Silent Spaces and Other Stories of Architecture

Silent Spaces and Other Stories of Architecture PDF Author: Gautam Bhatia
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780140246094
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
An insiderýs view of public architecture ý ancient monuments and contemporary landmarks In this sequel to Punjabi Baroque and Other Memories of Architecture, Gautam Bhatia is on a reflective journey, as a tourist and architect, viewing Indiaýs architectural legacy. There has been a discernible purpose and design in all architecture down the ages, be it the quiet peace offered by ancient temples, the beauty and comfort reflected in Mughal architecture, or the expression of an imperial presence in British architecture. But public architecture today subsides into crumbling, peeling ruins even before work is completed on the buildings. As Gautam Bhatia notes in this account that is dosed liberally with his hallmark wit and sarcasm, neither utility nor aesthetics but caprice and prejudice form the guiding principles for those in power effecting architecture today.

Silent Spaces and Other Stories of Architecture

Silent Spaces and Other Stories of Architecture PDF Author: Gautam Bhatia
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780140246094
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 315

Get Book Here

Book Description
An insiderýs view of public architecture ý ancient monuments and contemporary landmarks In this sequel to Punjabi Baroque and Other Memories of Architecture, Gautam Bhatia is on a reflective journey, as a tourist and architect, viewing Indiaýs architectural legacy. There has been a discernible purpose and design in all architecture down the ages, be it the quiet peace offered by ancient temples, the beauty and comfort reflected in Mughal architecture, or the expression of an imperial presence in British architecture. But public architecture today subsides into crumbling, peeling ruins even before work is completed on the buildings. As Gautam Bhatia notes in this account that is dosed liberally with his hallmark wit and sarcasm, neither utility nor aesthetics but caprice and prejudice form the guiding principles for those in power effecting architecture today.

Constructing Identity in Contemporary Architecture

Constructing Identity in Contemporary Architecture PDF Author: Peter Herrle
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
ISBN: 3643102763
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
The global spread of uniform modes of production and cultural values has been accompanied by a dissemination of stereotypes of "modern" architecture styles almost everywhere around the globe. Paradoxically, the reverse process has also emerged: In some countries, the elites feel the necessity to counterbalance the "loss of identity" and defend their own cultures against the "intruding" forces of globalization. What started as a defensive notion has developed into a more progressive attempt to re-create what has allegedly been lost. This trend is being strongly expressed in discourses about architecture in countries of the South. Who are the actors feeling compelled to "construct" new identities? How are these new identities in architecture created in various parts of the world? And, which are the ingredients borrowed from various historical and ethnic traditions and other sources? These and other questions are discussed in five case studies from different parts of the world, written by renowned scholars from Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, India and Singapore.

Dwelling in the Archive

Dwelling in the Archive PDF Author: Antoinette Burton
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195349342
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
Dwelling in the Archives uses the writing of three 20th century Indian women to interrogate the status of the traditional archive, reading their memoirs, fictions, and histories as counter-narratives of colonial modernity. Janaki Majumdar was the daughter of the first president of the Indian National Congress. Her unpublished "Family History" (1935) stages the story of her parents' transnational marriage as a series of homes the family inhabited in Britain and India -- thereby providing a heretofore unavailable narrative of the domestic face of 19th century Indian nationalism. Cornelia Sorabji was one of the first Indian women to qualify for the bar. Her memoirs (1934 and 1936) demonstrate her determination to rescue the zenana (women's quarters) and purdahashin (secluded women) from the recesses of the orthodox home in order to counter the emancipationist claims of Gandhian nationalism. Last but not least, Attia Hosain's 1961 novel, "Sunlight on Broken Column" represents the violence and trauma of partition through the biography of a young heroine called Laila and her family home. Taken together, their writings raise questions about what counts as an archive, offering us new insights into the relationship of women to memory and history, gender to fact and fiction, and feminism to nationalism and postcolonialism.

Laurie Baker

Laurie Baker PDF Author: Gautam Bhatia
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 9351187888
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 493

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Book Description
The Definitive Biography of Laurie Baker Laurie Baker has worked in India for over forty years and is renowned for being one of the very few architects in the world to have designed and built buildings as diverse as fishermen's huts, computer institutes, auditoriums, film studios and tourist centres. His distinctive brand of architecture, usually moulded around local building traditions (especially those of Kerela, his adopted home state in south India), is instantly identifiable and has, unsurprisingly, revolutionized traditional concepts of architecture in India. Baker's architecture is responsive, uses local materials and lays stress on low-cost design. This biograpy of Laurie Baker, like his work, is direct, simple and comprehensive; further embellished with sketches, plans, photographs and some of Baker's own writings, the book offers the professional architect view of the life, methods and thoughts of an unorthodox genius.

