Illustrations

Illustrations

fig.a https://www.news18.com/photogallery/india/pm-modi-lays-foundation-stone-of-kashivishwanath-temple-corridor-2060487.html

fig.1 Diana L Eck, Banaras, City of Light (Penguin Press, 1983) p.37.

fig.2 Press trust of India. Accessed 12 july,2020 https://www.bloombergquint.com/elections/pm-holds-mega-roadshow-in-varanasi-performsganga-aarti-3

fig.3 Accessed 12 july,2020 https://www.freepressjournal.in/world/diyas-and-delight-uscelebrates-ram-mandir-bhumi-pujan

fig.4 By Samuel Bourne [1][2] (1834–1912) http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/138760/unknown-maker-babri-masjid-faizabadenglish-about-1863-1887/, Public Domain.

fig.5 25 april, 2019. https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/lok-sabha-2019/story/narendramodi-varanasi-1510815-2019-04-26

fig.6. 13 july, 2018 https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/varanasi/on-13th-visit-to-kashipm-modi-to-launch-12-new-projects/articleshow/64970506.cms

fig.7. https://2ch.hk/b/arch/2020-05-08/res/219707445.html

fig.8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hHSlaI0oe8&t=1051s

fig.9 1905, madho Prasad .British library https://www.oldindianphotos.in/2015/05/benaresvaranasi-ghats-ganges-river-1905.html

fig.10 http://library.cept.ac.in/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=50386, Undergraduate research thesis.

fig.11 Madhuri Desai, Banaras Reconstructed: Architecture and Sacred Space in a Hindu Holy City (University of Washington Press, 2017) pg.39.

fig.12 R.K Rana. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41142214

fig.13 https://medium.com/@Legal_Kant/when-christian-ex-cop-calls-india-saffron-pakistanhe-is-dancing-to-the-tunes-of-vatican-bank-c91396422fde

fig.14 Madhuri Desai, Banaras Reconstructed: Architecture and Sacred Space in a Hindu Holy City (University of Washington Press, 2017) pg.83.

fig. 15 https://www.fortuneindia.com/ideas/highway-to-heaven/103518

fig.16 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-07/indias-untouchables-how-caste-systemaffects-politics/10900280

https://artsone.arts.ubc.ca/2016/05/17/from-bodies-politic-to-the-body-politic/

fig.17 https://www.ndtv.com/photos/news/in-pics-sea-of-saffron-greets-pm-modi-duringvaranasi-roadshow-97401

fig.18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hHSlaI0oe8&t=1051s

fig.19 https://www.fortuneindia.com/ideas/highway-to-heaven/103518

fig.20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSGEH6di2cQ

fig.21 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hHSlaI0oe8&t=1051s

Fig.22 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSGEH6di2cQ

fig.23 https://www.fortuneindia.com/ideas/highway-to-heaven/103518

fig.24 https://www.telegraphindia.com/topic/rashtriya-swayamsevak-sangh-rss/page-17

fig.25 https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/varanasi/soon-access-kashi-vishwanathtemple-directly-from-ghats/articleshow/64072869.cms

fig.26. Narendra Bisht. https://www.fortuneindia.com/ideas/highway-to-heaven/103518

fig.27 Illustration done by the author.

fig.28-34 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hHSlaI0oe8&t=1051s

fig.35 https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/emmanuel-macron-in-varanasi-live-frenchpresident-pm-narendra-modi-visit-varanasi-mirzapur-today-1822613

fig.36 https://www.hindustantimes.com/lucknow/work-at-kashi-vishwanath-corridor-catchespace/story-eA5YA6QXclewL6FiFW4A3J.html

fig. 37 Press trust of India https://www.narendramodi.in/pm-modi-visits-varanasi-withjapanese-pm-shinzo-abe-participated-in-ganga-aarti-386357

fig.38 https://twitter.com/pmoindia/status/1018129612092497920

fig.39 Rajesh Bhatt https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/modi-japanese-pmto-visit-varanasi-today/article7978341.ece

fig. 40 illustration by the author.

1 Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 1989 <https://doi.org/10.2307/203963>. 2 Kate Nesbitt, ‘Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture’:, An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965 - 1995, 2013, p. 412. 3 Karen Bermann, ‘The House Behind’, Places Through the Body, 1998, 165–80. 4 Katie Lloyd Thomas, ‘‘Between the Womb and the World’: Building Matrixial Relations in the NICU’, Relational Architectural Ecologies: Architecture, Nature and Subjectivity, 2013, 192–208

5 Thomas, p.196. I have appropriated a quote from The womb and the world text as an entrance to the analysis of The house behind, surfacing parallels in the content and objects of critique mobilized by both authors. 6 Bermann, p.168. 7 Bermann, p.168. 8 Bermann, p.165. 9 Edmond Jabès and Rosmarie Waldrop, From the Book to the Book: An Edmond Jabès Reader (Wesleyan University Press, 1991). 10 Bermann, p.165. 11 Bermann, p.165.

