Buildings meanings and text

%XLOGLQJV 0HDQLQJV DQG 7H[W 7KH FDVH RI ,,0 $KPHGDEDG

*D\WUL 8$ $ 6ULYDWKVDQ

Buildings, Meanings and Text The case of IIM, Ahmedabad

Gaytri UA9208 Guide : A.Srivathsan

Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my guide, A.Srivathsan for patiently guiding me through this thesis and introducing me to the world of Architectural Criticism. Working with him has been a novel and enriching experience.

I would also like to thank Siddharth and Mansi for enabling me to access the online archives of University of Pennsylvania, without which it would have been impossible to proceed with this thesis.

I will never forget the rather depressing, yet forceful discussions with Smit, Kartik, Sagar, Ami and the crisp ones with Rushil.

I would also like to mention the following people who made my journey at School of Architecture what it was: My Grandparents and Parents for bearing with my mood swings and loss of appetite. Shilpa, for lending me her charger on time and Heena for sincerely teaching me Indesign. Bulbul for proofreading my thesis, Shivani, D.S, Gunjan and Chitrupi for being themselves.Vigi and Mapi for continuous moral support.

Shweta, for accompanying me amidst the graphite and charcoal. The thesis gang -­ Sapto, Mihir and Ramani. Munna bhai for printing this document.

And finally, Vicky Achnani for coining the phrase ‘07 Rocks’ for it truly does!

Abstract

This thesis seeks to investigate how meanings emerge from different textual narratives, contributing towards a wider perception of a built space. An individual’s first perceptions of space emerge from his or her personal discoveries and experiences. Influencing these opinions constantly is the context, be it physical or cultural. These perceptions are then represented in the form of written discourses to form a collective opinion and this in turn comes back to affect the perception of the individual. Collective perception about a space therefore wields great influence in personal opinion formation and a text plays a major role in forming this collective by teasing out meanings from buildings, carrying them in words and circulating them.

This thesis proposes to explore three kinds of texts that can be produced about a building– the historical, architectural and the fictional by analysing their content as well as tracing connections amongst them in order to sieve out notions and create a wholesome perception of the given space or building. The old and the new campuses of the Indian Institute of Management are taken up as case studies in order to demonstrate these processes.

Table of contents

Acknowledgements Abstract Chapter 1 - An Introduction .................................................................... 1 Research Questions ............................................................................................................. 5 Research Methods ............................................................................................................... 6 Scope and Limitations ......................................................................................................... 7 Overview of Chapters ....................................................................................................... 8 Chapter 2 - Concepts and processes ................................................... 9 The Narrative .................................................................................................................... 11 The Setting, Notion of Space, Notion of time .......................................................... 15 Event, Plot, Text and Narration ................................................................................... 16 Historical Text .................................................................................................................. 17 Architectural Text ............................................................................................................ 21 Fictional Text .................................................................................................................... 26 How the three texts work together .............................................................................. 28 Intertextuality ................................................................................................................... 29 Production and Reception of Texts ............................................................................. 32 Creating purpose and perceptions 33 Chapter 3 - A Demonstration ................................................................ 35 The Corpus of Texts ....................................................................................................... 37 Chronology of the appearance of these texts ........................................................... 39 Historical Texts ................................................................................................................ 45 Architectural Texts .......................................................................................................... 58 Fictional Texts .................................................................................................................. 68 The Collective functioning of these three kinds of texts ...................................... 75 Intertextuality and the emergence of meaning ........................................................ 77 Chapter 4 - Conclusion ......................................................................... 83 Bibliography ........................................................................................... 89

Chapter - 1 An

Introduction 1

Introduction

Introduction: For generations now, stories of every kind have been a part of our lives.

The human history constitutes of stories from the past, narrated by either a historian or a storyteller and circulated either orally or by means of texts to several others. We have listened to these stories in our childhood, narrated them to others and even lived by some of them. A narrative is a representation of these stories and a ‘place’ or a ‘setting’ forms an uncompromising part of these narratives. Architecture, therefore, is an inherent part of story telling, usually appearing in the form of cities, towns, market places, public plazas or monuments.

Even our epics like the Mahabharata or the Ramayana are incomplete without the context of Hastinapur or Ayodhya. In fact, architecture is central to many of our folktales. For example, the Silapatikaram is an old Tamil literary work about a husband and a wife and their journey to Madurai to start a new life and in the bargain, travelling to many other cities in order to escape their fate. The journey through each of these cities is described differently as the mood of the narrative changes with the changing nature of each city. Although the plot is very simple, the text itself begins imitating all the cities that the protagonist visits.

Edwards Hollis, in his book The secret lives of Buildings compared buildings to stories saying “Most buildings pass like folk tales down the generations, growing richer with each retelling”. There is no mute architecture. All buildings ‘tell stories’ over time with varying degrees of consciousness. They are different kinds of stories – stories right from its conception to completion, stories involving events occurring in the building, stories regarding its architectural nature, elements and construction. Each serves a purpose and addresses different audiences. They circulate, intersect and produce layered readings of the buildings, affect their status and even come back to affect the subsequent production of other buildings.

Perceptions about buildings thus emerge through personal discoveries and experiences in the building, which is an individualistic and inward influence.

Perceptions could also be affected through constant interaction with a larger physical context i.e. the physical surroundings of the building. For example, Manek Chowk in Ahmedabad is a simple crowded marketplace early in the morning, where shopkeepers from the jewellery stores come out to give ritual fodder to the cows, but by sunset, it becomes a bustling eating joint with the option of a variety of Amdavadi fast food. Apart from this, discourses written by others about a building also wield great influence in opinion formation. Written stories and narratives weave individual opinions about spaces and buildings into the mind of the reader to form a collective perception of a building.

3

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

This thesis seeks to investigate how meanings emerge from different textual narratives, contributing towards a wider perception of a built space. In particular, it will explore three major kinds of texts that interweave to create a wholesome perception of a space or building – the historical, architectural and fictional texts. The discourse about IIM Ahmedabad – the old and the new campus is taken as a case to see how different kinds of texts intermingle with the building and create a larger narrative in time.

The reasons for focusing on texts and meanings as opposed to images are as follows: A static image may speak many stories and each individual may have their own way of looking at them but the oral and textual narratives enunciate more. Even between the oral and the text, writing of a text is a more deliberate action. In that sense, text is much more like ‘space’ than ‘place’; a ‘place’ being something that just happened due to several natural conditions and ‘space’ being something that was created deliberately. The text is a well-­ articulated presentation of narratives, not only retelling or imitating a story but also providing perspective on one’s own experiences. In many ways, oral accounts and images also affect the production of text. Text is a permanent record that helps in the circulation of these experiences and narrates them to many. It extrapolates valuable thought processes that are already present in the building by sieving them out, carrying them in words and circulating them. This influences both the individual and collective perception of space and architecture.

Much of the architectural studies today have focused on the study of images and process of translating those images into perceptible space and forms. Though the texts, in various forms, play an equally important role in the making and use of architecture, not enough attention has gone into studying or producing them, especially in the Indian context.

In this thesis, assortments of texts are carefully chosen for their different narrative roles. Texts that produce historical narratives set up a context in time in which a building was built. The other kind of text, the one that produces architectural narratives offers bold, professional, critical versions of the building and highlights the spatial qualities, architectural principles and construction aspects. Alongside these two exists another kind that offers fictional narratives – imaginative accounts that narrate events or stories that are either embedded in the space or impacted by the space.

4

Introduction

Why IIM- A? The Indian Institute of Management is widely acknowledged and valued for its quality in management education. Talks about this institute have been a household ritual in most homes where ambitious parents encourage their children to pursue the best. Amongst the seven IIMs present in India, two in particular are more revered – IIM Ahmedabad and Calcutta for these were the first two ‘original’ institutes of their kind. Between the two too, the IIM at Ahmedabad is most romanticised because of the mythical character that its architecture provides to the place. As one of the writings about this building says, “not all great institutions are housed in great architecture”. It is obvious that the space is equally revered as the place in IIMA. Forty-­five years later, when the institute was almost ready to celebrate its golden jubilee, another campus, across the busy road of the old IIMA, similar in function and half in area was created. Understandably the attention immediately shifted to the architecture of the new campus because that is central to the history of IIMA. It is an interesting task to put these texts together, interweave them, filter out meanings and form a new narrative of the story of the two campuses.

The Research Questions addressed by this thesis are: How do space and narrative intersect in a field of text?

When an individual narrates his experiences of a building, the text processes these thoughts in a readable manner and puts them in circulation. It is a version of oral narration that is frozen and archived in the form of written documents. Different texts about a building appear over a period of time, but all the versions exist simultaneously, and narrate different facets of the same building and present a range of opinions.

How do these texts circulate and how are they received?

Every writer writes the text to be read and then to be read a little more.

Who produces and who reads these texts are important to determine what version of the building is going where. When many of these narratives come together, much like epic and its little tales, a collective image of the building is formed.

What kind of mental images do texts create about spaces and buildings?

The function of text is only complete when the receiver reads it. The text produces a unique mental image of the building. This image might involve the physicality of the building – a part or whole of the building, an element of the building, for example the dome, the staircase, the balcony etc., the experience of movement throughout the building, unique constructional

5

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

innovations and other inward humanly experiences such as light, shadow, silence, peace, power that are attributed to the presence of the building.

Apart from that, the image might also involve a host of events carried out in a building, innumerable life experiences over so many years that later on, even the walls begin to narrate them. Then there is the constant context of time, stories about the nature of architectural and social practices at the time in which the texts were written. ‡ Do narratives change over time, if so why and what do they indicate?

Edward Hollis talks about the importance of the passage of time in a building. He talks of the building as a prized puppet built by the master architect, let loose in the society and then gradually, due to several interactions, becoming something of its own creation. As the building lives, probably, it acquires different meanings and the narratives and texts that carry them capture these changes ‡ How do they impact the production and perception of architecture?

Texts impact the present and next generation of architects and people using them. They produce ideas or ways of looking at building, the way it is perceived, the way it is built and in the way it is taught. When modernism and then post modernism had not even reached China and were terms exclusively used in the West, the Schools of architecture still taught these examples, resulting in the attempt to catch up with these eras in order to be at par with the West. The case of IIM-­A would be able to illustrate this further. “The function of imagination in poetry or myth, for example, is GHĂ€QHG DFFRUGLQJO\ DV WKH GLVFORVXUH RI XQSUHFHGHQWHG ZRUOGV DQ RSHQLQJ RQWR SRVVLEOH ZRUOGV ZKLFK WUDQVFHQG WKH OLPLWV RI RXU DFWXDO ZRUOG Âľ1 -­Richard Kearney

Research Methods: ‡ Identifying different kinds of narratives and texts where buildings are subjects of discussion: Three kinds of texts would be identified. In each of these texts, three large pieces, narrative in nature would be chosen. Since IIM-­A has not yet attained a legendary status of ruins like the Acropolis or the fort of Jhansi or Haldi Ghati at Abu, it doesn’t enjoy the presence of extremely engaging texts like our epics or folk tales, but there are other kinds of texts that can be explored, like articles appearing in the newspaper dailies, criticism in the architectural books and magazines, fictional novels and blogs narrating isolated experiences of people who have either lived in the building or visited it.

1 5LFKDUG .HDUQH\ 2Q 3DXO 5LFRHXU 7KH 2ZO RI 0LQHUYD $VKJDWH 3XEOLVKLQJ /LPLWHG SJ 6

Introduction

Finding out how texts produce meaning: Structure and content of a narrative is used as a key method to understand the meaning. Three terms, the event, setting and content are very important in this context. The event would be established in the form of a time line, covering the evidences of each event that enriches the building. The changing setting would be documented by marking the movement, which is taking place in the narrative, and the content would be churned out by evaluating one text against another to see how meanings intermingle.

Tabulating the appearance of the texts and the events: An overall table divided into decades would be set up. Any number of events, either in narrative time or clock time can be weighed against this table. Thus the production of texts over time can become clear. A second timeline is set up according to the events taking place in the main Historical narrative.

Events happening in other texts can now be weighed against this timeline. It is possible to see the subsidiary events that were happening around the main linear chain of events in the Historical narrative. Some of them may negate the main event and some may substantiate them. The third timeline is that of the fictional narrative. This takes place over a short period of time but the ups and downs of the events might imitate that of the larger timeline.

Overall when the three timelines are put together, repetitions in the nature of content might occur.

Examining intertextuality – Evaluating how one text interacts with another to produce meanings: Each text may tell a different story, involving a variety of notions about the building. But it does not exist in a field of texts that preceded it. Thus it is vital to demonstrate how a text though tries to constitute an autonomous, meaningful order, works in relation with others.

Scope and Limitations: All study material for the thesis is based on secondary sources.

Only writings in English are reviewed.

Exhaustive reviews of newspaper reports have not been undertaken, only important examples are considered.

IIM Ahmedabad would be the test case.

The thesis takes into account three kinds of texts written since the construction of the Old campus of IIMA (1960s) to the present time (2013).

7

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

Overview of Chapters: Chapter – 2 will explain the process followed in this thesis in detail. Beginning with the groundwork of how meanings can be connected, the chapter goes on to explain various concepts involved in the method followed in teasing out these meanings. First, it will introduce the term ‘narrative’ and how it can be used as a tool to evaluate texts, followed by various concepts involved in the understanding of a narrative like ‘event’, ‘setting’ and ‘plot’. Next, the idea of narrative will be dealt, followed by the function of the three kinds of texts i.e. the historical, architectural and the fictional. Finally, the concept of intertextuality and how it could be used to derive meanings out of multiple texts present in a singular field will be discussed.

Chapter – 3 will be a demonstration of the method outlined in chapter 2. The two campuses of IIM, Ahmedabad are taken for this purpose. This chapter will follow the same structure as that of chapter-­2. First, the corpus of texts will be discussed and then these texts would be arranged chronologically depending on their appearance. A chronological chain of events would follow through a description of the historical, architectural and fictional narratives. How these texts intermingle within these systems would be observed. The three systems would then be presented together, followed by the demonstration of the intertextual relations.

Chapter – 4 will conclude this thesis, posing the larger issue of the importance of architectural writing in creating meaning about a building. It will focus on how architectural writing in the west has saturated and reached a period of backlash and how the Indian context in contrast is just emerging. The chapter will also talk about how architectural writing in the newspapers are increasingly influencing perceptions. ´:KDW¡V \RXU VWRU\" ,W¡V DOO LQ WKH WHOOLQJ 6WRULHV DUH FRPSDVVHV DQG DUFKLWHFWXUH ZH QDYLJDWH E\ WKHP ZH EXLOG RXU VDQFWXDULHV DQG RXU SULVRQV RXW RI WKHP DQG WR EH ZLWKRXW D VWRU\ LV WR EH ORVW LQ WKH YDVWQHVV RI D ZRUOG WKDW VSUHDGV LQ DOO GLUHFWLRQV OLNH DUFWLF WXQGUD RU VHD LFH ¾ 5HEHFFD 6ROQLW

8

5HEHFFD 6ROQLW 7KH )DUDZD\ 1HDUE\ 9LNLQJ $GXOW -XQH WK

Chapter - 2 Concepts and processes 9

Concepts and Processes

Texts that are narrative in nature enable interpretation of a built space or an entire city, or even a society. These texts operate as different entities as well as together to produce collective meanings. Therefore, it is important to understand the relationship between text and narrative and how they operate together to form meanings. This chapter explains how meanings are constructed through texts and how different kinds of texts interact to produce a larger set of meanings.

For some theorists like David Olsen and other ‘formalists’, meaning is contained in a text and has to be extracted by the receiver. Other theorists, like Peter Holquist follow a dialogical model that states that text is the process of negotiation between the writer and the reader.1 Either way, a text cannot speak for itself and in order to produce meaning, it needs a writer as well as a reader.

