effect of the brain drain that has been going on for years (It was pathetic when I once read the news that the Indian government was fighting with the US asking it to increase the H1B quota thus fighting FOR brain drain - this I believe happened during Vajpayee govt)
I wonder where the thousands of years of knowledge vanished!
What happened to the genius Indian architectural brain?
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Mumbai_2009
- Posts: 844
- Joined: Sun Mar 29, 2009 11:15 pm
What happened to the genius Indian architectural brain?
Main culprits in my experience
1. Aged Architectural education at college level with equally non passionate professors at colleges
2. Lack of research/development in the profession.
4. Architect don't make an effort to educate the clientele but kinda cave in to do most autrocious things client ask them to do.
5. No standards/Quality in construction work, professionals are busy making quick bucks. (I interviewed with a firm (well known) some times back just for the heck of it and their design is done by some international architect, with BMC approval done by some other architectural firm, so what is left for this firm is to be autocad monkeys with project management) How can a person be a Project manager if he is not in synch with the design philisophy of the project?
4. Architect used to be fully involved in construction process in old times (Laurie Baker comes in my mind) but now Architect is mostly like a office job with construction sites handle by someone else.
5. Archtects are busy aping the west instead of understand the immediate context/surrounding of the project
1. Aged Architectural education at college level with equally non passionate professors at colleges
2. Lack of research/development in the profession.
4. Architect don't make an effort to educate the clientele but kinda cave in to do most autrocious things client ask them to do.
5. No standards/Quality in construction work, professionals are busy making quick bucks. (I interviewed with a firm (well known) some times back just for the heck of it and their design is done by some international architect, with BMC approval done by some other architectural firm, so what is left for this firm is to be autocad monkeys with project management) How can a person be a Project manager if he is not in synch with the design philisophy of the project?
4. Architect used to be fully involved in construction process in old times (Laurie Baker comes in my mind) but now Architect is mostly like a office job with construction sites handle by someone else.
5. Archtects are busy aping the west instead of understand the immediate context/surrounding of the project
What happened to the genius Indian architectural brain?
Good topic. I think the problem goes much deeper. Even if there are no grand buildings, a city/nation can look beautiful. But why doesn't India look beautiful? I think following are the problems:
1) Clean lines and curves: One of the reason simple things in West (like roads, houses, buildings, general landscape, etc.) look beautiful is because they are very carefully created to have straight lines or smooth curves. If you would just notice the white line separating two lanes of road, it is just so straight, and the breaks in the line are so equidistant. The edges of roads are so well defined. But if you look at an Indian road (not the Delhi-Gurgaon highway kinds), but a regular average road (if it exists) in your muhalla/locality; it is probably manually laid, and is zig zagged, with no clear edges. The buildings on the side of the road are so haphazardly created that visually the landscape looks very chaotic.
2) White space: In the design world, white space is critically important. More than what's there, its important to think about what's NOT there. In India, there is so gross lack of space, that its difficult to create that white space. If you would notice, in all high-end showrooms, there are very few items (like in an art gallery). But there is quite a bit of focus on each product (say footwear, or watch). This is missing in regular Organic Indian architecture and planning (there is actually no planning).
3) Heat & Lack of water: Most beautiful western countries are places which have colder climate, thus reducing dust, and suspended particulate matter in air (thus increasing clarity in vision). Further, it is possible to have large patches of greenery and grass (which when manicured properly, looks awesome). It is difficult to do this in India, unless one spends large amount on water, etc. (when water comes for 2 hours a day, you would be luck to store enough for drinking and cooking, than watering your lawn).
4) Population: All problems emerge because of this single issue. Even if you are successful in designing a nice building, it will get worn down so quickly, if hundreds of thousands people use it day-in and day-out. It will take a large amount of cleaning and maintenance staff (like ones in Mumbai CST or various airports) to maintain a public place. Private and profitable companies can do that (like infosys campus), but not everyone.
5) Mechanization: Machines are very precise. Humans are not. Reducing use of manual labor, and increasing prefabricated+mechanized parts, will make landscape look symmetrical and beautiful. If non-symmetry is required, then machines are expert in that too.
6) Love for what one is doing: Most Indians don't like what they do for a living. Many want to cheat/decieve/cut-corners. This results in bad design. Even nicely designed architecture will be difficult to implement if the contractor is not following instructions, and cutting corners.