12 Siglind Bruhn, The Temptation of Paul Hindemith: Mathis Der Maler as a Spiritual Testimony (Pendragon Press, 1998). 13 Bermann, p.167. 14 Bermann, p.168.

15 Bermann, p.168-70. 16 Bermann, p.169. 17 Bermann, p.178. 18 Bermann, p.169. 19 Bermann, p.171. 20 Bermann, p.171-72,77. 21 Bermann, p.172. 22 Bermann, p.172.

23 Bermann, p.174. 24 Bermann, p.170. 25 Bermann, p.170. 26 Bermann, p.167. 27 Bermann, p.170. 28 Bermann, p.170. 29 Bermann, p.176. 30 Bermann, p.170. 31 Bermann, p.170. 32 Bermann, p.173.

33 Bermann, p.176. 34 Bermann, p.177. 35 Bermann, p.176. 36 Bermann, p.171. 37 Bermann, p.176. 38 Donald W Winnicott, ‘Ego Distortion in Terms of True and False Self’, in The Person Who Is Me (Routledge, 2018), pp. 7–22. 39 Bermann, p.175. I have appropriated a quote from The house behind text as an entrance to the analysis of The womb and the World, surfacing parallels in the content and objects of critique mobilized by both authors. 40 Thomas, p.192. 41 Thomas, p.192.

42 Thomas, p.192. 43 Thomas, p.192. 44 Thomas, p.193. 45 Thomas, p.194. 46 Thomas, p.194. 47 Thomas, p.192.

48 Thomas, p.207. 49 Thomas, p.195. 50 Thomas, p.196. 51 Thomas, p.192. 52 Thomas, p.193. 53 Thomas, p.194. 54 Thomas, p.200. 55 Thomas, p.200. 56 Melanie Klein, ‘Personification in the Play of Children’, International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 10 (1929), 193–204. 57 Thomas, p.202.

58 Thomas , p.195. 59 Thomas, p.197. 60 Thomas, p.202. 61 Donald Woods Winnicott, Holding and Interpretation: Fragment of an Analysis (Grove Press, 1989). 62 Thomas, p.204. 63 Thomas, p.199. 64 D Winnicott W, ‘Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena—a Study of the First Not-Me Possession’, International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 34 (1953), 89–97. 65 Thomas, p.199. 66 Thomas, p.199.

67 Thomas, p.194. 68 Thomas, p.202. 69 Thomas, p.194. 70 Thomas, p.205. 71 Thomas, p.205. 72 Thomas, p.205. 73 Thomas, p.203. 74 Thomas, p.204.

76 Bermann, p.177. 77 Bermann, p.170. 78 Thomas , p.197. 79 Thomas, p.197.

80 Thomas, p.197. 81 Thomas, p.197. 82 Thomas, p.193. 83 Bermann , p.174. 84 Thomas, p.192-94. 85 Thomas, p.196.

86 Thomas , p.202. 87 Bermann, p.172. 88 Thomas , p.193. 89 Bermann, p.176. 90 Thomas, p.199-200.

1 E Park Robert, W Burgess Ernest, and D McKenzie Roderick, ‘The City’ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1925)p.107.

2 Gerald Prince, A Dictionary of Narratology (U of Nebraska Press, 2003).

3 Charles-Pierre Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life (Penguin UK, 2010).

4 Edgar Allan Poe, The Man of the Crowd (University of Virginia Library, 2000).

5 Lauren Elkin, Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017).

6 Roberta Sassatelli, ‘Interview with Laura Mulvey: Gender, Gaze and Technology in Film Culture’, Theory,

Culture & Society, 28.5 (2011), 123–43.

7 Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way: In Search of Lost Time (Yale University Press, 2013), I.

8 Janet Wolff, ‘The Invisible Flâneuse. Women and the Literature of Modernity’, Theory, Culture & Society, 2.3 (1985), 37–46.

9 Iain Sinclair, Lights out for the Territory (Penguin UK, 2003).

10 Michel de Certeau, ‘The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley’ (CA: University of California Press, 1984) pg 109110.