Some of the meanings contained in a piece of text may be predetermined by the writer but others are derived by the reader. Similarly, in a building, some meanings are intentionally designed by the architect but others are extracted by the user, visitor or any onlooker of the building. In the case of a building, therefore, writing of the text is the second step. Meanings emerge from the experiences of an individual in or around a building. They are recorded in the mind of that individual and spoken out or written in the form of a narrative.

When this narrative is written, the individual gathers opinions and information, processes his own thoughts and then produces them in the form of a text. This is now open to the interpretation of the people who read it and consequently, when text goes into circulation, a variety of imaginary clones of the same building are formed.

Reading a text is a continual process of making inferences, evaluating its validity, relating them to prior experience, knowledge and viewpoint. This chapter will discuss the process of interpreting and ‘reading out’ meanings from a text in order to determine the statement of a society.

In this thesis, the text is divided in two parts – the structure and the content.

The narrative is the connector between structure and meaning. Therefore in order to understand the text, we need to look at the narrative first.

The Narrative: Narratives are all around us. Advertisers use stories to be able to persuade us to use their product. Writers of novels often weave complicated stories through which they examine ideas and events and eventually present it to us. Architects conjure up compositions in space, weaving simple shapes and complicated stories of the client’s lifestyle together into their own unique creation of building.

7H[WV DQG WKH &RQVWUXFWLRQ RI PHDQLQJ 'DQLHO &KDQGOHU 8:$

11

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

Ă€J 'LDJUDP VKRZLQJ WKH SURFHVV RI SURGXFWLRQ RI WH[WXDO QDUUDWLYHV

The above diagram shows that from the conception of a program, to conversations and discussions between the architect and the client, to the construction of the building, the building remains withing the small community of the architect, the client and all those involved in the creation of the building.

However, when it is built, it is placed in the public domain, where it starts interacting with the society and is open to perception. Hence, Oral, written and visual narratives emerge. The oral and the visual narratives also influence the text in some minor ways. This thesis will explore the emergence of three kinds of textual narratives about a building -­ the historical, the architectural and the fictional.

Concepts and Processes

The advertiser, the writer and the architect perform the same function -­ What they do is narrate.

A narrative is the representation of an event or a series of events. It is not the story itself but rather the ’telling’ of a story. While the story is just a sequence of events, a narrative recounts those events, perhaps leaving out some occurrences because they are insignificant to the course of the main narrative.

Narrative is a concept universal in nature. In fact, given its presence in almost all human discourses, it can be said that it is the most distinctive human trait after language itself. Understanding ‘meaning’ in a discourse has much to do with understanding the narrative for it is the primary tool through which we derive meaning out of the most mundane of things. For example, if we are presented with a static object such as a tattered book, we immediately create narratives around the book like its origin, its author, its content, and its journey through the tatters in order to make sense of its existence.

Without understanding narratives, we often feel that we don’t understand what we see. The following passages by Roland Barthes and Peter Brooks describe the universality of the narrative’s existence and also its role in perceiving meanings. ´7KH QDUUDWLYHV RI WKH ZRUOG DUH QXPEHUOHVV 1DUUDWLYH LV ÀUVW DQG IRUHPRVW D SURGLJLRXV YDULHW\ RI JHQUHV WKHPVHOYHV distributed amongst different substances -­ as though any PDWHULDO ZHUH ÀW WR UHFHLYH PDQ·V VWRULHV $EOH WR EH FDUULHG RXW E\ DUWLFXODWHG ODQJXDJH VSRNHQ RU ZULWWHQ À[HG RU PRYLQJ LPDJHV JHVWXUHV DQG WKH RUGHUHG PL[WXUH RI DOO WKHVH VXEVWDQFHV QDUUDWLYH LV SUHVHQW LQ P\WK OHJHQG IDEOH WDOH QRYHOOD HSLF KLVWRU\ WUDJHG\ GUDPD FRPHG\ PLPH SDLQWLQJ VWDLQ JODVV ZLQGRZV FLQHPD FRPLFV QHZV LWHPV FRQYHUVDWLRQ 0RUHRYHU XQGHU WKLV DOPRVW LQÀQLWH GLYHUVLW\ RI IRUPV QDUUDWLYH LV SUHVHQW LQ HYHU\ DJH LQ HYHU\ SODFH LQ HYHU\ VRFLHW\ LW EHJLQV ZLWK WKH YHU\ KLVWRU\ RI PDQNLQG DQG WKHUH QRZKHUH LV QRU KDV EHHQ D SHRSOH ZLWKRXW QDUUDWLYH $OO FODVVHV DOO KXPDQ JURXSV KDYH WKHLU QDUUDWLYHV HQMR\PHQW RI ZKLFK LV YHU\ RIWHQ VKDUHG E\ PHQ ZLWK GLIIHUHQW HYHQ RSSRVLQJ FXOWXUDO EDFNJURXQGV &DULQJ QRWKLQJ IRU WKH GLYLVLRQ EHWZHHQ JRRG DQG EDG OLWHUDWXUH QDUUDWLYH LV LQWHUQDWLRQDO WUDQVKLVWRULFDO WUDQVFXOWXUDO LW LV VLPSO\ WKHUH OLNH OLIH LWVHOI µ -­ Roland Barthes

´2XU YHU\ GHÀQLWLRQ DV KXPDQ EHLQJV LV ERXQG XS ZLWK WKH VWRULHV ZH WHOO DERXW RXU RZQ OLYHV DQG WKH ZRUOG LQ ZKLFK ZH OLYH :H FDQQRW LQ RXU GUHDPV RXU GD\ GUHDPV RXU DPELWLRXV IDQWDVLHV DYRLG WKH LPDJLQDWLYH LPSRVLWLRQ RI IRUP RQ OLIHµ3 3HWHU %URRNV

5RODQG %DUWKHV ´,QWURGXFWLRQ WR WKH 6WUXFWXUDO $QDO\VLV RI 1DUUDWLYHVµ +LOO DQG :DQJ SJ

3HWHU %URRNV 7KH /DZ RI 1DUUDWLYH DQG 5KHWRULFµ <DOH 8QLYHUVLW\ 3UHVV SJ 13

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

ÀJ 'LDJUDP VKRZLQJ WKH SURFHVV IROORZHG LQ WKLV &KDSWHU LQ RUGHU WR GHULYH PHDQLQJV IURP GLIIHUHQW NLQGV RI WH[WV

14

Concepts and Processes

The narrative typically consists of a setting, a plot, characters and a structure that ties them together. Therefore, a narrative consists of the elements of time, space and sequence of movement.

The Setting: A setting can mean a setting in time, space or even a social context. For example, a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;historical settingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; implies the taking place of an event in a particular era in history of time. Nevertheless, a setting usually implies the presence of space.

Where will the story take place? Will it travel from one place to another?

Needless to say, for the purpose of this thesis, the setting in space remains IIM Ahmedabad, the old and the new campus, though movement might take place within the campuses depending upon what each narrative wants to convey. The setting in time however varies throughout the narratives, simply because of the time in which they were produced, giving rise to an interesting chain of perception across a timeline.

The Notion of Space: The whole notion of a narrativeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s progression or movement from A to B implies that there is such a thing as narrative space. A narrative must advance to its end whilst simultaneously delaying it and in lingering, a narrative occupies space.

Therefore in progressing towards an ending, the narrative takes several detours which involve a change in space. For example, in the famous book The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy is swept away into an unknown land of Munchkins and in order to return home, she follows the yellow brick path from the North, through a forest, a deadly poppy field, to the Emerald City, to the West â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the country of the Winkies back to the land of Oz, to the South â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the Country of the Quadlings and finally back home.4 The Notion of Time: While the movement of narrative implies space, it must always involve time.

Paul Ricoeur understands time and narrative as being on intimate terms precisely because narrative is the human relation to time.5 Narrative is the principle way in which our species organizes its understanding of time. Apart from the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;clockâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; time that tells us the universal precise time with respect to other countries, this is a more human way of relating to time. A narrative introduces us to the concept of time in relation to delays, pauses, events, incidents, twists, climax and the end. It depends on the way a story is narrated that we understand progression of time. Whatever we see in this world, we seek to grasp not only in space but in time as well. Narrative gives us this understanding, it gives us what could be called the shape of time. Here we can introduce a term â&#x20AC;&#x153;narrative timeâ&#x20AC;?.

Narrative time is the notion of time in a particular narrative.

%DXP / )UDQN ´7KH :RQGHUIXO :L]DUG RI 2]¾ $UF 0DQRU //& 3DXO 5LFRHXU ´7LPH DQG 1DUUDWLYH¾ 8QLYHUVLW\ RI &KLFDJR 3UHVV 15

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

It may or may not coincide with our clock time, but it is how the narrative wants the reader to perceive time with respect to the event. ´3HRSOH GRQ¡W VHH WKH ZRUOG EHIRUH WKHLU H\HV XQWLO LWV SXW LQ QDUUDWLYH PRGH ,W LV KXPDQ WHQGHQF\ WR LQVHUW QDUUDWLYH WLPH LQWR VWDWLF LPPRELOH VFHQHV ¾6

The Event : The event is the most essential part of the narrative. An elaborate narrative will have a long chain of events, repetition of certain kinds of events, all arranged around different conceptions of time. The events form the main content of the narrative, it ties itself into a plot i.e. the chain of events occurring in the narrative. It is the occurrence of the event, the pause between them and the recurrence of the event that contribute to the notion of time that the narrative imparts. In the case of The Wizard of Oz, the event may include Dorothy getting swept away by a cyclone to the Land of the Munchkins, she meeting the good witch of the North, getting her silver shoes, being blessed by the witch, following the yellow brick road, meeting the scarecrow, the tin-­man and the lion, taking all of them to the Land of Oz, finally reaching the Emerald City to meet the great Oz, having to destroy the wicked witch of the west, wrestling with the winged monkeys, making the journey back to Oz, discovering his true identity, the journey to the Land of Quadlings, being blessed by the good witch of the South and finally being blown back to Kansas, her home.

The Plot: Simply put, a plot is the sequence of events in the course of a narrative. It is not just what happens in a story, it is a pattern of cause and effect or a set of conflicts that affect the equilibrium of a situation. The characters respond to these situations of conflict to come to some form of resolution. Again, in the case of Wizard of Oz, the plot involves the causation of the aforementioned events, i.e., being kissed on the forehead by the Good witch of the North so that she will be able to protect her throughout her journey, the scarecrow wanting to come for a brain, the tin-­man for a heart and the lion for courage, the destruction of the wicked witch in order to gain the Wizardâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s trust. So each event causes a chain of other events and they form a part of the plot.

Text and narration: At a semantic level, text can be said to constitute a certain unity of meaning, which contains sequences of sentences. A text can be percieved as a component of the narrative that determines the channels or modes through which a message is transmitted. Between the oral and the written discourse, the written discourse possesses the ability to be kept away, stored intact, to be re-­read and re-­analysed

$EERWW 3RUWHU + 7KH &DPEULGJH LQWURGXFWLRQ WR 1DUUDWLYH &DPEULGJH 8QLYHUVLW\ 3UHVV SJ 16

Concepts and Processes

one day. Our experiences in a building might remain experiences until they are materialised in the form of text. The material form of text therefore, is important for a cohesive meaning to exist.

Narrative texts include both non-­fiction (e.g. memoirs) and fiction (e.g. novels).

In this thesis, texts are categorised into three kinds : Historical, Architectural and Fictional texts.

Historical Text: Architecture has always been an important part of any Historical narrative.

Every Historical event has taken place in or around a building. Sometimes, it is by the creation of a building that new events appear and an entire dynasty progresses. In fact, buildings are so inherent to these narratives that their reference is almost involuntary. The first book of Iliad almost exclusively is written against the setting of the Mycenaean Acropolis. ´$QG QH[W FDPH WKH PHQ ZKR KHOG $WKHQV ZHOO EXLOW FLWDGHO FRPPXQLW\ RI JUHDW KHDUWHG (UHFKWKHXV ZKRP RQFH $WKHQD UDLVHG GDXJKWHU RI =HXV DQG WKH JUDLQ JLYLQJ SORXJK ODQG ERUH DQG VKH VHWWOHG KLP LQ $WKHQV LQ KHU RZQ ULFK WHPSOH ¾ -­Iliad

The idea of history, as R. G. Collingwood writes is to find out the actions of people done in the past. It proceeds by interpreting evidence such as documents, things that exists in the here and now, of such a kind that the historian, by thinking about it can get answers to questions he asks about past events.7 The value of history therefore is that it teaches us what man has done and therefore what man is.

A Historical text is a set of events in the past that set up a context in time for the events happening in the present. It is the record of human actions, events that are marked, documented and remembered. A historic narrative could be an interpretation of these events. With respect to a building, it is a narrative written several years after the creation of the building and about any event in relation to the building.

In the Indian context too, architecture has often been given major importance in historical texts. The temples in Srirangam, Chidambaram, Dwaraka, Konark, the Taj mahal, the Qutb Minar â&#x20AC;&#x201C; all narrate their own stories and play their own role in historical narratives. Events that took place in a built space throughout history generate a set of experiences and hence they give meaning over time to the building itself.

5 * &ROOLQJZRRG œ7KH ,GHD RI +LVWRU\¡ 2[IRUG 8QLYHUVLW\ 3UHVV

17

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

´6LWXDWLRQV DUH WKH UHFHSWDFOHV RI H[SHULHQFH DQG RI WKRVH HYHQWV ZKLFK VHGLPHQW LQ WKHP D PHDQLQJ QRW MXVW DV VXUYLYDOV RU UHVLGXHV EXW DV WKH LQYLWDWLRQ WR D VHTXHO WKH QHFHVVLW\ RI D IXWXUH 6LWXDWLRQV HQGRZ H[SHULHQFH ZLWK GXUDEOH GLPHQVLRQV LQ UHODWLRQ WR ZKLFK D ZKROH VHULHV RI RWKHU H[SHULHQFHV ZLOO DFTXLUH PHDQLQJ ZLOO IRUP DQ LQWHOOLJLEOH VHULHV RU D KLVWRU\ 7KH ULFKQHVV RI VLWXDWLRQV GHSHQGV RQ WKH UHYHUEHUDWLRQV RI PHDQLQJ WKURXJK WKH GHSWKV RI WKHLU KLVWRU\ ¾8 9HVHO\

What it does: Paul Ricoeur elaborates on the necessity to explore our contemporary questions through an interpretation of historical artifacts, principally through language and the text. Historical documents and artifacts provide a permanent record of human history, records that must be constantly re-­examined in all its dimensions.

It is to history, as made by humankind, that we must pose our difficult and troubling questions.

The interpretation of history therefore, is intimately related to an understanding of the narrative, for the recorded singular events of the past form narrative stories. These stories, interspersed in the sequence of events that happened in the historical artefact (the building), merge together in the form of historical documents to give the artefact a new meaning, something more than just the artefact by itself. In a sense, historical narratives allow us to perceive the relationship between architecture, meaning and time.

For example, the Critical history of Modern Architecture by Kenneth Frampton explored the creation of several architectural projects from 1836 to 1964. Each chapter talks about the architect, the events that took place during the time of the project and the personal events that took place in the architectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life that could possibly have resulted in certain decisions made pertaining to the project in question. The architecture is not discussed as much as the idea or the origin of the concept behind a particular project.

