HUMANITY IN DESIGN: CAN EQUITY BE ACHIEVED THROUGH ARCHITECTURE/DESIGN?
HUMANITY IN DESIGN: CAN EQUITY BE ACHIEVED THROUGH ARCHITECTURE/DESIGN? It is said that all people of this planet are equal in God’s eyes and yet humans form divisions in the name of race, caste, creed and what not. Instead of living as communities in unity and harmony we have designed ourselves to live in division. Majority of the architectural marvel of the past in India is defined by the structures that were dedicated to the gods, the place where citizens of the then kingdoms worshipped their respective gods in or the structures that defined the power of the kings ruling the region. These power defining design of kingdoms have lead the way for caste and creed of the people to be determined based on the communities they belonged to (for example: the kind of jobs they were involved in) and developed their settlements around the religious places ranging from what was considered the highest cadre being closer to the temples to the lowest cadre being away from the religious site. The wealth and prosperity of the Indian kingdoms were defined by the intricately done enormous places of worship dedicated to each of their gods of interest and the constructions of various typologies of housing of the early settlements that defined the early kingdoms but they were greatly focused on the divisions formed thus going against what was preached. The kings commissioned huge amount of money to be spent on each marvels that still stands today to give the present day dwellers of the planet a glimpse of the world back then. Today the power of the kings and leaders of the past is relieved through their contribution towards to construction of beautiful structure and their development that doesn’t just paint a picture of the culture and the traditions followed but also tells the painful story of the sthapathi (sculptors) who engraved sculptures that plays a significant role in bringing these structures to a success and keeping the traditions alive till date. These sculptures, also helps us navigate and understand the equality and equity and the distinguished difference among the people of the past. For ages architecture has been a symbolism of differentiating race, caste and creed rather than designing based on community harmony which was originally intended. In today’s world, we find the traces of such inequality and inequity based on the set hierarchy of communities. In the state of Tamil Nadu in India, agraharam style of housing is a predominant example of separation of communities based on the race, caste and creed where the said highest caste communities who served the temple lived closer to the religious place. Inequity in this is very predominant in such cases.
2