11 Certeau, p. 108.

12 Anne-Lise Saive, Jean-Pierre Royet, and Jane Plailly, ‘A Review on the Neural Bases of Episodic Odor Memory: From Laboratory-Based to Autobiographical Approaches’, Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 8 (2014), 240.

13 David Harvey, Social Justice and the City (University of Georgia Press, 2010), I.P.315.

14 Félix Guattari, The Three Ecologies (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2005).

15 Walter Benjamin, Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism (Verso Books, 1997).

16 Henri Lefebvre, ‘The Right to the City’, Writings on Cities, 63181 (1996).

17 Sadie Plant, The Most Radical Gesture: The Situationist International in a Postmodern Age (Routledge, 2002).

18 Guy Debord, ‘Theory of the Derive, Internationale Situationniste# 2’, Knabb, Ken. Situationist International Anthology, 1958.

19 Debord.

20 Certeau.

21 Thomas F McDonough, ‘Situationist Space’, October, 67 (1994), 59–77.

22 Richard Shusterman, ‘Bodies in the Streets and the Somaesthetics of City Life’, in Bodies in the Streets: The Somaesthetics of City Life (Brill, 2019), pp. 1–10.

23 Georg Simmel, ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life’, in The Urban Sociology Reader (Routledge, 2012), pp. 37–45.

Auro-worth

A reading of Auroville through the lens of the Garden City Concept.

BARC0040: Materialist Ecological Architectures

What are the common aspirations that surface in the visions of Sir Ebenezer Howard and MiCandidate Number: 18080807 rra Alfassa the mother which originated from such distant centers of thought? Why has Auroville, with all its promise, turned into

a dystopic figure of utopian thought?

The right to the city is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city. It is, moreover, a common rather than an individual right since this transformation inevitably depends upon the exercise of a collective power to reshape the processes of urbanization.

-David Harvey (2010). Justice and the City.

can morph the way individuals come together to shape efficient and peaceful societies harmoniously with nature has been lingering in architectural circles since a long time. Be it Ville Radieuse (The Radiant City) by Le Corbusier, the ideals of Jane Jacobs, William Whyte, Robert E. Park or the more contemporary Jan Gehl, Urban planners have attempted to theorize and realise their vision of how societies function responding to their spatialities and ordering principles. Cities have been positioned as a center for production and consumption of goods and services, fueled by the hierarchical structures of capitalism1. These ideals have strongly been detested and contested in various scholarly circles, in the hope of a better form of societal orientation. Architects, Urban planners, philosophers and theorists alike have postulated the vision of a bottom-up anti-capitalist system where the collective is celebrated.

Fig.1 the Babylon project by Constant Nieuwenhuys

Fig.2 Ville Radieuse (The Radiant City) by Le Corbusier The search for utopia has propelled several Architects and planners to propose urban and spatial reconfigurations, along with generating unhackneyed economic and land use policies, to transform the way people inhabit cities. Even though many such ideas have been theorized, seldom has it happened that these ideas transform into reality. When in the west there were multiple experiments ongoing like

1 Philip Allmendinger, Planning Theory (Macmillan International Higher Education, 2017).

the Babylon project by Constant Nieuwenhuys, Arco Santi, or the spatial city by Yona Freidman, there was one such experiment which did descend to physical consciousness in the east, as the city of Dawn, Auroville; which is the object of analysis for this essay. Urban Planning as a legitimate scholarly discourse concretized its position in the early formation of large cities, larger problems seemed to surface which needed to be catered to. One of the most canonical figures who emerged at the dawn of the town-planning movement, and the author of Garden Cities of To-morrow (1902), was -morrow: A

n proposing an alternate mode of societal formation through modifying the socio-economic structures which constructed the city. Focusing on the collective rather than the subjective, the garden city concept has been a pivotal point of departure for various developments in the discourse of urban planning. He remains a spectral figure in the expeditions of the present town planning theories/realities which have tried to break free from the shackles of capitalist driven urbanization. He combined many innovative ideas of Urban Decentralization, city-nature cohabitation, zoning, self-contained new towns-cities and green belts which remain the backbone of modern-day a model, not for the transformation of society which was his earlier intention, but for of the physical arrangement of society 2, which can be seen as a universal mold adopted by several cities worldwide that followed. In this essay, the ideals of the garden city concept, would be a critical object of comparison.