From 1836 to 1964, the book covers a host of architects starting with Adler and Sullivan where he talks about the shift from ornamentation to the appearance of the high rise and the situations that pushed them in this direction. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Before joining Dankmar Adler in 1879, Louis Sullivan had received a somewhat varied education; formally at two prestigious academies, where on each occasion he stayed for somewhat under a year; at MIT in 1872 then at JAE Vaudremerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s atelier in the Ecole des Beaux-­Arts, Paris in 1874. Between these Academic

/LYHVH\ *UDKDP 1DUUDWLYH (SKHPHUDOLW\ DQG DUFKLWHFWXUH RI WKH FRQWHPSRUDU\ FLW\ 6FKRRO RI $UFKLWHFWXUH 0F*LOO 8QLYHUVLW\ 0RQWUpDO 18

Concepts and Processes

forays, Sullivan worked for a year in Frank Furness’ office in Philadelphia, a year which proved critical to his carrier, not only because of his experience of Furness’ ‘orientalised’ Gothic manner – an episode which had an enduring effect on his own approach to ornament – but also because he met the young intellectual architect John Edelman, who introduced him, after 1875, to the Chicago architectural establishment – first to William Le Baron Jenny, later to become the pioneer of steel frame construction in his fair store of 1982, and then to Dankmar Adler. Edelman’s unusual cultivation, including his anarcho-­ socialist views, derived from Morris and Kropotkin, exercise an influence over Sullivan’s theoretical development, evidenced in the latter’s Kindergarten Chats of 1901.“ Frampton claims that during the early years of their careers, Adler and Sullivan were preoccupied with meeting the urgent demands of Chicago. Chicago, it seems was then in the process of being rebuilt as the Mid-­Western Capital after its destruction by fire in 1871.

Then he moves on to Sullivan’s own student, Frank Lloyd Wright and the myth of the prairie. He talks about how the former influenced Wright and his early career and his tendency to oscillate between the authority of classical order and the vitality of asymmetrical form.

All other chapters from here onwards follow the same structure, of introducing where the architect came from, putting him on a map with respect to the modern era, sprinkling the little chapters with anecdotes of their early life and the issues they dealt with. The architects and ideas that are talked of are Charles Renee Mackintosh and his Glasgow School, Antonio Sant’Elia and the futuristic architecture, referring to the eleven points of futurist manifesto, some of which called for the destruction of academic institutions of any kind. Then comes Adolf Loos and the crisis of culture, where ‘ornament’ is talked of again and Loos poses his argument against it, saying that it is not only wasteful in labour but also entails a form of craft slavery. Tony Garnier then makes an appearance with his industrial city, followed by Auguste Perret and the evolution of Classical rationalism.

“In the beginning, architecture is only wooden framework. In order to overcome fire one builds in hard material. And the prestige of the wooden frame is such that one reproduces all its traits, including the heads of the nails.”

-­ Perret The book then takes on different ideas evolving over different periods such as the European architectural Expressionism, the Bauhaus, new Objectivity and Neo-­ Plasticism, after which Le Corbusier enters the picture. Now Le Corbusier enters the picture multiple times appearing at the center of varied ideas and at various

19

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

points in time. We then encounter Mies-­Van-­der Rohe, Alvar Aalto and then finally, in the end, Buckminster Fuller, Philip Johnson and Louis Kahn. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The fundamental themes of Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s subsequent career are basically outlined in this remarkable passage, from the notion of conceptually transposing solid and void, -­ to the idea of explicitly integrating mechanical systems with the structure and important corollary that the universal ordering principle (what the building wants to be) could only make itself manifest through the revelation of the constructional process. Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rejection of a simple minded if socially committed functionalism in favour of architecture capable of transcending utility, led him to postulate a parallel approach to urban form. â&#x20AC;&#x153; Each chapter in this book can be considered to be a Historical text placed in different periods of time. The book makes all these periods exist simultaneously for us to get a chronological continuum of events in a larger field. In essence it portrays an evolution of architectural thought by citing examples through a

Ă&#x20AC;J &KDUOHV -HQFNVŇ&#x2039;HYROXWLRQDU\ WUHH RI 7ZHQWLHWK &HQWXU\ $UFKLWHFWXUH -HQFNVŇ&#x2039;V WKHRU\ RI HYROXWLRQ $UFKLWHFWXUDO 5HYLHZ -XO\

Concepts and Processes

period of time, in order to establish the idea of modern architecture in a larger sense. In some way, it is the narrative version of Charles Jencks’s evolutionary tree of the 20th century.

This is where historical texts are useful. These texts enunciate certain meanings and in the course of time become a vehicle for a specific and fully-­fledged point of view that can be called a theory.

“As past is gathered onto the present and the gathering body of experience finds a home in the mind, the present acquires temporal depth – loses its acrid instantaneity, its razorblade quality. One might call this the interiorization of time, or time rendered transparent” Aldo Van Eyck. The interior of time.

Architectural Text: The Architectural text is of a simpler kind.The human experience through the physical space provides for a sequence of events that can be described as an architectural narrative. Architectural narrative can consist of a description of space through movement or even a text containing guidelines on the concept of architectural making. Architecture itself can also become an event, against the backdrop of other historical events. For example, when a dynasty takes over a land, their first act is to build in order to mark their territory. Another example could be the shaping up of modern architecture during the industrial revolution.

Another example could be building a monument for commemorating victory or in the memory of the loss of a loved one, like the Taj Mahal built in the memory of Humayun’s beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal.

More precisely, the architectural text refers to professional texts involving critical architectural observations and opinions. Typically, these are found in architectural books, magazines and newsletters. These works analyse in detail the aspects of individual buildings or cities. They could also talk about buildings in context to an era of building, building material or construction technique etc.

Extraordinary architecture addresses more than mere practical considerations. It inspires and provokes while creating a seamless experience of the physical world for its users. Architectural writing can frame the discussion of a building in a way that allows the reader to see it with new eyes.

An architectural text often involves a historical dimension when one is talking about the buildings mentioned above. The ruins of the Acropolis and the organization of the temple at Madurai are a glorified topic even in the architectural world. Principles of architecture are taught through these buildings. The evolution of architecture is retraced through such historic buildings. The historical texts narrate a set of events against the backdrop of these buildings , where the making of the building has very little role to play

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

while in the architectural texts, the building and its components become the central subject of discussion.

Buildings become subjects of architectural discussion well before they are built sometimes, sometimes immediately after they are built. It is very rare for a building to remain the subject of discussion stretching over a long period of time today. Works of masters like Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Kahn are explored often to learn from them or teach about them.

Therefore an architectural text may discuss the elements of architecture, the principles of architecture, the function of a particular piece of architecture or it might refer to the producer or the architect, the event of architectural movements or sometimes it might even explore the discipline of architecture itself.

Let us consider three examples of architectural texts starting from the ancient text of Vitruvius – Ten Books on Architecture. Being an ancient text, it cannot be confused with the ‘historical text’ as it does not contain documented ‘events’ about a building or about architecture in general. Instead, it dictates the discipline of architecture.

This set of books covers a host of topics like the ideal education of an architect, the fundamental principleas of architecture, the city , its walls, streets and sites.

The second book talks about the house, materials such as brick, sand, lime, pozzolana, stone, timber and the methods of construction. The third book covers the human body, its symmetry and its use in ancient temples, the proportions of columns, the foundations and substructures of temples and then the ionic oreder.

The fourth book covers the corinthian capital along with several other temples and their principles. Book four graduates to the basilica, the theatre, colonaddes and baths. Book six is all about climate and the client while the seventh on einvolves colour, the eighth talks about water systems, the ninth about astrology and the weather and the tenth talks about the practice, machines and cost overruns.

It is noticeable right away that the order of columns and colonaddes is very important to Vitruvius. He talks about these elements in every book.

Another text that can be considered is Corbusier’s Towards a New Archiecture and Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction, both of which talk about the discipline again, guiding us through their own experiences to what they percieve as the correct way to build.

In the book Towards a new architecture Corbusier talks about his travels, his notions of the basics in architecture, the role of an engineer and a constructor, the importance of learning from history and about architecture being one of the

Concepts and Processes

urgent needs of man.

“The Architect, by his argument of forms, realizes an order which is a pure creation of his spirit; by forms and shapes he affects our senses to an acute degree and provokes plastic emotions; by the relationships which he creates he wakes in us profound echoes, he gives us the measure of an order which we feel to be in accordance with that of our world, he determines the various movements of our heart and of our understanding; it is then that we experience the sense of beauty” In the book Thinking Architecture, Peter Zumthor expresses his motivation in designing buildings that possess a powerful, unmistakable presence and personality that speaks to our inner being and touches our feelings and understanding deeply.

“When I concentrate on a specific site or place for which I am going to design a building, when I try to plumb its depths, its form, its history, and its sensuous qualities, images of other places start to invade this process of precise observation: images of places I know and that once impressed me, images of ordinary or special places that I carry with me as inner visions of specific moods and qualities; images of architectural situations, which emanate from the world of art, or films, theater or literature.”

Other than these grand narratives, the architectural text can also appear as small essays concentrating only on single buildings.

An essay called The hidden meanings of Villa Savoye by Joshua Wong refers to the building as an iconic purist milestone. It says “the building is of importance to the development of ideas in architecture and also its status as an iconic purist milestone, in particular, of modernist architectural ideas.” The essay then goes on to investigate the hidden meanings in the villa. It says that the villa, even during Corbusier’s time was important enough to be considered as a historical yet modern monument.

“In this sense, the meaning of the preservation of Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye is not merely in its importance as a building and an exposition of the architect’s ideals, but more significantly in its representative symbolism of the Modern Movement and the place of this movement in architectural history.”

Another building to be considered a milestone is the Lloyd’s building by Richard Rogers in London. Many confide that this building is what may be called a successor to the Modern movement and that in spite of it being seen as an offspring of the famous Pompidou Centre because of its appearance, its principles are considered to be drawn from what Louis Kahn described as

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

‘servant and served’ spaces. An article introduces the building with this point saying “The Lloyd’s Building functionalist separation of ‘served and servant’ and its derived aesthetics can be traced back, as explained by Rogers, to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Larkin Building (1905) and G.E. Street’s Law Courts building (1882).”

It talks about the building being a milestone in the ‘High tech’ movement.

Reflecting what is undoubtedly the trademark of the High-­ tech movement, the building aesthetics explicitly reflect their origins in building technology and engineering. Each discrete element expresses its function as the ‘formal’ solution of pragmatic problem solving. The overall building, it says ‘is an assembled kit of these parts and seems to hover between completeness and incompleteness, achieving Richard Rogers’ avowed search for ‘a balance between permanence and transformation.’

The article talks of the use of engineered ‘energy conscious’ systems within the building (tripled-­glazed glass, passive solar gain, heat exchange, etc.) as the attribute of the building that has turned it into a landmark project for energy efficient design.

In today’s time, a building, which is widely discussed, is the Jewish Museum

by Daniel Libeskind. A description of this museum is available in the form of architectural writing: “As a whole, the building reflects a fragmented, disorientating and uncomfortable subjectivity through its fractured vertical and horizontal planes and the vertiginous effects of its towering, cavernous spaces. This gallery of spatially and emotionally disturbing effects, including the ‘incoherent’ system of circulation, culminates in the void spaces, which are charged with the presentation of absolute absence. In these profoundly affecting spaces, harboured at the spatial and metaphorical centre of the museum, is represented the tragic failure of the Enlightenment project, simultaneously with the memory of its human victims.”

What it does: Architectural texts can cover a wide range of topics in terms of scale, usage, location and period. In terms of scale the texts offer examples ranging from small building elements, such as columns explained extensively for example in Vitruvius’ treatise to large architectural artifacts such as a town or a city (Image of a city by Kevin Lynch). Sometimes, vernacular architecture makes its way into these texts as an example for learning from the local, intuitive ways of making. As these texts are produced over a period of time, they not only include the architecture of their period, but also examples from earlier periods.

The Vitruvius treatise, for example, exemplifies many Greek buildings from an earlier period. Greek temples in turn appear in many other works since then, for

Concepts and Processes

example Le Corbusierâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Towards a new Architecture, they appear to justify his modern, visionary architecture.

The architectural text therefore provides a context in space through which we can map the simultaneous presence of architectural ideas. Inquiring into architectural texts can also provide an interpretation of architectural knowledge that is carried in the corpus of texts. We can derive meanings and map them thusly. Let us examine this with the following examples.

The older texts refer to architectural elements as elements of construction while the newer texts such as Robert Venturiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Complexity and contradictionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; refer to mass and space as architectural elements.

The ancient writings considered architecture as composed of building elements while in recent times, writings are less interested in discussing the physical elements of architecture and more interested in the experience or perception of space. Corbusier and Bacon state what they consider to be architecture as follows: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Architecture is the articulation of space so as to produce in the SDUWLFLSDWRU D GHĂ&#x20AC;QLWH VSDFH H[SHULHQFH LQ UHODWLRQ WR SUHYLRXV DQG DQWLFLSDWHG VSDFH H[SHULHQFH Âľ -­Bacon

´7KH *UHHNV WKH 5RPDQV WKH *UDQG 6LqFOH 3DVFDO DQG 'HVFDUWHV ZURQJO\ DGGXFWHG DV ZLWQHVV LQ IDYRXU RI WKH GHFRUDWLYH DUWV KDYH HQOLJKWHQHG RXU MXGJHPHQW DQG ZH QRZ Ă&#x20AC;QG RXUVHOYHV LPPHUVHG LQ DUFKLWHFWXUH ZKLFK LV HYHU\WKLQJ EXW WKLV LV QRW WKH GHFRUDWLYH DUWV Âľ -­ Corbusier

According to Alberti however, the principles of architecture lay in the beauty of proportion, in the coming together of surface. He says: ´7KH ZKROH IRUFH DQG UXOH RI WKH GHVLJQ FRQVLVW LQ D ULJKW DQG H[DFW DGDSWLQJ DQG MRLQLQJ WRJHWKHU WKH OLQHV DQG DQJOHV ZKLFK FRPSRVH DQG IRUP WKH IDFH RI WKH EXLOGLQJ ,W LV WKH SURSHUW\ DQG EXVLQHVV RI WKH GHVLJQ WR DSSRLQW WR WKH HGLĂ&#x20AC;FH DQG DOO LWV SDUWV WKHLU SURSHU SODFHV GHWHUPLQDWH QXPEHU MXVW SURSRUWLRQ DQG EHDXWLIXO RUGHU VR WKDW WKH ZKROH IRUP RI WKH VWUXFWXUH EH SURSRUWLRQDEOH Âľ

The simultaneous presence of these texts allows us to map the changing perceptions of architecture. When several texts are present simultaneously about one building, changing perceptions about space can be mapped by mapping the change in perception of that building.

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

Fictional Text: The Fictional text has been a part of us since our childhood days. All the stories, legends, myths that are part truth, part imagination are fiction. Common folk tales, fairy tales, novels of all genres are fictional in nature. It is much like the historical text except that it is imaginary and exaggerated in nature. It has an imaginary set of events revolving around a real or imaginary subject. The fictional narrative, being the most flexible kind, has the ability to navigate easily between the historical and architectural texts. It creates the possibility of looking beyond what exists and the ability to address what is essential. In many ways, this text behaves like a receiver of the other two texts, especially the historical text to create a new form of opinion.

Architecture manages to make its presence felt quite strongly even in fictitious works. The very fact that a building is considered for a work of fiction indicates the importance of the building. The building might have churned out hundreds of stories over years of existence to be able to appear in a fictional novel.

There has been a great deal of Novels written about architects for centuries now.

Martin Chuzzlewit, by Charles Dickens revolves around Martin, a young man who is disinherited by his grandfather and ends up joining a greedy architect as an intern. The Master Builder, by Henrik Ibsen is a mysterious, symbolic, and lyrical drama about the life of architect Halvard Solness, once ruthlessly ambitious, but who, in his later years, not only feels threatened by the younger generation but also fears the decay of his own creativity. The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand is the story of an uncompromising architect, his violent battle against convention and his affair with a woman who threatens to defeat him. It is widely speculated that this book is broadly based on the life of Frank Lloyd Wright. Another book, The Women by T.C.Boyle narrates the same story from the point of view of many women in Wrightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life.

A book called Delirium, a Novel, by Douglas Cooper is organized into three themes: Plan, Elevation, Section. It is a thrilling story of ideas than spans continents and centuries, a psychological tour encompassing murder, the history of architectural modernism, and the nature of evil.