7) No centralized planning.
I think I can go on and on.
A simple question would probably be very revealing: Why can't India qualify for football world cup, or win the hockey world cup?
I think its partly because these are team sports. Indians may perform well in individual capacity, but when it comes to team-work or society-level planning, we have a lot to catch up. Its every desi out for themselves.
1) Clean lines and curves: One of the reason simple things in West (like roads, houses, buildings, general landscape, etc.) look beautiful is because they are very carefully created to have straight lines or smooth curves. If you would just notice the white line separating two lanes of road, it is just so straight, and the breaks in the line are so equidistant. The edges of roads are so well defined. But if you look at an Indian road (not the Delhi-Gurgaon highway kinds), but a regular average road (if it exists) in your muhalla/locality; it is probably manually laid, and is zig zagged, with no clear edges. The buildings on the side of the road are so haphazardly created that visually the landscape looks very chaotic.
2) White space: In the design world, white space is critically important. More than what's there, its important to think about what's NOT there. In India, there is so gross lack of space, that its difficult to create that white space. If you would notice, in all high-end showrooms, there are very few items (like in an art gallery). But there is quite a bit of focus on each product (say footwear, or watch). This is missing in regular Organic Indian architecture and planning (there is actually no planning).
3) Heat & Lack of water: Most beautiful western countries are places which have colder climate, thus reducing dust, and suspended particulate matter in air (thus increasing clarity in vision). Further, it is possible to have large patches of greenery and grass (which when manicured properly, looks awesome). It is difficult to do this in India, unless one spends large amount on water, etc. (when water comes for 2 hours a day, you would be luck to store enough for drinking and cooking, than watering your lawn).
4) Population: All problems emerge because of this single issue. Even if you are successful in designing a nice building, it will get worn down so quickly, if hundreds of thousands people use it day-in and day-out. It will take a large amount of cleaning and maintenance staff (like ones in Mumbai CST or various airports) to maintain a public place. Private and profitable companies can do that (like infosys campus), but not everyone.
5) Mechanization: Machines are very precise. Humans are not. Reducing use of manual labor, and increasing prefabricated+mechanized parts, will make landscape look symmetrical and beautiful. If non-symmetry is required, then machines are expert in that too.
6) Love for what one is doing: Most Indians don't like what they do for a living. Many want to cheat/decieve/cut-corners. This results in bad design. Even nicely designed architecture will be difficult to implement if the contractor is not following instructions, and cutting corners.
7) No centralized planning.
I think I can go on and on.
A simple question would probably be very revealing: Why can't India qualify for football world cup, or win the hockey world cup?
I think its partly because these are team sports. Indians may perform well in individual capacity, but when it comes to team-work or society-level planning, we have a lot to catch up. Its every desi out for themselves.
What happened to the genius Indian architectural brain?
sid_earth;303853Good topic. I think the problem goes much deeper. Even if there are no grand buildings, a city/nation can look beautiful. But why doesn't India look beautiful? I think following are the problems:
1) Clean lines and curves: One of the reason simple things in West (like roads, houses, buildings, general landscape, etc.) look beautiful is because they are very carefully created to have straight lines or smooth curves. If you would just notice the white line separating two lanes of road, it is just so straight, and the breaks in the line are so equidistant. The edges of roads are so well defined. But if you look at an Indian road (not the Delhi-Gurgaon highway kinds), but a regular average road (if it exists) in your muhalla/locality; it is probably manually laid, and is zig zagged, with no clear edges. The buildings on the side of the road are so haphazardly created that visually the landscape looks very chaotic.
2) White space: In the design world, white space is critically important. More than what's there, its important to think about what's NOT there. In India, there is so gross lack of space, that its difficult to create that white space. If you would notice, in all high-end showrooms, there are very few items (like in an art gallery). But there is quite a bit of focus on each product (say footwear, or watch). This is missing in regular Organic Indian architecture and planning (there is actually no planning).
3) Heat & Lack of water: Most beautiful western countries are places which have colder climate, thus reducing dust, and suspended particulate matter in air (thus increasing clarity in vision). Further, it is possible to have large patches of greenery and grass (which when manicured properly, looks awesome). It is difficult to do this in India, unless one spends large amount on water, etc. (when water comes for 2 hours a day, you would be luck to store enough for drinking and cooking, than watering your lawn).