2 Stephen V Ward, ‘The Howard Legacy’, Parsons, Kermit C. and Schuyler, David (Eds.), 2002.

Auroville, a universal township in the Viluppuram district of Tamil Nadu, is situated twelve kilometers away from the Union territory of Puducherry in the south of India. Inaugurated in 1968, it currently inhabits 2,814 residents (2,127 adults and 687 children) from 54 countries.3 From its anti-capitalist economic structures to its physical urban planning ideals, Auroville has been an inventive experiment in the coming together of society. Auroville has its origins in the French language, "Aurore" meaning dawn and "Ville" meaning city.4 Additionally, it is named after Sri Aurobindo, who was the spiritual

Fig.3 Sir Ebenezer Howard.

mentor of Mir

Fig.4 Mirra Alfassa, ’the mother.’ Alfassa expected that this manifestation would contribute significantly to the "progress of humanity towards its splendid future by bringing together people of goodwill and aspiration for a better world." Alfassa also believed that such a universal township will contribute decisively to the Indian renaissance.5

If one puts

representational macroscopic lens, one could unravel connections to the initial conceptions of Ebenezer Howard. The aim of the essay is to analyze Auroville through the lens of Ebenezer Howard and the key concepts which define the garden city movement. The concentric organization plan, zoning into various sectors, green belting, convergence of nature and the city are some of the very visible features which reveal themselves in the planning of Auroville. The similarities tread deeper, transgressing even into the economic and land use

3 Auroville.org, ‘Auroville Census’ <https://www.auroville.org/contents/3329>. 4 Lotfallah Soliman, ‘Auroville, the Fulfillment of a Dream’, UNESCO Courier <https://www.questia.com/magazine/1G1-13796203/auroville-the-fulfillment-of-a-dream>.

5 Mirra Alfassa, Collected Works of The Mother (Aurobindo Ashram, 1972).

policies, yet with a very different narrative. This essay also intends to explore the similar connotations that symbolic elements holds in both the cases. Even though the Ideation of Auroville never affirms any connection to the Garden City concept, it is difficult not to draw connections. I intend also to trace how the concepts converged, differed and evolved, or were radicalized by comparing various parameters and demystify why Auroville, with all its promise, has turned into a dystopic figure of utopian thought.

Origins and the historical global context: New theories generally have emerged as a response to the then existing crises in the global context. These issues may be material, notional or embodied, they have yet found discourse in the formal configurations of communities which form larger congregations in the form of cities. Industrialization and the advent of technology in the late 19th century and early 20th century, produced large cities as the nexus for opportunity and growth, which lead to over densification and deterioration of both mental and physical health. Amidst the economic drive of Capitalism, the urbanization drive which mobilized large masses of people from the rural towns to the cities, led to overly populous streets and deplorable conditions of living. London, being the largest city in the world at that time, was facing many such multi-faceted problems. Ebenezer Howard, originally from London, travelled to the United States in 1871, witnessed the city renewal project being undertaken in Chicago. He returned to London in 1876, worked as a clerk with Hansard company, which produced the official verbatim record of Parliament6 . Analyzing the records of the Parliament, the massive issues of dense urbanization and excessive pollution surfaced, inspiring him to investigate the notions of social reform, which became the foundation for the ideation of the Garden city, an alternative to unrestrained urban development.

Fig.5 Pollution in the Victorian-Era in Britain.

Fig.6 Destruction in Germany due to World War II

6 Brett Clark, ‘Ebenezer Howard and the Marriage of Town and Country: An Introduction to Howard’s Garden Cities of To-Morrow (Selections)’, Organization & Environment, 16.1 (2003), 87–97.

In 1911, when the British chose New Delhi the new capital city of India, and appointed Edward Lutyens to design the city on the principles loosely based on the garden city movement, marking the entry of those principles in India. After WWI and WWII, the global scenario was extremely dire and there was a very strong need for global peace and harmony. Colonialism was slowly disintegrating with the surge for freedom was gaining momentum. The famine that occurred in Bengal in 1943 led to the death of thousands in India. Again health was terribly affected along with rampant poverty. India acquiring its independence in 1947, wanted to produce a physical symbol of Modernity, of PostColonial India breaking free from the vestigial identities left behind by the British. In the post-colonial context, where the world was emerging out of a global crisis of mass destruction and animosity, another idea was germinating in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in the south of India for a new kind of city, which would become a beacon of human unity, for a unity of men with nature, Auroville. Conceived in the ra Alfassa, the idea first found its conception in the

in 1954 and the foundation stone of Auroville would be laid in 1968 by the mother.