However, other works of fiction also involuntarily involve architectural references when referring to the built environment. In the Hunchback of Notre dam by Alexander Dumas, for example, references to the church cannot be avoided not only because of the role of the protagonist but because it sets an important context to the story. One can immediately recognise the building and visualise the story when one gets to visit the church.

In the Indian context, a book by Chetan Bhagat Five Point Someone is entirely

Concepts and Processes

staged in the campus of IIT-­Delhi. It revolves around the lives of three students, doing whatever it takes to survive the gruelling institution.

The book, Invisible cities by Italo Calvino is also a good example of fictional text.

The book is a dialogue between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, where the former narrates tales about cities that he has visited, their magical nature and their unique characteristics. Towards the end of the book, Kublai Khan tells Marco Polo about the cities that he has imagined in his mind. These cities are rarely built of bland bricks and mortar. They are full of aluminium springs, silver domes, crystal, bronze, seashells, high bastions, curved arcades, nets, banisters, awnings, dirigibles, globes, pagodas, gratings, garrets, pilings, verandahs, parapets and porphyry steps. The pieces are divided into categories by their titles, although themes often overlap between them. There are also stories of Cities & Signs that speculate upon how buildings define their function and how the signs of the city repeat themselves. Calvino then sums it up as follows: “Kublai asked Marco: “You, who go about exploring and who see signs, can tell me toward which of these futures the favoring winds are driving us.”

“For these ports I could not draw a route on the map or set a date for the landing.

At times all I need is a brief glimpse, an opening in the midst of an incongruous landscape, a glint of light in the fog, the dialogue of two passersby meeting in the crowd, and I think that, setting out from there, I will put together, piece by piece, the perfect city, made of fragments mixed with the rest, of instants separated by intervals, of signals one sends out, not knowing who receives them.

If I tell you that the city toward which my journey tends is discontinuous in space and time, now scattered, now more condensed, you must not believe the search for it can stop. Perhaps while we speak, it is rising, scattered, within the confines of your empire; you can hunt for it, but only in the way I have said.”

In the fictional narrative itself, Kublai Khan, after listening to Marco Polo’s stories about the cities that he had visited, had re-­created an entire city for himself in his mind, assimilated with fragments from all the cities that Marco Polo talked about. This is the imaginary clone that a Fictional text can provide for us.

What it does: Therefore fictional text almost acts as the receiver of both the historical and architectural texts. It hold within itself, an imaginary extrapolation of the existing building, adding value by the presence of events, movement, description of the desired space etc.

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

´$OO ZULWWHQ GLVFRXUVH LV FRJQLWLYH LQ LWV DLPV DQG PLPHWLF LQ LWV PHDQV $QG WKLV LV WUXH HYHQ RI WKH PRVW OXGLF DQG VHHPLQJO\ H[SUHVVLYLVW GLVFRXUVH RI SRHWU\ QR OHVV WKDQ RI SURVH DQG HYHQ WKRVH IRUPV RI SRHWU\ ZKLFK VHHP WR LOOXPLQDWH RQO\ ÂśZULWLQJ LWVHOI¡ ,Q WKLV UHVSHFW KLVWRU\ LV QR OHVV D IRUP RI Ă&#x20AC;FWLRQ WKDQ WKH QRYHO LV D IRUP RI KLVWRULFDO UHSUHVHQWDWLRQ Âľ9

How the three texts work together: When text circulates, the three kinds of texts intermingle. The historical text, narrates the past of a building, the architectural text narrates the space of a building and the fictional text bridges the two and provides an image, an idea, an opinion or an imaginary clone. For example, the historical texts about the Vatican City talk about how the Vatican was originally residence of the Pope and contained within itself several other cities but during the Italian unification in the nineteenth century, many states that belonged to the Vatican became a part of the country of Italy. Then, The papal power was abolished in Italy and was restricted to the Vatican City. The texts talk about the creation of the St. Peters Basillica, the square, the Sistine Chapel and various other Churches present in the city and the Lateran treaty that later gave autonomy to the holy city, making it a separate entity from the country of Italy.

The architectural texts talk about the architectural elements of the building â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the proportioning of the Pantheon, the use of concrete in those early days, the order of the columns, the dome of St. Peterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s basillica and the nature of St. Peterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s square.

The fictional text, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Angels and Demonsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; by Dan Brown however, narrates a fictional tale of the people of Vatican, or the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;men of Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; having to fight with an old enemy â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Illuminatiâ&#x20AC;? who were earlier the men of science. This work of fiction walks us through the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;path of illluminationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; in order to find a ticking bomb, essentially covering every cathedral in the city and uses the sculptures of Berninini as markers to find the next cathedral in the path. Therefore, history and architecture come together in this book because of the spinning of a narrative in the contemporary times, a narrative that relied on historical facts.

Through this book, the history of the Vatican comes alive in its buildings, the presence of every dome, every obelisk , every sculpture and even the shape of St Peterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s square start making sense against the narrative of this text.

This leads us to our next point -­ intertextuality.

'DQD $UQROG œ5HDGLQJ $UFKLWHFWXUDO +LVWRU\¡ 5RXWOHGJH SJ

Concepts and Processes

Intertextuality: In this thesis, we are interested in not only describing meaning of single texts, but also intend to derive specific objects, themes and concepts that are produced and reproduced in a field made up of several texts. Intertextuality can refer to two things. One is that when an individual writes a book or an articles, he has already an array of texts about the subject he is writing on and therefore the resultant text for sure contains elements from the texts that he has previously read. Therefore, each text carries within itself traces of another text.

ÀJ 'LDJUDP VKRZLQJ WKH LQWHUPLQJOLQJ RI GLIIHUHQW WH[WV ZKHQ WKH\ DUH SUHVHQ LQ RQH ÀHOG VLPXOWDQHXRXVO\

The other meaning, relevant to this thesis is that whe one is presented with a corpus of texts about a subject, each text relies on the other and certain common denomitations of meanings emerge. One texts can become the context for the other and a subject appearing in the background of one text might become central in another.

Hence the intention is to understand a text, its context in time, space and its relation to other texts. To understand the context in time, three kinds of timelines are set up -­ the first is a timeline with the real clock, the second, the timeline of events and the third is a fictional timeline. Analysis is thus performed at a supra-­textual level where a textual field consisting of many texts is used to demonstrate changing patterns in the perception of a building. At this level, there is no analysis at the level of a singular text or the choices made by it within a textual universe.

Let us consider the book Much Maligned Monsters by Partha Mitter. In this book, Mitter is interested in the reception of Indian art in Europe. According to him, ‘on one hand, it still remains a misunderstood tradition in the modern west, whose aesthetic qualities are yet to be appreciated. On the other hand, possibly no other non-­European artistic tradition has been responsible for so much discussion among the intellectuals from the very end of the middle ages.” Mitter then analyses texts written by several intellectuals about Indian art over the ages to arrive at a collective history of the Western reactions. While he reads through

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

these texts, he realises that in the early days, Indian art was not recognised in the West because of their scewed understanding of Indian gods as demons.

The architecture however, starting with the caves at Ellora and the pagodas at Mamallapuram were treated as wonderous creations. Mitter describes how the presence of one text influenced another and that in turn promoted more and more people to write about a particular subject, in this case, the Ellora caves.

He starts with the first few European travellers to India. Raymond Schwab for example, wrote that despite the influence that the discovery of Indian civilization had weilded on Europe, the admiration for Indian culture never included the appreciation of the Indian visual arts. Although some travellers appreciated the formal aspects of Indian art like the temple, it did not necessarily mean that they were also interested in the iconography. He then goes on to talk about how the opinions of different travellers changed the opinion of the West about Indian art. The friar Odoric of Pordenone visited a number of places in South India and left a description of a monstrous idol in the form of half man, half ox. He spun his own story around the presence of this beast. The writings of Yule, later suggested that the idol must be the great rock cut Buddha figures of Bamian in Afghanistan.

Odoric’s story was further strengthened by other travelles like Sir John Mandeville. Therefore the West was well aquainted with the Indian gods but their general portrayal was very vague. The Western image of Indian gods received an entirely new and sharp definition with the publication of Varthema’s Itenerario. He clearly stated that the King of Calicut adored the devil, referring to an idol of God in his chapel.

While the hindu work of art was being looked at as demonic worship, the architecture however was percieved as delicate craftsmenship. The sculptures on the walls of the Elephanta caves never failed to please the travellers. Thus more and more European travellers started coming to India to witness th e ‘sublime’ and picturesque elements in Indian architecture. This shift happened because of Edmund Burke’s essay which equated sublime to beauty. It said “Not only was the sublime capable of arousing the strongest emotions, but it had become a viable alternative to beauty in matters of taste.” The influence of Burke’s statement can be seen in the drawings of Thomas and William Danielle who traversed the country and produced some of the finest illustration of Indian architecture. This in turn influenced the writings of Maria Grahm who travelled to India because of her interest in the country. Her writings about the Karle cave in Ellora initiated James Forbes to spend over ten years in India to produce two volumes on the country and its culture. After the publishing of his Oriental Memoirs, several other texts were published about the cave temples at Ellora, for example, J.B. Seely’s The wonders of Ellora and Bishop Reginald Heber’s published journal.

Concepts and Processes

Another example of intertextuality can be The Historiography of Modern Architecture by Panayotis Tournikiotis. In the book, Tournikiotis is interested in analysing a corpus of texts related to the history of modern architecture.

His argument is that these texts have wielded a powerful influence on the course of architecture over decades and indeed still do, as most of these texts are still in print. He chooses as a common ground for all the literature, the architectural events of the modern movement, since in one way or another they all deal with the same object. And yet, he says “the genealogies, interpretations and descriptions they give of that object differ widely enunciating different discourses based on different beliefs about society, history and architecture” This therefore must mean that the narratives exist simultaneously in a plural number, each relating to the same series of events in a different manner.

A parallel reading of these historical texts should reveal the shifts in this discursive formation in contrast to its relatively stable object (the modern movement).

After an in-­depth reading of the writings by Behne, Adolf Platz, Bruno Taut, Walter Curt Behrendt, Nikolaus Pevsner, Emil Kaufmann, Giedion, Reyner Benham etc. he says in the end: “After examining in succession all these texts called the histories of modern architecture and which have shown us so many events from so many different points of view and through so many different options, we reach the point of being able to talk about the elimination of reality. There are neither facts nor architecture: we have only narrative. The Bauhaus virgin and pristine, as most writers preferred it, the Bauhaus ruined as Leonardo Benevolo liked it, the Bauhaus restored as we can see it today – in none of the cases does it have signifying value as a building.

However after 1960, we can see a decisive change coming about in the histories of our corpus. Historical thinking now addresses differences as opposed to the logic of identity. Historians sought the original meaning of the projects examined by examining their more profound essence by examining the transparency of their visible reality. Here the truth of the project is to be found in the society that created it; it is a fusion of the principles of art and architecture, of social and cultural conditions united in a given place at a given time, which we recognize by looking through the transparent visible surface into the conceptual heart of things itself. The other thus establishes itself as other, laying foundations for the individual character of modern architecture by comparison with what preceded and succeeded it. For Banham, Collins and Tafuri, modern architecture has passed away beyond recall.”

This analysis of several texts, interweaved in each other gives us a collective

31

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

account of the modern movement. If the general assumption of the Modern era was considered to be the spine, we can map the highs and lows, shifts and agreement with respect to this spine.

Production and Reception of Texts: A text cannot speak for itself; it needs a reader as well as a writer. When someone writes something, he or she does so in a context. This context includes the writer’s feelings, beliefs, past experiences, goals, needs, and physical environment. When J. K. Rowling wrote The Harry Potter series, her personal context included her childhood experiences in an orphanage, her love for languages, her extensive reading in literature and mythology, and many other things. The text in turn develops its own context. Harry Potter develops his own world.

For that matter, when Calvino wrote the Invisible cities, his context too were his own experiences of these cities, real or imagined, narrated through Marco Polo to Kublai Khan. Later the writing acquires its own context, the context of Marco Polo and his presence in the space of this text. Marco Polo’s world is also grows complex with the decription of each city until he reaches the description of the infernal city, where the text turns philosophical and it goes to show that there are two ways of escaping the sufferings of the city, one by accepting it and the other by fighting against it. This paradox has also become one that is Marco Polo’s and not Italo Calvino’s as soon as it is written as text.

When one reads, one reads in the context of his or her own world. What the reader encounters is not the world of the author; the reader encounters the world of the text. The meaning, which the text has for the reader, emerges from the interaction of the reader’s world with the world of the text. The meaning does not reside in the text or in the author’s intentions. The meanings happen as the text is read and reflected upon. Of course, knowledge of the author’s world and intentions, and of the responses of other readers, can help one read a text better—with more insight and satisfaction. Interpretation, then, is something a reader does in response to a text.

Thus, the function of the text is not complete until it is read and interpreted.

Also, who reads and interprets them is of importance when it comes to a field of texts being circulated.

Uptil here, the singular texts were untouched and the choices made by it or the concepts uniquely revealed in it were not of interest. Now, the perceptions indicated by each text in context to a building can be emphasised and distilled out of the textual universe.

Concepts and Processes

Creating purpose and perceptions: A flowchart would be prepared to extract the central question and the different aspect of the building that an individual text adresses. Now, for each kind of text (historical, architectural and fictional), there are several texts giving out several perceptions. These perceptions are then modified into single statements and connections are made among the three kinds of texts. One might discover that there are many common themes appearing across the text. For example, from the texts about the Falling Waters, one might expect to encounter words like cantilever, repitition, cave-足like, nature, dream-足house etc.

Therefore, a collection of meanings emerge, from which one can create an overall narrative about any building.

33

Chapter - 3 A Demonstration 35

Demonstration in the case of IIMA

Any Indian student aspiring to do a management course or anybody remotely associated with the field of architecture or for that matter, anyone who reads the newspaper is familiar with the astounding campus of IIM Ahmedabad. The architecture of the campus is as popular as the institution itself. The building and the institution may have intrinsic merit, but it is the texts or narratives produced around them that have shaped perceptions and made the building what it is. When another campus, an extension was built across the road forty-­five years later, it did not pass off as just another addition. Since the new campus was allocated an entirely separate site but was to extend the requirements to the same programme, it differed from the old campus only in terms of its architecture. Thus, texts started spinning around the architecture of the two campuses, one, which had made the institution what it is today, and another, which could potentially lead the institution to achieve greater heights.

This chapter, using the methods explained in the previous one, would demonstrate how meanings and perceptions about IIMA were shaped by texts.

The Corpus of Texts: The 1950s was a period of institution building in India. Along with the giant public enterprises in defence, steel, irrigation, institutions of higher learning were also given attention. Unlike other initiatives like institutions for engineering and commerce, the idea of professional management education was not widely accepted. The Ford Foundation in India finally took the initiative for this endeavour and since the proposal was accepted in the 1960s, a host of texts started circulating, covering the creation, evolution and stabilising of the institution along with its companion â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the building that it was housed in. As mentioned in the earlier chapter, to establish a larger narrative about the building, all these texts have to be looked at simultaneously and a larger system in this field has to be identified. In this thesis, they are the historical, architectural and fictional texts. Since the 1960s, there has been a shift in the production of each kind of text. In the beginning they were mostly historical documents, informing the audience about the new institute and as the building where the institution was to be housed began taking shape, the texts turned architectural in nature. The attention shifted back to the institution in the 70s and kept shifting between the two until after the year 2000, when the new campus was on its way. It took this long for the fictional element to develop in the story of the old campus and perhaps the creation of the new campus building facilitated it. The new campus was born in the shadow of the old and an abundance of text was generated, where the three kinds of texts started intermingling. The appearance of fictional material or personal narratives bridged the gap between the institution (mostly mentioned in the historical texts) and its building (mostly mentioned in the architectural texts) and made them a part of one another, working in tandem to create the best institute for

37

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

ÀJ 7DEOH VKRZLQJ WKH &RUSXV RI WH[WV DERXW ,,0$

38

Demonstration in the case of IIMA

Management in India.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, to follow the events and the appearance of texts in the narrative of the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, a timeline showing the appearance of these texts was set up. The timeline shows the presence of these texts since the 1960s, indicating their character in terms of historical, architectural or fictional texts. The content of these texts was evaluated against this timeline, giving an idea of the shift in perception since the 1960s to the present time about the old and the new campus of IIMA. This timeline therefore, gives a chronological account of the events and the writings produced since the sixties about IIM-­A.