4) Population: All problems emerge because of this single issue. Even if you are successful in designing a nice building, it will get worn down so quickly, if hundreds of thousands people use it day-in and day-out. It will take a large amount of cleaning and maintenance staff (like ones in Mumbai CST or various airports) to maintain a public place. Private and profitable companies can do that (like infosys campus), but not everyone.
5) Mechanization: Machines are very precise. Humans are not. Reducing use of manual labor, and increasing prefabricated+mechanized parts, will make landscape look symmetrical and beautiful. If non-symmetry is required, then machines are expert in that too.
6) Love for what one is doing: Most Indians don't like what they do for a living. Many want to cheat/decieve/cut-corners. This results in bad design. Even nicely designed architecture will be difficult to implement if the contractor is not following instructions, and cutting corners.
7) No centralized planning.
I think I can go on and on.
A simple question would probably be very revealing: Why can't India qualify for football world cup, or win the hockey world cup?
I think its partly because these are team sports. Indians may perform well in individual capacity, but when it comes to team-work or society-level planning, we have a lot to catch up. Its every desi out for themselves.
Solid arguments...nice to hear from what sounds like a few architects
What happened to the genius Indian architectural brain?
sid_earth;303853Good topic. I think the problem goes much deeper. Even if there are no grand buildings, a city/nation can look beautiful. But why doesn't India look beautiful? I think following are the problems:
1) Clean lines and curves:
Is space a problem in India? The answer seems to be a no brainer and most would agree that we lack space.
However, I see that most population in India is concentrated in relatively smaller number of urban centers. Rest of the India is sparcely populated.
No amount of landscaping is going to make India prettier because the first step in beutifying the country is to beutify its people. We need prettier people in India. Only way to achieve that would be to ensure that basic needs of food and clothes and proper shelter are available to each Indian. We cannot expect people who wear rags and live under tarpolines to worry about pollution and filth. Take away that omnipresent poverty and you will have a prettier India within a decade. Once stomach is full, kids are well clad and bed is soft, we turn into benevolent person and once every Indian start enjoying these comforts, we will have people who can go out of their way to throw garbage in right bins and be polite to each other.
Without fulfilment of basic needs one is not a human and even a small number of such people can destroy a nation...and thats whats happening in India.
Once such a thing is achieved, rest is easy.
What happened to the genius Indian architectural brain?
mn_op;303963No amount of landscaping is going to make India prettier because the first step in beutifying the country is to beutify its people. We need prettier people in India. Only way to achieve that would be to ensure that basic needs of food and clothes and proper shelter are available to each Indian. We cannot expect people who wear rags and live under tarpolines to worry about pollution and filth. Take away that omnipresent poverty and you will have a prettier India within a decade. Once stomach is full, kids are well clad and bed is soft, we turn into benevolent person and once every Indian start enjoying these comforts, we will have people who can go out of their way to throw garbage in right bins and be polite to each other.
Without fulfilment of basic needs one is not a human and even a small number of such people can destroy a nation...and thats whats happening in India.
Once such a thing is achieved, rest is easy.
Very true. When the quality of the footpath is better than the floor of one's shanty, people are going to sleep outside on road.
One more thing to ponder is that Indian population density is now more than that of Japan. When you compare the area of these nations, the gravity of Indian situation emerges. On the other hand, the state of Rajasthan has an area and population, almost same as that of Germany. So there are parts that are sparsely populated, and others which are bursting at their seams.
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BeeAndButterfly
- Posts: 645
- Joined: Tue Apr 13, 2010 5:10 am
What happened to the genius Indian architectural brain?
I do think we are a creative people, we do see it in food, clothing and music.
However education is still geared towards churning out administrators for bureaucracy and Sibal is trying to change it to create workers for MNCs. Most engineers go through the motions to get a degree out of social pressure as opposed to actual desire to learn and explore the field. Choice of profession is dictated by returns as opposed to passion so output is lacking in quality. I would hope that this generation of the educated middle class would explore co-curricular activities that encourage a deeper understanding of science, math and innovative ways to use it to improve immediate problems.
We have a different climate and resource constraints, we have to figure out creative ways (much like Japan has done) to resolve our issues. Japan has some incredibly innovative products suited to their lifestyle and climate, earthquake prone conditions. We could draw some inspiration from them.
