_The stakes in culture_

The global is shallow, the local is deep - Ulf Hannerz (Anthropologist), Transitional Connections

In stark opposition to the flexible and accommodating global cities stands the image of the culturally invaded village. The tales of omnipresent McDonald's or Cafe Coffee Day in once "remote" areas are often related sometimes humorously but often wistfully, with a double disappointment with the culture lost and a gateway vacation spoiled.  

In these examples (and many less dramatic but still poignant ones) cultural globalization appears far from the joyous existence of infinite diversity and rather as the desperate last thrashings of endangered local cultures before a conquering giant. 

Many places on this planet are seemingly interchangeable agents of homogenization, whether airport terminals, Pizza Huts or (like the recent addition to the list-) Starbucks. But looking closely, looking literally on the ground, we can find pockets of great specificity and singularity; capable of under certain circumstances anchoring certain communities. 

Thus both San Francisco and Mumbai, or even Raipur and Ooty offer ways to think about the unevenness of the global cities and towns. In both cases there is a spectrum from highly homogenized and interchangeable spaces of consumption and capital to pockets of meaning, memory, moral narratives and authenticity of specific locations. These types of places coexist and interact in any given city, albeit in historically and graphically different ways. Place, then, becomes a vehicle for making a variety of moral and practical claims linked to universal discourse of human rights or a discourse of humanity and equality. Place continues to matter in the midst of globalization, and we must pay attention to it in order to understand globalization with actual policies and communities. Scholars of the city and globalization must leave open the possibility of place-bound actions and activities rather than presuming their demise at the hands of global capital.  

_Precious about process_

Our fears often lead us to stick to traditional modes of operation and keep our motivations for choosing particular deliverable shrouded in mystery. If we are going to be innovative and flexible, we need to also clearly communicate our motivations. If clients understand the process and are confident that the new proposition is indeed the best direction, they will appreciate the narrative behind your choices and will be far more willing to reconsider timing or format of deliverables.

Experimenting with new types of deliverables has been both a bit terrifying (well, maybe just for me ) and entirely thrilling. Of course, they are never perfect, but that’s okay. Selecting more innovative deliverables rewards us with focused client feedback, curious peers, and a fresh take on what our process could be for future projects. We keep evolving and improving, and get stronger as practitioners and a team—all by being willing to not be precious about our process.

_ Red and Black _ 

Corrugated roofing sheets is recycled as partition on site to store material 

@Delhi 2012 photo by payal patel

_ Art _ 

“Art taps into the reality of the transcendent” – Makoto Fujimura

Translating what I saw in my mind’s eye onto the paper was what I always wanted to do. Really, I did. I love to draw but could not do it in a way that expressed what was there. I’m certainly no artist. So a young life full of dreams of drawing spilling over onto sketch books was displaced. Thankfully poetry and prose did it.

Though not sure where I picked it up, any affection for the painting and drawing others had done, was always proportional to how representational it was. So, I was more than willing to see the genius and beauty of Carvaggio and Rembrandt. However, all modern art which was the opposite of representational was out of bounds. It was weird. I couldn’t understand it. It had the feel (or lack of feeling) of inaccessibility. So I ignored it.

All of this was the furniture of my mind when I began seeing the work of Makoto Fujimura on the internet. Having never heard of Nihonga – the ancient method of Japanese artists using particular mediums, setting it apart from Western art – I was drawn in by it’s long history and distinctive techniques. But my curiosity did not square with my convictions, firmly held about art, which was not representational. Would it be weird to say, “I had a kind of guilt about beginning to love his art?”

All this changed on a plane. A few years ago I was flying to Gokak to visit a stone quarry. Sitting by the window, like a kid, I was wide-eyed with wonderment. And then I saw it. I saw “modern art” created by farmers. I saw a patchwork of squares, full of browns and greens of different shades. Some of these squares contained triangles and circles which certainly made sense to those who placed them there but they seemed haphazard from above. Thousands upon thousands of these squares stretched in every direction. And it was absolutely beautiful.

This God’s eye view provided me with me a glimpse of something which has often been right in front of me but I had never seen.