Chronology of the appearance of these texts: If one is to look at the table in fig 3(2) from left to right (in a chronological order), one would immediately see that in the beginning, before the 60’s, when this institution was still just an idea, word hadn’t got out to the general public about the novel institute. Then, even as the proposal for the institute was finalised, the faculty put in place and the first batch was admitted, the only pieces of this institution available in text was classified ads in newspapers seeking to hire new faculty, who would be trained at the business school at Harvard. The ads provided a well-­rounded description of the novel institute that was about to be created. It said that the aim of the institute is to provide training for young people, leading to an equivalent of a master’s degree in Business Administration. It also indicated that in future the institute would encourage ‘research and consultation in Indian business, industrial and public enterprises’. In these advertisements, the selling point it seems was the collaboration with Harvard Business School, then celebrating fifty years since its foundation, one of the best institutes for management studies.

&ODVVLÀHG $G ,,0$ The Times of India: $SSOLFDWLRQV DUH LQYLWHG IRU WKH post of faculty members and UHVHDUFK ZRUNHUV DW WKH ,QGLDQ Institute of Management, $KPHGDEDG 7KH +DUYDUG *UDGXDWH 6FKRRO RI %XVLQHVV Administration is collaborating LQ WKH IRUPDWLYH \HDUV ZLWK the institute by helping in the training of the faculty and in the earlier programmes of WHDFKLQJ DQG UHVHDUFK µ

It is in 1962 -­65, when the building for this institute was about to take shape, that the first real writings about IIM began to appear. The visit of Louis I Kahn, to the National Design Institute was one of the first events to be published in the newspapers. The article covering this event came up in 1964. The arrival of professor Louis I

39

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

ÀJ 7LPHOLQH VKRZLQJ WKH FKURQRORJ\ RI WKH DSSHDUDQFH RI HDFK NLQG RI WH[W

Demonstration in the case of IIMA

Kahn was an enlightening one, celebrated by all students at the institute. For an article in the newspaper, the notion it sends out about architecture, as a profession and its aim are very precise and profound. After talking about the life of a student of architecture, the education he gains from both the formal school and the office as an intern, the article assures the role of an architect saying â&#x20AC;&#x153;However, the primary task of and office is not education, it is practiceâ&#x20AC;?.

In the same year, another article was produced, covering the architectural projects undertaken in at the National Design Institute under the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;practice programmeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. The next event to be published therefore was the project that Kahn agreed to undertake â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the designing of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Other projects included workshops and studios for the National Design institute, some factory buildings and the design for the school building for the Ahmedabad municipal cooperation.

Clearly, IIM-­A was a grand project, already enjoying the association with two foreign stars â&#x20AC;&#x201C; HBS and Louis Kahn.

After this, the vast West began to follow the developing design of IIMA. They were curious about Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and Corbusierâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s visit to the east. Just before the building was completed, many architects came from abroad to see the masterpiece and wrote about it. Given the fact that this building was among Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s last works, many texts were written placing this building within his array of works and provided IIMA a canonical status. The Zodiac magazine published two consecutive articles on IIMA, one in 1965 and the other in 1967. The first as mentioned in the title itself, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Indian Journey â&#x20AC;&#x201C; from Le Corbusier to Kahnâ&#x20AC;?, talks about the different directions in which Corbusier and Kahn took their opportunity to build in India. Inevitably, Ahmedabad, being the city that had seen the work of both masters, gains an honoured mention.

1964 -­ Exploration Of The (YROYLQJ 6\PEROV 2I ,QGLD :RUN $W 1DWLRQDO 'HVLJQ Institute -­ The Times of India 1RUPDOO\ WKH HGXFDWLRQ RI a designer is accomplished LQ WZR VWDJHV $IWHU KDYLQJ completed his formal education at a design school, he enters DQ RIĂ&#x20AC;FH ZKHUH KH FRQWLQXHV his training â&#x20AC;&#x201C; informal and SUDFWLFDO ,Q DUFKLWHFWXUH IRU H[DPSOH WKHVH WZR SKDVHV DUH WKRXJKW RI ODVWLQJ WHQ \HDUV The degree of responsibility ZKLFK SURIHVVLRQDO RIĂ&#x20AC;FHV KDYH WRZDUGV WKH \RXQJ GHVLJQHU WUDLQHH YDULHV +RZHYHU WKH SULPDU\ WDVN RI DQG RIĂ&#x20AC;FH LV QRW HGXFDWLRQ LW LV SUDFWLFH One of the Indian consultants DW WKH ,QVWLWXWH LV 0U % 9 'RVKL ² $UFKLWHFW 7KH IRUHLJQ consultant at present DUH ² 3URI /RXLV .DKQ ² $UFKLWHFW YLVLWLQJ

´:H ZHUH VKRZQ D PRGHO RI WKH ZKROH SURMHFW RQ WKH VLWH ZH ZHUH DEOH WR VHH WKH WHDFKHU¡V houses deployed in lines, some RI WKH KRXVHV DOUHDG\ Ă&#x20AC;QLVKHG Thee dormitory recreation EORFNV ZHUH XQGHU FRQVWUXFWLRQ WKH Ă&#x20AC;UVW FRPSOHWHG XS WR URRI OHYHO DOUHDG\ WKH VHFRQG XS WR WKH VHFRQG Ă RRU ZKLOH WKH WKLUG KDG WKUHH FRPSOHWH Ă RRUV Âľ ,QGLDQ -RXUQH\ ² IURP /H &RUEXVLHU WR .DKQ ² =RGLDF

Once the building was almost completed in the 70s and Louis I Kahn passed away after his visit to the site, the West moaned the demise of the master, while Indian writings focused on the development of the institution itself. Kahn had come, built the brick buildings and left.

41

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

,,0 JUDGXDWHV XUJHG WR ODXQFK RZQ YHQWXUHV 7KH Times of India 'HOLYHULQJ WKH FRQIHUHQFH address at the Indian Institute RI 0DQDJHPHQW KHUH 0U -KD JRYHUQRU RI WKH UHVHUYH EDQN

said that only by nurturing entrepreneurship could this REMHFWLYH WR VXVWDLQ WKH XSZDUG VZLQJ RI WKH HFRQRP\

EH DFKLHYHG

It was time for India to concentrate on the essence of the institution and the values it was shaping, rather than the celebration of its architect. The articles in the newspapers were full of motivating ideas for the celebrated graduates of IIM Ahmedabad. The graduates themselves were bright and were making it in the news for innovation in various management issues such as the classification system in the libraries. While the institution had developed immensely over the past ten years, with Ravi Matthai relentlessly shaping its every step towards becoming the best School in Management, it was pushing its boundaries in terms of exploration of new fields in management.

´ )$2 SURMHFW IRU Ahmedabad IIM -­ The Times of India The Indian Institute of Management has been getting assignments not only from ZLWKLQ WKH FRXQWU\ DQG GHYHORSLQJ QDWLRQV EXW DOVR IURP YDULRXV EUDQFKHV RI WKH 81 DQG WKH :RUOG %DQN 7KH International committee on management of population SURJUDPPHV KDV DVNHG WKH ,,0 to train senior administrators from Egypt, east â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Africa and %DQJODGHVK Âľ

The institution was struggling, experimenting with the implementing of borrowed teaching methods and tuning them to the Indian context, adding and reducing courses, deciding on itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s over all nature and vision. Later, in the 1980s, the institution seemed to have stabilised and was equipped enough to train the faculty of other upcoming institutions, just like HBS did for IIMA. After this phase of ups and downs, in the later eighties, the institution seems to have hit a lull and almost disappeared from the newspapers.

However, in the architectural world, this was the time after the death of the great Master, Louis I Kahn. Therefore, instead of isolated material, texts started appearing as a collective-­ a collection of Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work, the evolution of Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work, the different elements in his buildings, Where he came from or what made Kahn what he was at his peak.

Critical writings emerged about his use of courtyards in several of his buildings, a comparative study as to which of his courtyards achieve what kind of function and form in the context of a particular program. Other writings and monographs also began to appear. These were available before too, but IIMA was now added to the legacy of Kahn.

1980s was also the time that the students in School of Architecture, Cept University -­ a university created at about the same time as IIM and also hosted Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s teachings while he was in India, started writing theses

Demonstration in the case of IIMA

about the Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s building and his underlying architectural principles. The ideas of monumentality, rhythm, repetition, the use of brick, the role of light and the vision of timelessness were explored by studying the building.

In the 90s, the architectural area faced a lull when the institution was scaling new heights in terms of the success it had tasted. It was viewed as a role model for the upcoming institutes of Management in India. The reports started shifting towards the end of the1990s and at the beginning of 2000, from the serious austerity to a more energetic depiction. It was free of Harvardâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s collaborations and acquired its own name as â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own Ivy League college.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; After years of struggling, IIM began enjoying a luxurious place amongst the management schools in India. The college fest and events other than academic management were written about.

Simultaneously, on the architectural front, discussions on the rise and fall of Modernism, the ideas of Modernism and its entry into India and Louis Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s role were discussed. IIMA received a special mention in this context both as an example of the tail end of Louis Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work and as a powerful demonstration of his ideals. In an article published in the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Engineering Sciencesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; magazine, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Louis Kahn and the Ruins of Romeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, Kahn is said to have derived some of his distinct ideas from the Roman ruins, although making no direct references to it.

In the 2000s, texts of all kinds were produced and circulated in abundance. Be it historical, architectural or fictional, the content of all these texts, from being exclusive in their nature, began to â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;move aboutâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; in the field, leaking into each other. There was an attempt to make each singular text sound wholesome, with each element at least in small quantities. The event in the 2000s, which could have possibly been instrumental in generating texts of this nature, was the proposal for another institution -­ an addition to the existing brick buildings of IIMA, whose site stood far away from the original campus, across the road. The old campus was portrayed as an â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;iconâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. No writing about the new building was complete without mentioning the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;iconic red brick buildingsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. Discussion

1998 -­ Economics and management education -­ The Times of India The Centre for Management LQ $JULFXOWXUH ZKLFK LV WKH largest Centre at IIMA) offers PDQDJHPHQW NQRZOHGJH WR ,QGLD DJULFXOWXUH 7KH &HQWUH represents a mix of academic disciplines such as economics, management, sociology and DJULFXOWXUH WHFKQRORJ\ ,QGLD¡V RZQ ,Y\ /HDJXH college -­ The Times of India: $ ORW RI WKLQJV KDYH FKDQJHG since the Indian Institute of Managementâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (IIM) inception â&#x20AC;&#x201C; from a business school a multi-­dimensional institute of management out to alter the TXDOLW\ RI OLIH WKURXJK H[FHOOHQW PDQDJHPHQW

.DKQ¡V FKDUP ,QVSLUHV ,,0¡V WZLQ 7KH 7LPHV RI ,QGLD :KHQ ZHOO NQRZQ $PHULFDQ DUFKLWHFW /RXLV .DKQ EXLOW WKH PDMHVWLF ,QGLDQ ,QVWLWXWH RI Management here, he created a monument that stimulates the LPDJLQDWLRQ DQG FUHDWLYLW\ RI VWXGHQWV )RXU GHFDGHV ODWHU LWV EROG IRUP DQG LWV XQLTXH EOHQG RI DXVWHULW\ DQG PDMHVW\ ORRP ODUJH RYHU D VSUDZOLQJ DFUH VSDFH QH[W WR LW ZKHUH the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best B-­school is EXLOGLQJ LWV WZLQ FDPSXV

43

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

$QG DV ZRUN RQ WKH QHZ VLWH progresses, the tale of the WZR FDPSXVHV XQIROGV DQG D hot debate rages across IIM DQG EH\RQG LW ZLOO WKH QHZ building continue to ignite young minds?

7KH %ULFN ZDOOV DW ,,0 $ DQG KRZ WKH\ LQVSLUH PH ´6R ZKHUH GRHV WKH LQVSLUDWLRQ come from? Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all in the air DQG LQ WKH YDFXXP RI WKHVH ZDOOV 1RW MXVW WKLV WKH EHVW IHHOLQJ LV ZKHQ \RX DUH VLWWLQJ LQ IURQW RI 9LNUDP 6DUDEKDL /LEUDU\ ZKLFK LV RSHQ

DQG WKH JOLGLQJ ZDYHV RI DLU WRXFKHV \RX 7KDW¡V ZKHUH WKH inspiration comes from! The ZDON LQ IURQW RI WKRVH ODZQV LV much more inspiring and full RI LGHDV ¾

about the Old campus, its identity, significance and relation to the new campus began to surface. This time, it was the Indian architects and the general public who were discussing the architecture and the institution more. The awareness about the building had accumulated over the years and intelligent arguments about it took place in the Indian context and not in the era of emerging modernism.

It was at this time fictional texts started appearing.

Students wrote about their experience in the austere campus, books involving love stories between students of different backgrounds, meetings in the campus, blogs and essays about visit to this campus started to appear.

It emerged as the most revered site -­ the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Mecca of Management Educationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and a must visit monument on a trip to Ahmedabad. The campus had acquired an aura mythical enough to appear in works of fiction. From the historical and architectural, the texts had come a full circle to produce fictional narratives.

In the next ten years. 2000-­2010, we see a more refined version of these texts, focussing on certain aspects and blurring others, all the elements present in the same text nonetheless. Writing about the new campus slowly took over, although the new campus was still viewed against the old one. The 2000s to the new building, in some ways is what 1970s was for the old campus. There was resistance in accepting the new IIM building. Some texts accused the architect of destroying the texture and quality of spaces in the old building. All writings, however, presented a popular way of compensating this loss by focusing on the utilitarian value of the new campus. Although the Old campus is not critically written about anymore, articles reminiscing about its creation, its stories started emerging. Anecdotal writings about individualsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; personal incidents with either Ravi Matthai or Louis Kahn or Vikram Sarabhai appeared.

It seems like with the appearance of the new campus, the old campus had now acquired a nostalgic status â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the icon is complete.

At about this time, in 2011, a narrative purely historical nature was produced for the golden Jubilee celebration of the great institute. It collected all previous narratives,

44

Demonstration in the case of IIMA

events, and notions into one whole book, focussing on the role of Ravi Matthai in the entire story. This book formed a good backdrop for the study of all other texts displayed in this field.

We will now use the method discussed in the previous chapter and see how meanings are produced by these narratives. First we will discuss how each kind of text, the historical, architectural and fictional operate separately and connect within themselves to produce meanings. Later, we will look at the intertextuality and the connections made amongst the three kinds of texts.

Historical Texts: Historical texts in this corpus are mainly newspaper articles, produced throughout the years, about the building or the institution. In the later years i.e. 2000 to 2010, some books and articles were written about the history of the institution. These texts are also considered historical texts. The book, ‘Brick by red brick’ tells the entire story of the creation of the institute, rushing through all the events, some of which are evidenced by the clippings found in the newspapers. Thus, this text is used first as the main text, narrating all the events and the other texts are described later as an addition to this narrative.

In 2011, the book Brick by red brick was published as a celebratory book after 50 years of IIM. While being a chronologically typed out account of the creation of the institution, it gives us the story behind every step that was taken towards the building of the greatest B-­School India has ever seen. The book revolves around Prof. Ravi Matthai and his role in making the institution, giving it the glowing identity with which all recognise it today. It runs through all major events that took place before and during the creation of the institutions up till the creation of the new campus building. The book ends with convocation in 2011, reminiscing about the author’s time in the prestigious institute. Now and then, the author’s opinion about the Old and new campus is stated very softly.