However education is still geared towards churning out administrators for bureaucracy and Sibal is trying to change it to create workers for MNCs. Most engineers go through the motions to get a degree out of social pressure as opposed to actual desire to learn and explore the field. Choice of profession is dictated by returns as opposed to passion so output is lacking in quality. I would hope that this generation of the educated middle class would explore co-curricular activities that encourage a deeper understanding of science, math and innovative ways to use it to improve immediate problems.
We have a different climate and resource constraints, we have to figure out creative ways (much like Japan has done) to resolve our issues. Japan has some incredibly innovative products suited to their lifestyle and climate, earthquake prone conditions. We could draw some inspiration from them.
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bigdreamer
- Posts: 1079
- Joined: Mon Aug 04, 2008 10:15 am
What happened to the genius Indian architectural brain?
What happened to the genius Indian architectural brain?
I would like to blame it on the East India Company Rule and British India between 1612 and 1947. That's more than 3 centuries of interference - potentially could have razed down any economic and technology progress. Since this rule lasted for many generations - the mindset of the people could have been completely replaced. Guess what happened after independence - People were busy reproducing
1901 - 1921: Stagnant population
1921 - 1951: Steady growth
1951 - 1981: Rapid high growth
1981 - 2001: High growth with definite slowing down
Source: http://www.iloveindia.com/population-of-india/population-growth.html
Mind-set/Population Example: All bros/sis (total 12) of my grand-dad (mom's dad) were named after freedom fighters (shows the mindset of people then). My mom has 10 siblings.... really very large family. our contribution to the society :)
All the problems with straight lines and smooth curves are after-effects of population explosion in India.
I would like to blame it on the East India Company Rule and British India between 1612 and 1947. That's more than 3 centuries of interference - potentially could have razed down any economic and technology progress. Since this rule lasted for many generations - the mindset of the people could have been completely replaced. Guess what happened after independence - People were busy reproducing
1901 - 1921: Stagnant population
1921 - 1951: Steady growth
1951 - 1981: Rapid high growth
1981 - 2001: High growth with definite slowing down
Source: http://www.iloveindia.com/population-of-india/population-growth.html
Mind-set/Population Example: All bros/sis (total 12) of my grand-dad (mom's dad) were named after freedom fighters (shows the mindset of people then). My mom has 10 siblings.... really very large family. our contribution to the society :)
All the problems with straight lines and smooth curves are after-effects of population explosion in India.
What happened to the genius Indian architectural brain?
billyblue;304069
Mind-set/Population Example: All bros/sis (total 12) of my grand-dad (mom's dad) were named after freedom fighters (shows the mindset of people then). My mom has 10 siblings.... really very large family. our contribution to the society :)
That family size was pretty common...I myself have dozens of uncles and aunts.
We can even blame this on British. They gave us medicines that kept all small kids alive but didn't give us condoms. Sounds like a British conspiracy
What happened to the genius Indian architectural brain?
billyblue;304069All the problems with straight lines and smooth curves are after-effects of population explosion in India.
Yes, and I think now we are starting to think about addressing these problems (like opening this thread) ;)
The bigger problem we are going to face is that once a 20 floor multi-storey is built in an unplanned manner (lack of proper sewage, water harvesting, green & sustainable designs, without adequate parking and breathing space), it becomes too expensive and almost impossible to change or correct the town planning related issues. Result is that we keep on patching one problem after another, and soon the whole infrastructure is just a patch work of fixes.
I think the better way is to immediately stop all construction in every city with a population above 5 Lakh. Secondly, come up with alternative semi-urban-rural centers, by combining 20-30 villages in units holding 50K-2 Lakh people. These will effectively be new cities (and I think everyone agrees that India needs new cities). This will also help in deploying services more efficiently, and will also help stop the migration to bigger urban centers, like Bombay and Delhi. One of the reason, why there are tiny villages scattered at a distance of 2-3 km is because everyone wants to remain closer to their farm-land. An improved road and transportation system should resolve this problem for this new city unit.
Current strategy of beautifying and improving infrastructure in metros is going to backfire, as more migration will start happening to these places, and all improvements will be negated. To improve the metros, we actually need to stop improving the infrastructure there (sounds a little twisted logic, but unfortunately the disease is so chronic, that the medicine has to be really strong and acidic).