Theology and Inspiration: The notion of the return and human connect to Nature is something that underlays the ideals adapted by both Sir Ebenezer Howard and Mirr The principles originated from very

Fig.7 Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Fig.8 Sri Aurobindo.

different centers of knowledge, one emerging from the west and the other emerging from the east. The time Howard spent in Chicago overlapped with the Chicago revival movement after the great fire of 1871, which saw a very different approach to urban resurgence.7 Alonzo Griffin, a Quaker, got Howard acquainted to canonical figures like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman, who were the founding members of the Transcendentalist movement. Propelled by the English and German romanticism, the Biblical criticism of Herder and Schleiermacher, and the skepticism of Hume8, Transcendentalism originated as a movement focusing on discovering an self-driven relation to the universe.

Transcendentalists were a potent force in critiquing notions around slavery, and aspired to dismantle hierarchical marginalization. The close kinship between man and nature took a pivotal position in the

moveme

in reference to the positionality of Man and Nature. Transcendentalism suggests that the divine, or God, suffuses nature, and suggests that reality can be understood by studying nature.9 One could very well trace the remnants of this connection to nature in Howards ingenious ideologies that he proposes in this seminal book, The garden cities of tomorrow. Along with quoting Ruskin on multiple occasions on the beauties of nature, he romanticizes nature and how it exists in close proximity in the country side. Through his three magnets diagram, also inspired by the ideals of the enlightenment period around nature being the object of study, he highlights Proposing the marriage of the countryside and the city, developing a Town-country magnet, a potent amalgamation of both. He aims to bring the urban society back in harmonious accord with nature, sculpting an intermediate route for a peaceful social reform. Howard, a believer and a sceptic in his religious inclinations, was open to multiplicity which resonated strongly with the ideals of the Quaker religion, which has many intersections in the belief system with Supramental Yoga, the philosophy that Sri Aurobindo Professed. Quakers, also known as friends, strongly believe in the wisdom of god in the beauty of creation, in the physicality of things and generating a greater aesthetic sense of the natural world. Strongly advocating Equality, Peace and Harmony, the philosophy like Supramental yoga professed the pursuit of individual improvement and in turn the upliftment of the society. The Quaker philosophy also focuses on being sati sfied with less

7 Ward.

8 Russell Goodman, ‘Transcendentalism’, 2003. 9 Goodman.

of sustainability of the ecosystems in which we exist.

Mir

She travelled to Pondicherry where she met Sri Aurobindo, who was then a spiritual as well as political leader, immersed in the fight with the Colonial rule. Alfassa was already very spiritually inclined and studied occultism in Algeria with Max Theon and his English wife Alma, who was a highly developed medium, in her twenties.10 Occultism, which originated in France has loose ties with oriental philosophies which believe in the supernatural, transcendental and Anthrosophic. Mirra Alfassa, discovering a connection with the teachings of Sri Aurobindo, returned to Pondicherry in 1920, and lived the remaining of her life in India. Aurobindo Ghose, an influential leader in the fight against the

with god through the elemental, material forms of nature. ties to the Quaker methodologies. The oriental practices of Yoga in India initially focused of the transcendence of the Mind to higher level of consciousness through a journey which was internal, with the body only being a vessel. Supramental Yoga aspires to channelize this consciousness into the real material world, where the everyday manifests. All life either conscious or unconscious is a form of yoga, and reflects in the form of matter it manifests. Just like the transcendentalists, Sri Aurobindo and The

Mother never affirmed their principles as a form of theology, but rather promoted that every individual through infinite possible paths, finds a deeper connection with th and the divine

consciousness. Sri Aurobindo recognized in Mirra an embodiment of the dynamic expressive aspect of evolutionary, creative Force, in India traditionally known and approached as the 'Supreme Mother,11

who also strengthened the feminist narratives around the notions of the divine mother and mother nature. During their time in Pondicherry, they practiced and evolved this form of Yoga which was both Transcendental and Transformative, and conceived a place, where people of goodwill can appropriate

10 ‘The Mother - a Brief Sketch of Her Life and Work’, Auroville.Org <https://www.auroville.org/contents/533>.

11 ‘The Mother - a Brief Sketch of Her Life and Work’.

Inauguration and the Manifesto Based Planning: I see a city being wrought, upon the rock of living thought. -Henry Bryan Binns

Both Sir Howard and The Mother believed in the possibility of establishing a town or a city, not as an extension of an existing city, but building it from dust like a tabula rasa. Howard, due to his occupational background working on transcripts for the government as a law stenographer12, was aware of the ground realities of the tangible problems with the larger cities, and the quality of life that the people occupying the cities were dealing with. His solutions therefore were very grounded in the reality of things. The

Fig.9,10 Organizational Diagrams from the Garden Cities of To-morrow.

diagrammatical reflections produced in the first edition of his book were also reflections of the mechanical precision that he was attuned to in his processes as an inventor.13 Hence the narrative that his theories activated, targeted the notions of social reform through a very pragmatic process. His concepts also unraveled religious underpinnings about marrying the town and the country which reflect in his writings unholy separation between human society and nature.