Becoming Indian

Becoming Indian PDF Author: Pavan K. Varma
Publisher: Penguin Books India
ISBN: 0670083461
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Those who have never been colonized can never really know what it does to the psyche of a people. Those who have been are often not fully aware of or are unwilling to accept the degree to which they have been compromised. Till just a few decades ago, much of the world was carved into empires. By the mid twentieth century independent countries had emerged from these, but even after years of political liberation, cultural freedom has eluded formerly colonized nations like India. In this important book, Pavan Varma, best-selling author of the seminal works The Great Indian Middle Class and Being Indian, looks at the consequences of Empire on the Indian psyche. Drawing upon modern Indian history, contemporary events and personal experience, he examines how and why the legacies of colonialism persist in our everyday life, affecting our language, politics, creative expression and self-image. Over six decades after Independence, English remains the most powerful language in India, and has become a means of social and economic exclusion. Our classical arts and literature continue to be neglected, and our popular culture is mindlessly imitative of western trends. Our cities are dotted with incongruous buildings that owe nothing to indigenous traditions of architecture. For all our bravado as an emerging superpower, we remain unnaturally sensitive to both criticism and praise from the Anglo-Saxon world and hunger for its approval. And outside North Block, the headquarters of free India's Ministry of Home Affairs, a visitor can still read these lines inscribed by the colonial rulers: Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to liberty. It is a blessing which must be earned before it can be enjoyed.

Indian Architectural Theory

Indian Architectural Theory PDF Author: Vibhuti Chakrabarti
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780700711130
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
In this ground-breaking study the traditional Indian science of architecture and house-building, Vastu Vidya, is explored in terms of its secular uses, at the levels of both theory and contemporary practice. Vastu Vidya is treated as constituting a coherent and complete architectural programme, still of great relevance today. Chakrabarti draws on an impressive amount of textual material, much of it only available in Sanskrit, and presents several extremely valuable illustrations in support of the theories expounded. Each chapter deals with one architectural aspect, and chapters are divided into three sections. For each aspect, the first section explains the prescriptions of the traditional texts; the second section deals with the rather arbitrary use of that aspect by contemporary Indian architects trained in the western manner but striving to relate to Indian roots; while the last section in each chapter explores the selected use of that particular aspect by contemporary Vastu pundits, with their disregard for architectural idiom

A Concise History of Modern Architecture in India

A Concise History of Modern Architecture in India PDF Author: Jon T. Lang
Publisher: Orient Blackswan
ISBN: 9788178240176
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
In Lucid Language That Speaks To Laymen And Architects Alike, This Book Provides A History Of Twentieth Century Architecture In India. It Examines In Detail The Early Influences On Indian Architecture Both Of Movements Like The Bauhaus As Well As Prominent Individuals Like Habib Rehman, Jawaharlal Nehru, Frank Lloyd Wright And Le Corbusier.

Modern Traditions

Modern Traditions PDF Author: Klaus-Peter Gast
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3764382988
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
India is a lively and diverse country that in recent years has developed into one of the largest industrialized nations in the world. This process is also reflected in its architecture. Recent developments betray a new consciousness and the search for an Indian identity. International influences are merging with traditional styles to create a unique new architectural language, which also bears the stamp of Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn, who worked there. In its introduction, the book depicts the rise of modern architecture in India since independence in 1947. The main section describes the important tendencies of contemporary Indian architecture in thematic chapters, each with built examples. In addition to the new younger generation of Indian architects, it also considers the first post-independence generation, including Balkrishna Doshi and Charles Correa.

Diaspora of the Gods

Diaspora of the Gods PDF Author: Joanne Punzo Waghorne
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019028885X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
Many Hindus today are urban middle-class people with religious values similar to those of their professional counterparts in America and Europe. Just as modern professionals continue to build new churches, synagogues, and now mosques, Hindus are erecting temples to their gods wherever their work and their lives take them. Despite the perceived exoticism of Hindu worship, the daily life-style of these avid temple patrons differs little from their suburban neighbors. Joanne Waghorne leads her readers on a journey through this new middle-class Hindu diaspora, focusing on their efforts to build and support places of worship. She seeks to trace the changing religious sensibilities of the middle classes as written on their temples and on the faces of their gods. She offers detailed comparisons of temples in Chennai (formerly Madras), London, and Washington, D.C., and interviews temple priests, devotees, and patrons. In the process, she illuminates the interrelationships between ritual worship and religious edifices, the rise of the modern world economy, and the ascendancy of the great middle class. The result is a comprehensive portrait of Hinduism as lived today by so many both in India and throughout the world. Lavishly illustrated with professional photographs by Dick Waghorne, this book will appeal to art historians as well as urban anthropologists, scholars of religion, and those interested in diaspora, transnationalism, and trends in contemporary religion. It should be especially appealing for course use because it introduces the modern Hinduism practiced by the friends and neighbors of students in the U.S. and Britain.

Indian Architectural Theory and Practice

Indian Architectural Theory and Practice PDF Author: Vibhuti Chakrabarti
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136778829
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
In this ground-breaking study the traditional Indian science of architecture and house-building,Vastu Vidya, is explored in terms of its secular uses, at the levels of both theory and contemporary practice. Vastu Vidya is treated as constituting a coherent and complete architectural programme, still of great relevance today. Chakrabarti draws on an impressive amount of textual material, much of it only available in Sanskrit, and presents several extremely valuable illustrations in support of the theories expounded. Each chapter deals with one architectural aspect, and chapters are divided into three sections. For each aspect, the first section explains the prescriptions of the traditional texts; the second section deals with the rather arbitrary use of that aspect by contemporary Indian architects trained in the western manner but striving to relate to Indian roots; while the last section in each chapter explores the selected use of that particular aspect by contemporary Vastu pundits, with their disregard for architectural idiom.