Global design in local space

Architectural practice should be a creative process that aims at adopting ideas drawn from the past but rewritten to suit the changing environment, writes Deependra Prashad

Time: Saturday night, circa 2007. Place: a technopolis called Gurgaon. Scenario: a family of four comfortable in their luxury condo waiting for the pizza delivery guy. The children want to eat out but that would mean negotiating through the nightmarish slums outside. And who would want to go out into streets which have no electricity and which are choking with pollution and filth; when one has fresh air being supplied by the auxiliary power plant within the complex.

Welcome to the global era. Where the new-age urban dweller is a part of an iconic world. A world of glass towers, sophisticated buildings, luxury condos. And an endless slum. The last two decades have been witness to some spectacular development as the cold war came to an end through the breakdown of Soviet imperialism and due to the internationalisation of the economic activities executed through the emergence of information technology.

Landmarks of the global era dot our landscapes all the way from Gurgaon to Bangalore and beyond. In place of the friendly neighbourhood dhaba is the new-age instant food outlet. While this omnipresence of commodities, products and technology is felt by all, one fails to notice the existence of a concealed eroding force, which has come forward as one of the biggest challenges to context-based development.

Amidst all this change, the definition of architecture in this nation and the world over has undergone a change. A building that was seen as a dwelling, a shelter, a necessity, is today also serving the role of an icon, an image, an advertisement. Terms such as technology parks, gated communities, international schools and information highways have slowly woven themselves as intricate parts of a global urban fabric.

So colourful and glamorous is this new packaging that one is too mesmerised to notice the ever-widening holes that are gradually appearing. Globalisation has changed the rate of development and caused a transformation of cultures. Local identities are gradually losing ground and the boundaries of the pluralistic heritage of India are fading into a standardised and uniform culture lacking in richness and sensitivity.

Local identity needs preservation, not just for its flavour, but also for enabling local economies to survive and prosper. Architecture has always been the first face of any culture. It defines a culture, its people, their lifestyles, their beliefs and aspirations. Tradition has always been with us, not just in bells of the temple and the pleats of a sari but also in the terracotta tiled roofs, jalis shimmering with sunlight and village courts with charpoys laid out.

With rapidly depleting resources, an urgent need has risen to look back into the past and derive lessons from it. Architectural practice should be a creative process that aims at adopting ideas that are attached to the past but rewrites them in order to suit the ever-changing environment. Channa Daswatte, author of the paper A Socio-political analysis of traditional building in tourism – the legacy of Geoffrey Bawa, presented at the INTBAU conference in January, talks about the innovative use of local materials and technology by Sri Lankan architects leading to not only self-sufficiency and sustainability but also the birth of an architectural practice in contemporary Sri Lanka where the use of traditional building techniques was not at odds with realising a wholly modern architecture. What needs to be understood is that traditional buildings and places can offer a profound modernity beyond novelty.

Local architecture is an evolution of building technology suited to the respective place over ages. It is well-suited to the climate of the particular place, is environmentally friendly and also cost-effective as it employs local materials. Local labour and skills are utilised well in such a situation. More importantly, it should be understood that local architecture is not the brain child of an individual; it’s an outcome of the lifestyle and socio-economic structure of an entire community. Hence, it is more sensitive to its aspirations and encourages the feeling of oneness and security within the community. In short, it becomes the identity of the community.

Is it really wise to strip communities of their identities? Architects in the global era aspire to provide the human race with comfort within and outside their homes. How can we achieve human comfort when its very foundation is not humane? Sustainability can never be achieved until and unless it has a holistic overview. Something, the elitist global era fails to provide. Traditional architecture does have the answers for a humane and harmonious future. It always has had, it’s only that we have never realised its reach and wealth of wisdom that have held good in the past and promise to hold good in the future as well.

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