Howard s overarching intentions we to achieve a wide ranging social reform through the collective ownership of land, promoting he sense of social and political cohesion. The garden city concept and the arts and crafts movement prevalent in Britain at the time, professed a mix of idealism and pragmatism, pushing for a bottom-up, actively participatory local democracy. The rational conception aimed at projecting a concrete and stable result over utopian abstract theory. A garden city would be one of the

12 Mervyn Miller, English Garden Cities: An Introduction (Historic England, 2015), p.3.

13 John Moss-Eccardt and Ebenezer Howard, Ebenezer Howard: An Illustrated Life of Sir Ebenezer Howard, 1850-1928 (Shire Publications, 1973).

6 individual cities that Howard imagined in close proximity to a central major metropolis. Every garden city would be built on 400 hectares of built up area and 2000 hectares of farmland around it, with a population of 32000 people each.14 The urban planning involved a clear division into six wards each containing 5000 inhabitants, with different zones for industrial, agricultural and economic activities. The zoning propelled a drive for the local provision of employment, which added to the collective narrative of shared experiences. Each ward would have a social mix of people, drawn from different income groups which was an attempt to bridge the economic gap. The economic structures developed by Howard were such that the development profits of the city would be internally recouped and produce a self-sufficient city for everyday life which fosters progress through collective good. To realise the objective theories, in 1900 the Garden City Limited was established with share capital of £50,000. The Garden City Pioneer Company was constituted in 1903, with Howard as managing director, to find a suitable site for the first garden city. In 1903 Howard purchased 3,818 acres in Letchworth for £155,587, which become the first objective form if Howards visions the first garden city. Howards intentions were clearly above the physical manifestation of a formal city, and rather on reforming how multiple peoples can harmoniously come together. His role however diminished and fell into the hands of the first generation urban planners to give specific forms of his indicative vision. The notions of social reform were marginalized for the careful design of the physical arrangement of the garden city as to foster a sense of community. Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin were appointed as the urban planners for Letchworth, who were leading arts and crafts architects of their time to bring back the antiindustrial narratives and attempting to produce objects of humanized beauty which has parallels to the architectural expressions generated in Auroville. Hence Letchworth become the first physical manifestation of the disarmingly simple yet worryingly complex praxis of The garden city concept.

which no nation could claim as its own, where all human beings of goodwill who have a sincere aspiration, could live freely as citizens and obey one single authority that of the -Mirra Alfassa, a Dream.15

14 Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (Swan Sonnenschein, 1902).

15 Mirra Alfassa, ‘Collection Works of the Mother’, 1954 <https://www.auroville.org/contents/197>.

The narrative of Auroville goes way beyond the physical localization of form and transcends to a global or galaxial magnitude of change. Mirra Alfassa, who was a dancer and a painter, had foundations in a spiritual process of social reform. The origins of the ideation of a city like Auroville, was in lingering in 16 Sri Aurobindo himself studied

at the Cambridge university right at the cusp of the end of the 19th century and would have been exposed

a dream, she strongly pushed for the establishment of an Ideal society, after the demise of her spiritual compatriot, Sri Aurobindo. The ideals strongly professed Living lives from a perspective above our differences in conscious awareness of our interconnection with all others as the key in actualizing a core life affirming environment on our planet.17 Auroville would belong to no one, but only to the divine

and unending education, where the youth never dies.18

It was projected as a symbol of global unity, which was even supported by the Indian government and UNESCO.

Fig.11,12 Initial sketches made by Mirra Alfassa ‘the mother’ given to Roger Anger for the physical configuration of Auroville.

16 Loretta, ‘Plans for Creating Auroville’, Aurovilleradio.Org, 2018 <https://www.aurovilleradio.org/plans-forcreating-auroville/>.