Given the host of events covered in this book, it is used as a backdrop against which the rest of the texts are arranged.

The book begins with setting a backdrop of the celebrated brick building. It describes all the iconic structures, the trees, and the landscape that surrounds it. Therefore this book, written in view of 5 decades of the success of this institution, opens with a description of the un-­ignorable architecture of the building. Already, to a person who has never seen IIM before, a majestic picture is established.

The author then establishes the intention of the book – to honour the stupendous efforts of the founding fathers of this Institute, particularly the role

45

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

of one man – Ravi Matthai – the institute’s first full time director.

The narrative in general constantly refers to Vikram Sarabhai, Kamala Chowdhary, KasturbhaiLalbhai and PrashantTandon as the founding fathers of the Institution, the ones that created the grand design and laid the foundation for this great institution. Ravi Matthai, the protagonist is perceived as the Master builder, who erected this edifice and made it tower over the rest of the B-­schools in India. ´7KH IRXQGLQJ IDWKHUV RI ,,0$ GLG PRUH WKDQ MXVW FUHDWH VROLG EXLOGLQJV 7KH\ ODLG WKH IRXQGDWLRQ IRU ,,0$·V HQGXULQJ VXFFHVV µ

One of the notions that the narrative focuses on since the beginning of the story is the culture of education, the process of development and the cultivation of Institutional value. These expressions are emphasised repeatedly throughout the narrative, appearing and reappearing in various circumstances. At this point a lot of IIMA’s being is noticeably translated into buildings. Time and again, we are told that the institution, in it being, its students, its culture, its faculty, its board, even its director, are illusively ordinary on the outside. The value and richness that the institute is equipped to offer to the one that is willing to learn is only revealed gradually. ´,,0$·V VWUHQJWKV DUH QRW REYLRXV WR D FDVXDO REVHUYHU 7KH RIÀFHV DQG KRVWHO URRPV DUH XWLOLWDULDQ 7KH IDFXOW\ PD\ QRW HYHQ VHHP LPSUHVVLYH DW ÀUVW VLJKW 7KHUH LV D GHFHSWLYH RUGLQDULQHVV DERXW WKH SODFH µ

It is a school that grows on one with time. The narrative then goes on to talk about the time, money, brainstorming, work and effort that went into building up to the masterpiece that is Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

From hereon, each chapter has an architecturally inclined title, containing stories that dictate the ideals of this institution. I will go though each chapter, here and there stopping to quote relevant events.

The first chapter, The Grand design introduces the main characters in play, contributing to the creation of IIMA. They were, Vikram Sarabhai – the institution builder, KamlaChowdhry – the silent intellectual, KasturbhaiLalbhai – the prominent buisinessman, PrakashTandon – the manger and the omnipresent and George W Robbins – the foreign consultant.

During the time when institution -­ building was a trend in India, various factors were instrumental to the success of IIMA. Our lead characters and all the subsidiary characters contributed to the little-­little events leading up to the grand design.

46

Demonstration in the case of IIMA

After attaining independence, the question of higher education in India was rapidly being addressed. It all started when the representative of the Ford Foundation in India, pushed for a major initiative in management education.

The group jumped at this opportunity and work began towards shaping an institution. After several months of debate, study of the Indian context and exchange of ideas, the Associate dean of UCLA, George Robbins prepared a report. This report was followed more or less for the final proposal of the institution and it clearly stated that the institute should be an autonomous society. ´7KXV WKH LGHD RI DXWRQRP\ VR GHDU WR WKH ,,0V ZDV HQVKULQHG LQ WKH WZR HDUO\ SURSRVDOV IRU D PDQDJHPHQW LQVWLWXWH LWVHOI ¾

Things started moving rapidly by 1961-­ the planning committee met and the society for IIMA was registered and finally, the directorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s post was advertised.

Harvard business school was chosen as the collaborating school for IIMA. A team of six to eight faculties was sent for training there every year. The spark was ignited and the machine has started functioning. ´7KH *UDQG GHVLJQ RI ,,0$ ZDV Ă&#x20AC;QDOO\ LQ SODFH ,W ZRXOG EH VSRQVRUHG E\ VHYHUDO SDUWLHV QRW MXVW E\ WKH JRYHUQPHQW RI ,QGLD ,W ZRXOG EH FRQVWLWXWHG DV DQ DXWRQRPRXV VRFLHW\ 7KH REMHFWLYHV IRU WKH LQVWLWXWH KDG EHHQ VSHOW RXW 7KH FKRLFH RI FROODERUDWRU KDG EHHQ PDGH ,W ZDV QRZ WLPH IRU LPSOHPHQWDWLRQ ² IRUPDOL]LQJ DQ DJUHHPHQW ZLWK +%6 UHFUXLWLQJ IDFXOW\ WUDLQLQJ WKHP DQG ODXQFKLQJ YDULRXV SURJUDPPHV Âľ

In the next chapter, Laying the foundation, the role of the actual creation of the IIMA red brick building is introduced for the first time in this chapter. The entire process of looking for funds for the building, finding the architect, finding a suitable temporary building for starting the institution is vividly described.

Meanwhile, a frantic search for the first full time director of IIMA is going on for there were almost no suitable candidates for such an important post, the post that would shape and stabilize the creation of IIMA into an enduring body of successful learning. While Sarabhai and Tandon rooted for the qualified Kamla Chowdhry to become director, the rest of the board was adamantly against the decision. For a long time after this, there was a lull in the search for the director.

Once a building at Shahibaugh was set up as the temporary base for study, the 65 acre land at Vastrapur was ready to be designed.

47

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

´,Q $XJXVW WKH ERDUG WRRN DQRWKHU PRPHQWRXV GHFLVLRQ RQH WKDW LQ LWV RZQ ZD\ ZDV WR GHĂ&#x20AC;QH WKH FKDUDFWHU RI ,,0$ ,W DSSURYHG WKH DSSRLQWPHQW RI % 9 'RVKL DV WKH ,QGLDQ DUFKLWHFW DQG /RXLV , .DKQ DV WKH IRUHLJQ FRQVXOWDQW :KHQ .DKQ ZDV DSSURDFKHG E\ 6DUDEKDL KH ZDV D ZHOO NQRZQ SURIHVVRU RI DUFKLWHFWXUH DW 0,7 WKRXJK KH KDG EHHQ DVVRFLDWHG ZLWK WKH 8QLYHUVLW\ RI 3HQQV\OYDQLD IRU PRVW RI KLV FDUHHU 7KH GHFLVLRQ WR LQYROYH DQ DUFKLWHFW RI KLV UHSXWH ZDV D EROG RQH DQG LW VKRZHG DQ DELOLW\ WR WKLQN ELJÂľ

The narrative, now, while describing Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life, takes us through various aspects of the building. The functional aspects i.e. teaching, administrative block, library, dormitories, housing etc. required Kahn to conjure up a complex campus plan.

The description of the campus plan unconsciously states the notion of the buildings being embodiments of the functions and the ideas behind each block, an idea repeatedly celebrated in the architectural narratives that will follow. ´7KH IRXUWK SDUW RI WKH UHFWDQJOH LV YDFDQW DQG KRXVHV D ODZQ ZKHUH PDQ\ FDPSXV HYHQWV DUH KHOG ,Q RQH FRUQHU RI WKH ODZQ ULVHV WKH VHUYLFH WRZHU ZKLFK VWDQGV OLNH D VHQWU\ DQG V\PERO RI OHDUQLQJ¾

It also indicates the importance of conversation amongst these thinkers, institution builders and the architects. Such intense discussions are required for the architect to understand the thought behind creating such an institution and then being able to translate it into brick and concrete. Even in the architectural narratives, the building is said to represent exactly what Vikram Sarabhai and the rest were looking for. ´.DKQV LQYROYHPHQW LQ WKH ,,0$ SURMHFW ZDV LQWHQVH DQG WKHUH ZDV PXFK GLVFXVVLRQ DQG FRUUHVSRQGHQFH RQ YDULRXV NH\ HOHPHQWV RI WKH SURMHFW 2QH VWLFNLQJ SRLQW ZDV D SRQG WKDW .DKQ ZDQWHG DV D QDWXUDO EDUULHU EHWZHHQ WKH VWDII TXDUWHUV DQG WKH GRUPV DQG WKH DFDGHPLF DUHD¾

In a lot of Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s writings and lectures, this pond is stressed upon as an element that separates yet unites the two different set of functions i.e. the house and the workspace.

While the actual building of this institution was being discussed, there was still the implementation of the institution to look after. Following a board meeting, it was decided to recruit 8-­10 faculty who would be sent to HBS by July 1962 and on the completion of one year of training at HBS, faculty members would be designated professors or assistant professors. By late 1962, the funding pattern was fixed, the first batch of around ten faculty members had been recruited, admission policy and an administration office was created and the preparation

48

Demonstration in the case of IIMA

for IIMA’s academic programmes began. As the programme kicked into motion, faculty members faced difficulty in shifting to the case method but gradually they mastered the art of writing and teaching cases. So much work was being produced that there was a sense that something unique and extraordinary is being attempted and people were determined to give it their best.

Even after some time had gone by since the launch of the PGP programme, gaining for it was not easy. The secretary of AICTE questioned the syllabus, the method and IIMA’s decision to admit fresh graduates. Thus, getting degree status was a problem and they launched diploma to start with. Now, the faculty was in place, the students were ready the institution was functioning in Shahibaug. The question still remained –“Who will take over from sarabhai as director?” The lull after the rejection of Chowdhry for the post lasted an entire year after which out of the blue, in1965, they settled on Ravi Matthai. ´7KLV FKRLFH ZDV D JDPH FKDQJHU QRW RQO\ IRU ,,0$ EXW IRU PDQDJHPHQW HGXFDWLRQ DOO RYHU ,QGLD :H PXVW QRZ WXUQ WR WKH DQWHFHGHQWV RI WKLV UHPDUNDEOH PDQ µ

The next chapter is called The Master builder arrives. For any student of architecture, this chapter would feature as the grand introduction to the master Louis I Kahn. But here, the author referred to Ravi Matthai, the man who built this institution and made it what it is today. This chapter starts with a description of Matthai and his family and his chilhood, generously quoting anecdotes that might have contributed to making him the man that he was.

The qualities in Ravi Matthai that almost paralleled the quality of IIMA were commitment to values, a strong sense of social purpose and an abiding interest in education. Matthai was an offbeat person of quick wit, of extraordinary intellect but none of it showed on paper. One had to meet him in person to know what he deserved. Matthai took his time with the decision of joining IIMA. He enquired if any research was being done and the negative reply made him so angry that he accepted the post of the director. However he posed two conditions -­ that he will not be director for more than 5-­7 years and that Tandon should stay as chairman for at least 2 more years. ´6RRQ 0DWWKDL ZRXOG KDYH WR IDFH EDSWLVP E\ ÀUH +LV ODFN RI H[SHULHQFH LQ DFDGHPLF DGPLQLVWUDWLRQ ZRXOG EH VKRZQ XS LQ D ZD\ WKDW VHHPHG WR FRQÀUP WKH VFHSWLFV ZKR ZHUH ZDLWLQJ WR VD\ ¶, WROG \RX VR·µ

The next chapter, Erecting the edifice talked of the many situations that Matthai was faced with in developing the institute – situations involving faculty

49

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

coordination, student dissatisfaction and the correct conduct expected of his post as Director of IIMA. Needless to say, Matthai sailed through these problems and IIMA was back on track. It was time to prepare the students for placements.

Bhattacharya, a board member, worked hard for studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; placements, he consistently wrote letters and travelled for eight weeks with graduating batchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s profiles to different companies across India. Now, Matthai had two tasks at hand â&#x20AC;&#x201C; handling the instituteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s finances and the creation of a proper campus. The campus at Vastrapur was finally ready by September1965.

Once the program was set and in motion, more and more programs were created.

Matthaiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dream of creating a research-­based program was also realized. Later, Matthai shifted focus to other sectors, more suitable to the Indian context, like agricultural management. Finally, after bringing the institution to a peak, Matthai resigned as promised. ´/HW XV FXW WR -DQXDU\ D GD\ WKDW ROG WLPHUV ZLOO QRW HDVLO\ IRUJHW 0DWWKDL WKHQ DW WKH SHDN RI KLV VWDWXUH DQG LQ IXOO FRPPDQG ZDONV LQWR D )DFXOW\ &RXQFLO PHHWLQJ DQG DQQRXQFHV WKDW KH KDG UHVLJQHG DV GLUHFWRU Âľ

The chronological sequence of the narrative ends here and the book takes on a turn to wholeheartedly celebrate each of Matthaiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s contributions towards the institution. At this point in the book, the author quoted Matthai when he described the essence of this institution. This statement is perhaps personified in the building and could be the basis of several writings that have emerged about the institution since its creation. ´,,0$ GLIIHUV IURP WKH XQLYHUVLW\ V\VWHP LQ WKUHH FUXFLDO DVSHFWV WKH GHJUHH RI DXWRQRP\ LW HQMR\V IUHHGRP RI H[SUHVVLRQ IRU IDFXOW\ DQG IDFXOW\¡V VD\ LQ GHFLVLRQ PDNLQJ 7KH XQLYHUVLW\ V\VWHP LV H[SRVHG WR SROLWLFDO LQWHUIHUHQFH :KHUH D system is exposed to political and other interference, freedom of H[SUHVVLRQ LV ERXQG WR EH FLUFXPVFULEHG Âľ

Finally after glorifying the institution he humbles down, saying, â&#x20AC;&#x153;However, institutions must be designed for ordinary mortals, not elevated souls. History teaches us that unbridled discretion and unfretted power, arising from the absence of rules, can play havoc with institutions. That is why we have such a thing as the rule of law.

The book ends with a descriptive narration of the convocation of 2009 (year that the book was written in). Subconsciously a lot is being said about the building that is Louis Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s IIMA.

Demonstration in the case of IIMA

´+RW ZDYHV RI DLU ODS DJDLQVW P\ IDFH , IHHO , DP VWDQGLQJ QH[W WR D EULFN NLOQ +RZ FRXOG DQ\ERG\ JHW ZRUN GRQH D FROOHDJXH DVNV" , FXW VKRUW WKH H[FKDQJH DQG UXVK EDFN WR P\ RIĂ&#x20AC;FH 7KH DLU FRQGLWLRQLQJ LV WXUQHG RQ GXOO EODVW EXW LV EDUHO\ HIIHFWLYH 7KH FRRO DLU LQ WKH URRP KDV KRW XQGHUFXUUHQWV WR LW /DWHU P\ FROOHDJXH HVFRUWV PH WR 'RUP ,W IDFHV WKH IDFXOW\ KRXVHV RQ RQH VLGH DQG D ODZQ RQ WKH RWKHU :H HQWHU WKURXJK D VPDOO GRRU DQG PDNH RXU ZD\ XS D ZLQGLQJ VWDLUFDVH ,W¡V ZDUP DQG GLQJ\ LQVLGH :H UHDFK WKH PH]]DQLQH Ă RRU DQG FRQWLQXH RXU FOLPE XQWLO ZH UHDFK WKH Ă&#x20AC;UVW Ă RRU $ IHZ VWHS IURP WKH ODQGLQJ QHDU WKH VWLQNLQJ WRLOHW ZH Ă&#x20AC;QG RXUVHOYHV LQ IURQW RI D OLQH RI URRPV 1DLU SRLQWV WR RQH RI WKHP ´7KDW ZDV 0DWWKDL¡V RIĂ&#x20AC;FH Âľ :KHUH ZH VWDQG LW LV KXPLG DQG GXVW\ %XW IRU WKH ODUJH RYDO RSHQLQJV RQ RQH VLGH RI WKH Ă RRU WKDW /RXLV .DKQ KDV WKRXJKWIXOO\ SURYLGHG WKH SODFH ZRXOG IHHO OLNH D SULVRQ Âľ

The paragraph was written to make it clear to any of the future aspirants reading this book, to understand the determination and will power towards education that Matthai possessed. In spite of the extreme heat and unbearable conditions, Matthai managed to spend hours in his office. However, in doing so, the author has revealed a rather vivid notion of movement in the particular dormitory-­ the hierarchy of the winding staircase, what can be viewed from the dorm on either sides, what it feels like to be inside the office. Despite Kahn expert efforts in providing the right kind of light, that space lacks its correct presence and hence gives a very melancholy notion.