As a result, a kind of conversion happened, and the burden I carried, which supplied me with guilt, had fallen away and the scales fell off so that I saw beauty I had missed. There is a mundane quality to the shapes and drips of the modern paintings which we pass over all too quickly, mainly because we never stop and step back or hover over the smallest of details in our lives.

I now pore over the work of Fujimura. I am neither qualified nor desire to give a fully informed professional opinion on his work. However, I do know this, his work never ceases to move. Perhaps, it’s because I cannot get my head around it. Or maybe because it is more like poetry, expressing the inexpressible parts of life.  Then again, maybe it is because I am seeing something new and old at the same time. Fixed and Fluid. Regardless, I am thankful for his use of materials which in their glory, move me to consider the immaterial.

_ Math and Architecture _

Perhaps it is best to think about what we are trying to do with architecture. What should it be ideally? Math is of course needed as a practical tool for engineering and measurement, but when we talk of aesthetics we are of course talking about a different use of math.

There are actually many other uses for math and the readers will probably respond according to their goals. Those obsessed with the "sacred," and the romance of the past will perhaps answer that math is needed and used to achieve sacred principles and relationships: the importance of 3, the fact that 8 stands for the resurrection, 12 as a divine number, etc, golden mean, etc, etc.

Those who approach things from a more intellectual or mathematical point of view may focus on the order of composition and rationality that mathematics brings. These minds probably favor the rational Renaissance as the highest point possible.

Probably each viewpoint or approach has its own truth. For me I ask myself the question again, what should architecture be? And, I answer this with a single word: beautiful. Then I ask myself, what is beautiful - what is beauty? And, beauty is hard to define; so, I search for examples...I think of music and the way that it reaches to my core; I think of sunsets; I think of walking through a forest and the peace I sense; I think of flowers and the way that each petal fits together; I think of vibrant paintings; I think of all these things and many other things, and then I ask myself, what makes them so beautiful?

All of these things have in common elements of composition, and these elements combine to create the sensation of beauty. There is unity, proportion, rhythm, harmony, nuances, etc. It is not so easy to break apart the composition, because when something is truly beautiful each part is less itself and more of the whole. But, if you did, you would find that one part is proportion, and proportion is of course related to math.

The notes of the musical scale, the leaves of a tree, the division of a face and body, the field of colors in a painting, all of these things have a structure and proportion - they have much more also, but proportion is one necessity.

So why is math important for architecture? Or better yet, why is it important for beautiful architecture? Because, beauty is composed, a part of composition is proportion, and proportion relates to mathematics. It doesn't have to be about symbolism, theory, or philosophy. It can simply be about creating beauty in and of itself. Mathematics and proportion do not create beauty by themselves, but they are a necessary part of the compositional whole.

__ Experiencing a city__ 

Recently I was talking with a curator who spent her childhood and study years in different parts of India. She has now embraced Mumbai as her home and been staying here for more than five years. Her experience in city has been like everyone who has not been raised in this beautiful yet messy city. She was shocked by the speed, thrilled by the variety and confused by the people. She was disappointed by the fact that the city has very few open spaces to offer and that available public spaces are 'tiny' as compared with Delhi or Kolkatta. When I tried to argue that it does have beautiful streets to explore - she thought I am pulling her leg. 

This conversation reinforced my belief that architects and planners experience the city very differently from others. For us, architecture and built environment provides us moments of clarity in terms of general properties of space that cannot be conveyed otherwise. Streets and roads become interesting warps and wefts which help in creating the fabric of the city. And we love to study it, analyse it and implement it. How people are meeting at junctions, how the shop fronts add texture, how street furniture is missing ( or vandalized), how the facade is inviting, etc etc But this something which a non-architect/ planner could never learn to like - maybe bits and pieces and from time to time but not always. I do not think he or she would ever have a list to visit x, y and z streets in their spare time. That's how fundamentally we experience the city contrarily - by exploring and absorbing their streets and roads.

__Arulmigu Patteeswarar Swamy Temple__

@ Coimbatore 2015 by payal patel