17 Christopher Buhrman, City of the Dawn, 2009 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU40Ba4GXjE&t=9s>.

18 Alfassa, Collected Works of The Mother.

Fig.13-18 Evolution of the Galaxy plan by Roger Anger from 1965 to 1968

Roger Anger was approached to

aspirations into a physical manifestation. As the design brief the mother made two rough sketches for the physical form of the township. From 1965 to 1968 Anger developed the city plans which finally culminated into the current projected

planning also known that Auroville is constructed on the level of individual experience. You could say Auroville is at the opposite end of the tradition of contemporary urbanization where you cre ask people to live there. Here the way ahead is just in the opposite direction. People are living the experience, and out of this experience they will create their personal circumstances, their surroundings, their way of life.19

The larger 4 quadrants include residential, international, industrial/economic and cultural zones. The town proposed was for a population of 50000 people, which is fairly small yet quite dense, which was part of the experiment as to how can people from such diverse cultural backgrounds, and limited physical resources can live a sustainable life in an area of 5 sq. kilometers. Just like the garden city concept, the city was organized radially with a massive patch of green belt around the periphery celebrating agriculture, flora and fauna. Taking A lone banyan tree as the geographical centre of the radially emanating city, the manifestation of Auroville began.

The inauguration of Auroville was a global congregation where around 5000 people came together from over 124 countries, and brought with them, soil from their homeland, and amalgamated it in a lotus

Fig. 19The four-point Charter of Auroville,1968.

19 Bina Bhatia, ‘Auroville: A Utopian Paradox’, 2014.

shaped urn symbolizing the unity of earth. Again, the celebration of earth symbolizes another aspect that brings people closer to mother nature. At the inauguration ceremony, the Mother presented the charter, which would become the path through which the Aurovilleans shall achieve a higher state of consciousness. The Charter of Auroville was read out in 16 different languages, beginning with French and English, followed by Tamil (the language of the local people), Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Tibetan leaving the national language of India.20

Auroville Charter21

1. Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville, one must be a willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness. 2. Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages. 3. Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realizations. 4. Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.

20 ‘Statements of Support - UNESCO | Auroville’ <https://www.auroville.org/contents/538> [accessed 20 May 2020].

21 Mirra Alfassa, ‘Auroville Charter’, 1968 <https://www.auroville.org/contents/1>.

The Banyan tree mentioned above is of critical importance, becoming the symbol of formal centrality of Auroville. The area where Auroville was to be built on, was an extremely barren land, which was famine and draught stricken over the years. The Banyan tree was the solitary standing symbol of vitality of nature, which is why the mother chose it to be the geographical centre of the city. Like the Banner fabricated by Edmund H bearing fruits, the tree in Auroville also becomes the symbol of nature and its abundance. The tree becomes a uroville is this

afforestation drive that they pursued over the course of 40 years and converted this famine struck desert

Fig.20,21 Auroville proposed final plan and diagram from the garden city concept.

into an oasis in the middle of nowhere. Like the importance Howard gave to the close relationship to nature and agriculture, Auroville adapted similar affinities and has emerged as a centre for organic farming. Even in the discourse of sustainability, Auroville has taken long strides in developing lessimpacting building materials, exploring renewable energy options, and finding paths towards growth in synergy with nature.

The central core, where the Banyan tree is located was named the Peace Area, which would also be a symbol to the aspirations of Auroville. In the peace area, lies the Matri Mandir, also known as the peace pavilion, designed as a shrine to the emergence of a new consciousness, erupting out of matter. The construction of the Mandir was another instance of bringing together people through close proximity to nature, when 400 locals dug the foundations of the pavilion manually in 1971. Even though Auroville was only taking off as a settlement, this monument became the praxis of the beauty in matter. In this process of glorifying matter, the mother wanted to show to the people that it is not by escaping matter

Fig.23-28 For Square our City Banner by Edmund hunter, Inauguration of Auroville and the mother sitting above the flag of Auroville.

that we shall find the divine. Guigan, a Matri Mandir Historian, elucidates in the city of dawn as to how the process of building something from the ground up gave the people of Auroville a common

aspiration, which would be a stepping stone towards their unity, transgressing the boundaries of socioeconomic class, language and culture.22

Conclusion

The ideas of radical urbanism as a means to social reform have been celebrated

in distinct ways. Standing on the divergent ends of femininity and masculinity, the visions of both the figures responded to specific global crises which were rampant during their times, projecting a holistic vision linking the economic, administrative, social and physical dimensions. Although they were practicing their modes of urbanity almost 50 years apart, both were striving for a non-capitalistic societal structure along with a harmonious and peaceful living with communal ownership, in close proximity to nature. Ideals like the ban on the sale of Liquor, service to the community over individual gain, issues of zoning and agriculture, walkable cities through compactness, diversity and sustainability, and coexistence with rural environments were all prevalent in their modes of operation and resonate strongly in the aspirations of both the visionary figures. Even though their aspirations were quite similar, the narratives they produced led their visions in divergent directions. Operating through a close analysis of the visual and symbolic objects along with ideated representations that surface in the narratives, I have tried to analyze Auroville through the lens of the garden city concept. Howards holistic vision was unpacked into many individual ideas, informing the new practices of urban planning. Even though Howard detested the capitalist structures which built the megacities, and supported bottom up -communistic ideas of socialist cities. Even