Lastly, convocation always involves a description of the space because it involves movement. ´:H KHDG IRU WKH ODZQ MXVW D IHZ PHWHUV IURP WKH H[HFXWLYH FRPSOH[ ZKHUH WKH JURXS SKRWRJUDSK ZLOO EH WDNHQ $ PXOWL VWRUH\HG VWUXFWXUH KDV EHHQ WHPSRUDULO\ HUHFWHG RQ WKH ODZQV 7KH IDFXOW\ LV UHDG\ )ULHQGV DQG UHODWLYHV RI VWXGHQWV DUH FOLFNLQJ DZD\ RU VKRRWLQJ IXULRXVO\ 7KH FKLHI JXHVW DUULYHV DORQJ ZLWK WKH FKDLUPDQ DQG WKH GLUHFWRU 7KH VWXGHQWV OHW RXW D URDU $KPHGDEDG SDSHUV ZLOO FDUU\ WKH SKRWRJUDSK WKH QH[W PRUQLQJ :H PRYH WR WKH QDUURZ SDWKV DORQJ WKH VWXGHQWV¡ GRUP WR IRUP WKH FRQYRFDWLRQ SURFHVVLRQ :H DSSURDFK WKH PDLQ EXLOGLQJ :H Ă&#x20AC;OH SDVW WKH PDLQ EXLOGLQJ FRPSOH[ LQ D QDUURZ SDWK WKDW OHDGV WR WKH WRZHU ODZQ :H HQWHU WKH /RXLV .DKQ 3OD]D 7KH JXHVWV DUH RQ WKHLU IHHW WXUQHG WRZDUGV XV Âľ

â&#x20AC;Ś And the ceremony finally happensâ&#x20AC;Ś

51

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

Other historical texts: Most of the newspaper articles found in the earlier days, i.e. 1960-­80s were mostly the announcement of an “event” or at most a discussion on topics so widely talked of today, such as autonomy of the institute, the development of the institution, addition of courses and how the country can use such an institution to its advantage.

A classified ad, in 1963, called for the applications of interested candidates for the posts of faculty members and research workers. It describes the nature of the institute, stressing on the assistance provided by the Harvard Business School in the formative years of IIM, Ahmedabad.

In 1964-­65, the arrival of Kahn was clear throughout in the newspaper dailies.

The various projects and experiments conducted in the National Institute of Design such as furniture and product design were introduced to India along with a larger project – building a campus for the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad. Kahn at that time was teaching at the design institute along with B.V.Doshi, an Indian architect in awe of the master from Philedelphia.

In the 1970s, Dr Dogra, who worked in IIM Ahmedabad from 1963 to 1973, wrote a paper called Early years at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

This narrative is very similar to the previous narrative, only in lesser detail and focusing on the “cultures” that IIMA stands for. It gives the impression of an old, seemingly ordinary professor writing about the glory that is IIMA. It is fleetingly mentioned that in Ahmedabad, its significance is enhanced because of its building’s monumental structure. This write up describes the institutional practices that have significantly contributed to the effectiveness of IIM. It talks of its academic activity, the teaching methodology, it’s administrative practices and development of its faculty.

In the same decade, talk continued about the institution and its slow and steady tread towards becoming the best Institute of management in India. The discussion included the importance of entrepreneurship and the institute’s necessary involvement in the upward swing of the Indian economy; the achievements of some student including the innovative suggestion for a new classification system for libraries and various other conferences held within the campus of IIMA. The discussion about IIM as an institution became quite sparse in the 80s. This included the report on IIM’s success of getting assignments “not only from within the country and developing nations but also from various branches of the UN and the World Bank.” IIM was also asked to train senior administrators from Egypt, East-­Africa and Bangladesh by the International committee of Management.

Demonstration in the case of IIMA

This brings us to the 90s, when there was a relapse of discussion on the importance of Economics and Management Education, but this time the report indicated the required amount of weight IIM already gave to these concepts. It points to the CMA (Centre for Management in Agriculture), a course that offers management knowledge to Indian Agriculture as an example. The course was said to represent a mix of academic disciplines such as economics, management, sociology and agriculture technology.

In the 2000s, in the article IIMs-­ supermarket for supermanagers, IIM was being looked at as a store from where one would surely pick a super manager. It talks about the popularity of the course in IIM and the reason behind it being the immense amount of salaries that IIM graduates are offered at their campus interviews. The seats at interviews fill up so fast that top companies had to go home empty handed. The course had become so popular that as many as 50 new business schools were created in Delhi alone. The MBA mania has â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;spawned an entire generation of business schoolsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;.

Another article in the newspaper â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own Ivy League Collegeâ&#x20AC;? portrays IIM as the equivalent of Harvard Business School in India. It introduces the Institute and its course detail in such clarity as if the audience had heard of this institute for the first time. It revisits the History if the Institute, specifically the collaboration with HBS and then branching out to find its own identity in India. The introduction to the institute is done like in its early years, but instead of advertising for faculty, this article is speaking to the students, ambitious to run multinational companies or at least work in one. This, time, it is made sure that along with the institute, the campus is also mentioned because by now the campus has become as much a part of learning as the institution itself. ´$W Ă&#x20AC;UVW JODQFH WKH FRUULGRUV RI WKH ,QGLDQ ,QVWLWXWH RI 0DQDJHPHQW $KPHGDEDG VHHP OLNH D ODE\ULQWK RI PD]HV HQFLUFOLQJ HDFK RWKHU %XW DV RQH WUDYHOV WR WKH LQQHU VDQFWXPV RI WKH LQVWLWXWH LW WHQGV WR PDNH VHQVH PXFK OLNH WKH PDQDJHUV WKDW WKH LQVWLWXWH DVSLUHV WR WUDLQ Âľ

The next narrative however was an interesting read and is by far closer to what this thesis is heading towards. Perhaps, what makes it interesting is the fact that it appears on a newspaper daily, Ahmedabad Mirror, hence available to the masses, but is narrated by an architect, hence somewhat space oriented. The write up is called The Man who romanced the Sun, bricks and silence. It constantly quotes Ar. B.V. Doshi and portrays his reminiscence of the time in which the building was built. The article is an anecdotal approach to the making of the institution as building and the amount of thought that went into abstracting the program into a building.

53

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

´1RW D GD\ SDVVHV ZLWKRXW UHPHPEHULQJ /RX +LV ZRUNV DUH timeless rhythms created by interplay of silence, light and VKDGRZV 7R PH KH ZDV DQ ,QGLDQ \RJL ZKR FUHDWHG EXLOGLQJV ZUDSSHG LQ P\VWLTXH \HW WKUREELQJ ZLWK ODE\ULQWKLQH QXDQFHV RI IUHHGRP )RU /RX WKH DEVHQFH RI VLOHQFH GLG QRW H[LVW¾

Doshi talks about Kahn with the same pride that TT Ram Mohan talks about Matthai. It has been known for many years in the architectural world that working with Corbusier and Kahn has been Doshiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most prized memories. ´+H UHPHPEHUV .DKQ DV QRW MXVW D PDVWHU FUDIWVPDQ EXW DOVR DV D KXPRURXV IHOORZ DQG D JUHDW VWRU\ WHOOHU .DKQ ORYHG UHDGLQJ $UDELDQ 1LJKWV DV PXFK DV KH ORYHG GULQNLQJ $TXDYLW HYHU\GD\ Âľ

The same story about how Kahn came to be the architect of IIM and how he initially insisted on creating a waterbody between the hostel and the faculty housing is retold but this time, Doshi has something more to say. â&#x20AC;&#x153;He drew inspiration from SarkhejRoza, a summer retreat for Islamic Kings in Ahmedabad built in 1447.â&#x20AC;?

Later, in the architectural narratives, we will find out what Kahn has to say about the water body. Further on, this write up suggests some architectural concepts as â&#x20AC;&#x153;fun factsâ&#x20AC;?. ´,Q .DKQ¡V GHVLJQ IRU ,,0 $ KH ZDV DEOH WR MRLQ WZR RI KLV most fundamental sources of inspiration: the school and the PRQDVWHU\ +H ZURWH WKLV RQ HYHU\ VNHWFK ´$UFKLWHFWXUH LV WKH PDNLQJ RI D URRP DQ DVVHPEO\ RI URRPV 7KH OLJKW LV WKH OLJKW RI WKDW URRP 7KRXJKWV H[FKDQJHG E\ RQH DQG DQRWKHU DUH QRW WKH VDPH LQ RQH URRP DV LQ DQRWKHU $ VWUHHW LV D URRP D FRPPXQLW\ URRP E\ DJUHHPHQW ,WV FKDUDFWHU IURP LQWHUVHFWLRQ to intersection changes and may be regarded as a number of URRPV Âľ

Both these concepts will be discussed in detail in the architectural narratives.

However the most interesting part of this narrative is the quote on the Louis Kahn Plaza, one that will connect to not only other historical texts but also strongly to the architectural and fictional texts. ´,Q RQH RI WKH PDQ\ ERRNV RQ .DKQ KH KDV VSRNHQ DERXW KLV IRQGQHVV IRU ODUJH FRXUW\DUGV 7KH SOD]D DW ,,0$ ZKLFK ZDV QDPHG DIWHU KLP ZDV LQVSLUHG E\ $NEDU 3DODFH LQ /DKRUH ´7KH LQQHU FRXUW ZLOO EH VKLHOGHG GXULQJ FHUWDLQ FHUHPRQLHV E\ D ODUJH FDQRS\ VSDQQLQJ HLJKW\ IHHW :KDW JDYH PH WKH FRXUDJH WR GR WKLV ZDV WKH DUFKLWHFWXUDO SURYLVLRQ PDGH LQ WKH FRXUW\DUG RI WKH $NEDU 3DODFH DW /DKRUH IRU WKH VDPH SXUSRVH <RX NQRZ WKH SHRSOH LQ ,QGLD PDNH ZRQGHUIXO FORWK DQG WKH\ KDYH

54

Demonstration in the case of IIMA

VWUHWFKHG HYHQ JUHDWHU GLVWDQFHV ZLWK LW 7KLV FRXUW LV GLIIHUHQW IURP WKLQJV , KDYH FRQFHLYHG EHIRUH ,W JLYHV VXFK MR\ WR EH WKH RQH WR GLVFRYHU D EHDXWLIXO ZD\ RI OLIH WKDW EHORQJHG WR DQRWKHU FLYLOLVDWLRQ Âľ

The next narrative, Ahmedabad: Where masters crafted their dreams, reference is made to Corbusier and Kahn and their influence in Ahmedabad.

This too is elaborated from an architectural perspective later on. ´.DKQ FUHDWHG SRHWU\ LQ EULFN DW WKH FDPSXV RI ,QGLDQ ,QVWLWXWH RI 0DQDJHPHQW $KPHGDEDG %ULFN PDVRQU\ FRQVLGHUHG WR EH WKH ORFDO PDWHULDO IRXQG YHU\ GLIIHUHQW GLPHQVLRQV WKURXJK WKUHH GLPHQVLRQDO VWUXFWXUDO DUFKHV 7KH FLW\ OHDUQW D QHZ ZD\ RI EXLOGLQJ LQ EULFN DQG DOVR XSJUDGHG LWV TXDOLW\ RI FRQVWUXFWLRQ KDYLQJ WUDLQHG WKURXJK ULJRURXV DQG VWULFW FRQVWUXFWLRQ QRUPV DQG SUDFWLFHV RI .DKQ ,W DOVR JDYH OHJLWLPDF\ WR EDUH DHVWKHWLFV RI H[SRVHG XQSODVWHUHG EULFN FRQVWUXFWLRQ ² DOLHQ WR WKH SODFH DQG SHRSOH WKHQ +RZHYHU institutes and residences for half a century then continue to IROORZ WKHVH PRGHUQ DHVWKHWLFV DQG RXWORRN ¾

Then, a number of narratives start appearing about the creation of a new campus and how it will respond to the presence of the old campus. Rarely, and only from an architectural viewpoint, is the new campus talked of separately. In the historical viewpoint though, it is referred to as something that â&#x20AC;&#x153;upholds the same valuesâ&#x20AC;? as the older institution, both culturally and architecturally. ´6WXGHQWV VD\ WKRXJK WKH ROG ZRUOG FKDUP DQG WKH DXUD PD\ EH PLVVLQJ WKH QHZ FDPSXV KDV LWV XWLOLW\ YDOXH ,WV DUFKLWHFW IHHOV WKH QHZ FDPSXV EXLOW XQGHU WKH VKDGRZ RI WKH PDVWHU FDUULHV IRUZDUG WKH LQQHU VWUHQJWK WR PDNH LWV LQKDELWDQWV ULVH DERYH WKH RUGLQDU\ WR VWULYH KLJKHU Âľ

Unlike the case of Kahn or any other members involved in the making of the old Institute, most newspaper articles involve an interview with the architect of the new institution, Dr. Bimal Patel and the present director of IIMA, Mr Bakul Dholakia.Patel was quoted thusly : â&#x20AC;&#x153;To copy Louis Kahn is to insult him. To honour him, the new building had to uphold the same values that he held dear. I think the new campus embodies the same spirit.â&#x20AC;?

Bakul Dholakia, the director of IIMA was also quoted as follows: â&#x20AC;&#x153;There is a continuum, in both spirit and body. Even the room numbers are continued. An underpass, planned below the 132-­feet road that divides the two campuses, will act as a physical link between the two.â&#x20AC;?

55

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

Therefore, history provides us with a sequenced list of events in the form of chronicles. These documents become the ground for an interpretation of history and provide a permanent record of human action that we must re-足examine over time to form new opinions, for history is in fact the opinion of human kind over time.

The adjacent table shows the connections drawn amongst the historical texts and the collective notions that they produce.

56

Demonstration in the case of IIMA

ÀJ 'LDJUDP VKRZLQJ WKH FRQQHFWLRQV ZLWKLQ WKH KLVWRULFDO WH[WV DQG WKH QRWLRQV WKH\ JHQHUDWH

57

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

Architectural Texts: The architectural texts mainly involve criticism either presented in a magazine or in the form of a book of architecture. The campus for the Indian Institute for Management in Ahmedabad is a celebrated feature even in the world of architecture. Each of these narratives tell a story about a small element, either that of the arch, the courtyard, light, shadow, silence, rhythm, repetition, scale, monumentality and of course, the brick. These words that existed in experience up until now, have become strong, analysed concepts that drive the conception of a building. The building rises out of ideological concepts thrown about vaguely, in principle and in programme up until now and materializes into solid, tangible brick and concrete. Since architectural writing about a single building exists only as essays and articles and not as entire books, the following is a combined narrative, interspersing each element and concept, structured only in time to represent the building as one piece of architecture.

Starting with a narrative that was written at the time that the building was not yet completed, in 1965, the article â&#x20AC;&#x153;Indian Journey â&#x20AC;&#x201C; from Le Corbusier to Kahnâ&#x20AC;?, talks about the different directions in which Corbusier and Kahn took their opportunity to build in India. Inevitably, Ahmedabad, being the city that had seen the work of both masters, gains an honoured mention. ´$KPHGDEDG WKXV KDV WKH SULYLOHJH DPRQJ DOO RWKHU SODFHV LQ WKH ZRUOG RI EHLQJ DEOH WR VKRZ WKRVH ZKR YLVLW LW WZR IDFHV RI PRGHUQ DUFKLWHFWXUH ZLWKLQ IHZ PLOHV RI HDFK RWKHU YLHZHG IURP D GLIIHUHQW DQJOH DQG LQ WKHLU GLIIHUHQFHV VKRZLQJ FKDQJHV ZURXJKW LQ WKH VSDFH RI D JHQHUDWLRQ Âľ

Then it goes on to describe Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work in detail. Here, we receive the first description of the building that has been diversely written about in the coming next few decades.

