The book India by Peter Scriver and Amit
Srivastava is the latest of a remarkable series – Modern Architectures in History, edited by Vivian Constantinopoulos
of Reaktion Books – that examines modern architecture in the context of
national aesthetic currents, economic developments, political trends and social
movements. Architects are understandably fascinated by Chandigarh and the details of its design and construction. But I must say that it was refreshing to step back for a moment and place its Modernity in a longer and more complex story that starts during the British Empire and arrives to the present day.
Take the time to read it from cover to cover. It is a much needed overview. Besides, history tends to repeat itself and we may learn from India something that could be useful in closer latitudes.
Take the time to read it from cover to cover. It is a much needed overview. Besides, history tends to repeat itself and we may learn from India something that could be useful in closer latitudes.
1. Rationalization: The Call to Order, 1855-1900
2. Complicity and Contradiction in the Colonial Twilight, 1901-1947
3. Nation Building: Architecture in the Service of the Postcolonial State, 1947-1960s
4. Regionalism, Institution Building and the Modern Indian Elite, 1950s-1970s
5. Development and Dissent: The Critical Turn, 1960s-1990s
6. Identity and Difference: The Cultural Turn, 1980s-1990s
7. Towards the ‘Non-modern’: Architecture and Global India since 1990
The authors traced Modernity in India back to the colonial rule showing how the British had come to dominate by assimilating their own administrative practices within the existing power structures of a diverse and decentralized political landscape. The establishment of the Public Works Department in 1855 and the successive development of an extensive network of new roads, telegraph lines and railways was a first step on the path to the governance of India as an imperial whole.
Then we read that the new mobility that came with the railways and colonial political hegemony enabled mass pilgrimage in the post-rebellion period. That between 1948 and 1951 Otto Koenigsberger planned new towns to house refugees. That with Nehru the central government became the biggest builder in the country through the aegis of its various technical departments and construction agencies.
3. Nation Building: Architecture in the Service of the Postcolonial State, 1947-1960s
4. Regionalism, Institution Building and the Modern Indian Elite, 1950s-1970s
5. Development and Dissent: The Critical Turn, 1960s-1990s
6. Identity and Difference: The Cultural Turn, 1980s-1990s
7. Towards the ‘Non-modern’: Architecture and Global India since 1990
The authors traced Modernity in India back to the colonial rule showing how the British had come to dominate by assimilating their own administrative practices within the existing power structures of a diverse and decentralized political landscape. The establishment of the Public Works Department in 1855 and the successive development of an extensive network of new roads, telegraph lines and railways was a first step on the path to the governance of India as an imperial whole.
Then we read that the new mobility that came with the railways and colonial political hegemony enabled mass pilgrimage in the post-rebellion period. That between 1948 and 1951 Otto Koenigsberger planned new towns to house refugees. That with Nehru the central government became the biggest builder in the country through the aegis of its various technical departments and construction agencies.
Partition of India, 1947, photographs by Margaret Bourke White, LIFE
Scriver and Srivastava analyzed the flow and pattern of international aid to India between the 1950s and the 1970s showing how it was initially focused on ‘top-down’ welfare projects proposed by the political center, and later shifted to focus on facilities for higher education, teacher training, distance learning and fellowships for the arts and the humanities (The evolving approach of the Ford Foundation is proposed as a case study).
By the 1970s a new apparatus of powerful agencies was established at both central and local government levels to work on urban infrastructure and housing for middle and lower income groups of salaried and wage-earning urban dwellers working in the commercial and industrial sectors of the economy who comprised the new official middle class.
The new Housing and Urban Development Corporation’s over-arching mandate was to accelerate the pace of housing and urban development nationwide as well as to address the housing needs of the deprived by championing the self-build concept of so-called ‘sites and services’ housing projects across the country. Professional design consultants were responsible for planning and laying out basic infrastructure such as roads, water and sewage networks, while the actual construction of the dwelling itself was left to the owner-occupants.
The new Housing and Urban Development Corporation’s over-arching mandate was to accelerate the pace of housing and urban development nationwide as well as to address the housing needs of the deprived by championing the self-build concept of so-called ‘sites and services’ housing projects across the country. Professional design consultants were responsible for planning and laying out basic infrastructure such as roads, water and sewage networks, while the actual construction of the dwelling itself was left to the owner-occupants.
Observing how spatial hierarchies fostered communal life in traditional and informal settlements, Indian architects in the 1970s explored the possibility of designing the unbuilt spaces of a community in such a way as to stimulate the physical development of the built spaces by the inhabitants themselves. The authors show how institutions such as the Aga Khan Foundation gave new critical credence to notions of regionalism and culturally specific approaches to modernity. They also linked international tourism to India and a new cultural turn. Both regional and cultural heritage became valuable economic commodities allowing backward regions to gain a place in the national economy, and helping to attract further investment in the conservation of architectural heritage.
In the 1980s after India opened up its
economy, under mounting pressure from the International Monetary Fund, the IT industry became another area of conspicuous growth in the private sector. The
unprecedented volume of international investment that it attracted to the country provided capital to
commission both to local
and international architectural firms new trophy-buildings alined with the current fashion in contemporary global architecture. But most
of these constructions still require labour-intensive modes of
production.
The last chapter mentions the new generation of self-consciously critical practitioners that since the 1990s strive
creatively to work against the current global flow. The authors don't fail to notice that though their work carries a great deal of poetry and sensitivity to materials, it has seemingly
lost the capacity to shape communities to
the same degree that the generations of their teachers had so eloquently
articulated in their work and their words.
The books is very dense and these are just some of the subjects that caught my attention.
Brick landscape, Bijoy Jain, 2014