though the notions of social reform were marginalized over time to the corporate top down approaches, some of the ideas of zoning, green belting and collective ownership did seep through to the contemporary practices of city planning and produce urban settlements all across the world. Even the vision of the mother has found offshoots in the forms of Mirrapur and Mirra-village in different parts of the world, yet just like the garden city concept, the physical form of the society has taken precedence over the ideals of social reform.

With the current global climate crises along with mass displacement of people across the world, Auroville aimed to be a beacon of the city the earth needs, of neo-eco urbanization. Finding god in the doing of things, Auroville painted a potent image of a non-hierarchical society. The underlying principles which surfaces the relationship between the spiritual and the physical were key in conceiving

22 Buhrman.

the aim of Auroville. In the over-arching aspirations of critiquing the structures of capitalism, Auroville ended up inventing its own form of currency, isolating itself from being relevant in the global context. Unlike the Mother, Howard was a realist and practitioner instead of a philosopher, because of which the garden city concept did flourish even in its diluted form. Auroville initially conceived to be a densely populated city of 50,000 people from all over the world to create a universal community, the number of people never really grew in Auroville disrupting the notions of collective housing. The houses became individual experiments in material and architectural design taking away from the notions of the collective. The mother s notions of a unified society were commodified to serve advanced capitalism. Government agencies owned the land on which the new settlements were built, the increased land values flowed back to the agencies and not the Aurovilleans. They did not except to a very limited extent, stay in the community. of an ideal place, free from the shackles of capitalist structures where money would no longer be the sovereign lord, Like the Kibbutz, Auroville isolated itself because of the proposed system of value economy, which is very discordant from the global world.

Even though Howard professed decentralization as a way to displace populations away from the mega cities, he developed a proper network of roads for good transportation between garden cities and its central megapolis, cutting down on lengthy commute times along with allowing access to the different cities. Auroville also through its positionality has adopted 4 villages which fall in its zone and offer employment and schooling for its sustainable growth. was above socio-economic segregators of class, race and gender, yet this has not been the case. The bottom-up approach that Auroville boasts of, still has hierarchical structures with the European elite occupying centralized positions in the decision making, marginalizing the native population. In the documentary the city of dawn, Bhavana Decew, the founder of AVAT (Auroville village action trust)

the people coming from the cities or from the west have a very secure material and economic base [..]

23 Even in the solar kitchen, the

communal dining hall which produces over a thousand meals daily, observes these class divisions in the way people sit together and dine.24 Even during the initial germination of the city, the candidates who were allowed to be called Aurovilleans were handpicked by the mother. Shraddhavan, the director of

23 Buhrman.

24 Bhatia.

the Savitri Bhavana centre, in the city of Dawn documentary, explains how the Mother only looked at the photograph attached to the application form needed to be filled to become a part of the experiment that was Auroville. Auroville was supposed to be place for all men of goodwill, and yet there are dystopic actions which have transpired, to promote a false narrative of diversity. One of the fundamental issues that Auroville manifests is due to its very location of its physical formal conception. The massive divide between the villagers and the western Aurovilleans lead to neo-colonial narratives which the ideals of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo were striving to diminish. Auroville operates as this oasis of the elite, amidst the desert of poverty. With more and more guest houses being erected every day, Auroville from its narrative of unending growth and education of a living city, has turned into a commodified temporal bohemian experience. Supported by its fetishized eco-tourism and funded heavily by the Indian government and UNESCO for its sustenance growing city of dawn, is slowly turning into a façade of dystopia.25 -sustaining, constantly

25 Due to the current pandemic situation all across the globe, there has been a lock of accessibility to many primary sources, which has forced me to use more of secondary sources. I have accessed as many online archives as possible and the archives themselves are non-responsive.

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List of Figures:

Fig.1

https://qz.com/india/1129759/indias-pollution-today-is-as-deadly-as-the-black-smog-thatcovered-britain-during-the-industrial-revolution/ Fig.2 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-34467543 Fig. 5 https://www.thoughtco.com/biography-of-ralph-waldo-emerson-4776020 Fig.6 https://theprint.in/features/sri-aurobindo-a-staunch-nationalist-who-turned-into-aphilosopher/158790/