Even when the building was incomplete, the article talks of the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;magnificent play of forms in the sunlightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. While describing the houses arranged around a courtyard and the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;massiveâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; dormitories arranged diagonally to the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;largeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; central academy block, the architecture is said to evoke a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;disquietingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; atmosphere.

Despite the conditions on site, the brickwork is described to be perfect, like a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;delicate stretched skin to enclose the interior spaceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. Referring to Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s way of giving form to function as opposed to Corbusierâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s way of embracing a variety of functions under the guiding hand of an artist whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s will is decisive, it says: ´,W VHHPV DOPRVW DV LI WKH OLQN EHWZHHQ VSDFH DQG IXQFWLRQ LV PDQLIHVWHG E\ DQ LQWHULRU ODZ RI QHFHVVLW\ LQHYLWDEOH DV WKH IRUFH RI JUDYLW\ Âľ

Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work is described as something that emerges from history and current

58

Demonstration in the case of IIMA

context and then displays precise geometrical spatial sequence. Here reference is made to Fatehpur Sikri as the possible inspiration for IIM Ahmedabad. The building is described in terms of each of the blocks present in the site plan, the experience and the construction. ´7KH IDFDGHV RI WKH WZR GRUPLWRU\ ZLQJV DUH JLYHQ FKDUDFWHU E\ WKH ORJJLDV RI WKH VOHHSLQJ TXDUWHUV RQ WKH XSSHU à RRU DQG WKH DUFDGHV RI WKH UHFUHDWLRQ URRPV RQ WKH JURXQG à RRU 7KH VXSSRUWLQJ EXWWUHVVHV SURYLGH D UK\WKPLF HOHPHQW 7KH ZLQJV FRPH WRJHWKHU DW ULJKW DQJOHV EXW GR QRW DEXW HDFK RWKHU FRPSOHWHO\ 7KH VLGH GLVFORVHV WKH GHSWK RI WKH URRPV 7KH VHUYLFH WRZHU LV ORFDWHG DW WKH RSSRVLWH VLGH RI WKH WZR EORFNV The semi cylindrical staircase stands out clearly as the third GLVWLQFW HOHPHQW 1RZ WKHVH HOHPHQWV H[LVW VLGH E\ VLGH WR IRUP DQ LGHDO VTXDUH ¾

The description almost leaves an impression of geometrical shapes placing themselves formally and informally, differing only in size and scale, arranging themselves continually changing positions to form an ideal square and stopping only when the correct harmony was acquired. It proceeds from a generic architectural description to a personal interpretation of the elements and language of architecture employed in the building. ´2Q RQH KDQG WKH IRUPV UDGLDWH RXWZDUGV WR EHFRPH FRQFHQWUDWHG LQWR GLIIHUHQW HQWLWLHV ZKRVH ZHLJKW YDULHV DFFRUGLQJ WR KRZ WKH\ DUH LQVHUWHG LQWR WKH ZKROH 2Q WKH RWKHU WKHUH LV DQ LPSXOVH WRZDUGV DEVWUDFW IRUPV ZKLFK DUH DSSOLHG V\PEROLFDOO\ WR WKH ZKROH LQ VXFK D ZD\ DV WR WUDQVFHQG LQFLGHQWDOV DQG GLPHQVLRQV ¾

The repetition in the arcades, the windows, the loggias, the buttresses are said to give a rhythmic element. It then goes on to define the three elements in an ideal square that constitute the geometry of the dormitory buildings â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the wings, the service tower and the semi cylindrical staircase. Along with the first notions of magnificence, largeness, repetition, rhythm and forms in sunlight, the article portrays Kahn architecture as the architecture that obeys the laws of nature rather than one that commands another law according to oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own will.

The article leaves us with two quotes that will become of great significance with respect to the writing produced in the 2010s, the first talking about what Kahn means by the term â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;formâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;-­ â&#x20AC;&#x153;What Kahn terms form â&#x20AC;&#x201C; form has no shape or dimension, IRUP LV LPSHUVRQDO IRUP KDV QRWKLQJ WR GR ZLWK FLUFXPVWDQWLDO FRQGLWLRQV Âľ

59

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

And second, relating to the implications this institution will have in the future. ´:KDW LV WKH VLJQLĂ&#x20AC;FDQFH RI .DKQ¡V ZRUN" :LOO LW HYHU DWWUDFW DQ\ IROORZLQJ" :KDW LV KLV FRQWULEXWLRQ WR WKH EXVLQHVV RI OLYLQJ"Âľ

The next narrative poses the same spaces, as photographs and descriptions, followed by a quote by Kahn. Referring to an early sketch that Kahn had drawn, indicating the man-­made lake, which was intended to soon separate the main building from nearby playing fields as well as provide coolness during dry conditions of Ahmedabad, the author gave us a quote: ´7KH 6FKRRO DQG WKH GRUPLWRULHV DUH D XQLW OLNH WKH PRQDVWHU\ &RUULGRUV DUH DYRLGHG E\ KDYLQJ GHHS SRUFKHV RII DOO WKH GRUPLWRU\ URRPV ZKHUH WHD LV VHUYHG DQG WKLQJV DUH GLVFXVVHG 7KH VFKRRO LV DURXQG D FRXUW ZKLFK KDV LQ LW DQ DPSKLWKHDWUH (YHU\WKLQJ KHUH LV SODQQHG DURXQG D PHHWLQJ ¾

Referring to the typical structure detail of the married student housing, showing the famous chords of concrete receiving thrust of the arches and the rounded center element containing stairs, which emerge onto a porch facing a lake, the writing quotes Kahn: ´, DVNHG D EULFN ZKDW LW OLNHG DQG WKH EULFN VDLG œ, OLNH DQ DUFK¡ ¾

Hence the first reference is made to Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most widely quoted words, the quote that will appear repeatedly in almost all narratives henceforth.

This is followed by the plan of the IIMA campus, saying: ´6KDGH FORVHQHVV EXLOGLQJV KXJJLQJ EXLOGLQJV ,W LV DOO D UHFRJQLWLRQ RI VHHNLQJ DIWHU VKDGH 6R WKH V\VWHP LV IXQGDPHQWDOO\ WKDW RI SRUFKHV 7KH H[WHULRU LV JLYHQ WR WKH VXQ WKH LQWHULRU LV ZKHUH \RX OLYH ZRUN DQG VWXG\ ¾

Another article describes IIM A with respect to Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ability to make a courtyard as compared to his courtyards in his other buildings across the world. The writing is purely architectural and doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t involve any other kind of narrative. It is interesting to note that while other criticism describe IIM A as Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most developed and evolved design that demonstrated what he stood for, this article refers to the poor making of courtyards in the IIM campus.

As mentioned in one of the historical texts, Kahn is believed to have derived a lot of his inspiration from his travels in Rome. The article â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Louis Kahn and the ruins of Romeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; suggests just that. It interprets Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thought process, his

Demonstration in the case of IIMA

conditioning and how it is produced in each of his buildings. ´+LV EULFN ,QGLDQ ,QVWLWXWH RI PDQDJHPHQW LQ $KPHGDEDG VHHPV WR EH D FRQVFLRXV PLVUHDGLQJ RI WKH 5RPDQ UXLQ 5RPDQV LQ 2VWLD IRU H[DPSOH RIWHQ EXLOW ZDOOV RI WZR FRXUVHV RI EULFN Ă&#x20AC;OOHG ZLWK FRQFUHWH ,Q RUGHU WR NHHS WKH IUHVK SRXU IURP EUHDNLQJ WKH OLQWHOV RYHU RSHQLQJV WKH\ ZRXOG EXLOG D UHOLHYLQJ DUFK ULJKW WKURXJK WKH WZR WKLFNQHVVHV RI WKH EULFN ZDOO 6R \RX JHW D YRLG D OLQWHO DQG DQ DUFK ,Q ZKDW .DKQ FDOOHG KLV EULFN RUGHU KH UHYLVHG WKLV DQG XVHG WKH OLQWHO WR KROG WKH DUFK WRJHWKHU +H VSOLWV WKH LPSRVW EORFN LQ WKH PLGGOH WR PDNH \RX feel the tautness, the tension of the sides â&#x20AC;&#x201C; as if theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re trying WR KROG WKH EULFN EDFN 7KHUH LV VR PXFK PRUH OLIH LQ LW WKDQ LI LW ZHUH D VROLG EORFN .DKQ LV GHULYLQJ DUFKLWHFWXUH E\ JRLQJ EDFN DQG VWDUWLQJ ZLWK WKH UXLQV RI 5RPH +H ZDQWV IXQGDPHQWDOO\ VXEOLPH HIIHFWV 7KH HLJKWHHQWK FHQWXU\ FRQFHSW RI VXEOLPH LV YHU\ GLIIHUHQW IURP WKDW RI WKH EHDXWLIXO LQ WKDW LW GHDOV ZLWK WKH DZHVRPH DQG WKH XQĂ&#x20AC;QLVKHG WKH SULPLWLYH DQG WKH IULJKWHQLQJ HPERGLHG LQ 3LUDQHVL¡V IDQWDVWLF SULQWV 7KLV LV WKH TXDOLW\ WKDW .DKQ WRR ZDQWV Âľ

In 2002, Gautam Bhatia wrote â&#x20AC;&#x153;A moment in Architectureâ&#x20AC;?. It narrates like a journal, with long passages on his favourite monuments, public spaces, anonymous building, sprinkled with intensely personal anecdotes. He takes the reader on a journey through all these places including the Lutyenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bungalow of Bhatiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s childhood, the palace at Padmanabhapuram, the stepwell at Adalaj and the work of Louis Kahn and Laurie Baker, and memories of anonymous architecture.

When the narrative takes us to IIM Ahmedabad and he describes the light and material in the built form of his memories, he communicates an almost-­mystic quality of architecture that transcends the physical and differentiates it from mere â&#x20AC;&#x153;buildingâ&#x20AC;?.

This text spins a halo around the building and evokes a larger-­than-­life image of the building, making the reader want to visit it for oneself and produce stories of oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own.

The narrative literally walks us around the campus of IIMA, almost like a fictional narrative would do but the narration is through an architect and hence, specific aspects of the building are brought to light. These aspects, though existent in the historical narrative in the form of description or information and in the Fictional Narrative in the form of sensorial experiences, in the architectural narrative, they become very sharp and clear even though they are woven into a set of experiences.

61

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

Light: â&#x20AC;&#x153;My room in one of the dormitories was a monastic cell, closed in space, open to the light. Surrounded by brickwork, a safe room it was and one that awoke everyday to a new light. I learned to recognize the changing light by the way it moved across the plain walls, the sounds it created.â&#x20AC;?

Shadow: â&#x20AC;&#x153;In the morning, on the way to work, I walked along high corridors, traversing the deep cuts and shadows of the building and in time, began to detect a certain resonance in the stillness.â&#x20AC;?

The Horizon: â&#x20AC;&#x153;In the late afternoon, when the darkness has begun to descend on the building and its halls and I look out into the landscape, it seems like a world crouching against the shrill summer light. Some days, as I stand, at the edge of the encircling brick parapets and gaze out, away from the building, letting my eyes slowly work their way to the horizon, it is easy to see something of the undisturbed landscape within which the building has grown.â&#x20AC;?

Scale, monumentality and repetition: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Day by day, as I walk past its surface, I begin to understand something of its underlying message â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the message of scale and size and a frequency of structural repetition. For a building to be good, it has to display its elements in continual progression. At the institute, there is a forbidding aspect to the design â&#x20AC;&#x201C; an architectural severity which surprisingly I begin to see as a positive attribute.â&#x20AC;?

This narrative, while describing the campus via a walk of an entire day on already treaded paths, continuously makes references to the Architectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s intentions also mentioned in the first narrative and tries to make sense of what has metaphorised into the building. The author wonders that perhaps the philosophy, teaching and learning is what had made this building much more than just a space to provide shelter. It is also perhaps because of our aforementioned founding fathers that so carefully designed the ideals behind this building.

Later, in 2006 a book was written, featuring all of Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work since 1901.

It is a brief review on the different aspects of the building. It talks about how each block on the campus becomes a metanarrative of the program. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Contrary to the mainstream minimal modern aesthetic, ZKHUH D EXLOGLQJ¡V SURJUDPV ² GRUPLWRU\ YV VFKRRO DUH LGHQWLĂ&#x20AC;HG VROHO\ E\ WKHLU VLJQDJH .DKQ¡V EXLOGLQJV EHFDPH

Demonstration in the case of IIMA

PHWDQDUUDWLYHV RI WKHLU SURJUDPV DOORZLQJ WKHVH W\SRORJLHV WR EH MX[WDSRVHG Âľ

It talks of the scale and massiveness of the school building vs the repetitive exterior of the dormitory buildings and how they are unified by the use of diagonals. This is followed by a very short paragraph on the conception of the building.

This is about the time when the new campus of IIM was completed. Therefore at about the same time, articles on the new campus also started circulating.

Ever since the new campus has been built there have been many magazines, newspaper articles and architectural books writing about it. All these write ups first give a background of the old building, reminiscing about its sanctity, then they talk about how the new building relates to the old building and then about the aspects of the new building that differ from the old. The construction of the new campus and the texts produced about it in this manner relate back to the article about the Old campus in Zodiac magazine in 1965. â&#x20AC;&#x153;What is the significance of Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work? Will it ever attract any following?â&#x20AC;?

Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work in India has not only instigated many exposed brick buildings to be built in Ahmedabad but now also genrated another campus, one that is continually in its early years of creation, being talked of as a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;twinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;to the Old campus. What better example could there be of attracting a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;followingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;?

However, when it comes to the new campus individually, there is never a purely architectural discussion on this, just pieces of information, like in a newspaper clipping.Yet, there are some texts where the building is talked of in an architectural sense. I will quote those areas.

In a book called Modern Traditions â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Contemporary Architecture in India, the new Campus of IIM is also mentioned in an article as representing the corpus of architecture produced in India today. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Adding to one of the greatest monuments of late modern architecture with a world wide reputation needed not just a precise analysis of the existing building, but also the greatest possible ability to empathise in terms of the dialogue between the two building complexes that was necessarily initiated.â&#x20AC;?

The article then goes on, inevitably to describe the campus of the Old IIM, slightly touching upon facts like when it was created and who designed it. Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s campus, it says was complete in itself, built as an entity that didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need to be extended on a large scale. ´7KHUHIRUH .DKQ GHYHORSHG WKH SODQ RI D KLHUDUFKLFDOO\ VWDJJHUHG HQVHPEOH RI WKH HQWLUH VLWH +HQFH LW ZDV QRW SRVVLEOH

63

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

WR UHDOLVH DQ H[WHQVLRQ RQ WKH RULJLQDO FDPSXV VLWH 6R XOWLPDWHO\ LW ZDV GHFLGHG WR XVH DQ DGMDFHQW SORW HYHQ WKRXJK LW ZDV VHSDUDWHG E\ D EXV\ URDG ´

Then he talks about the beginnings in the process of designing this new building. First a literal connection is established through an underground pass, opening onto the Louis Kahn plaza, at the end of which Kahn himself had planned to place a kitchen. The article once again states the challenges in front of HCPDPM in designing this complex such as developing an independent architecture that would still carry and interpret traces and â&#x20AC;&#x153;structuresâ&#x20AC;? from Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s building. In the entire article, not a single reference is made to the aura that Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s campus creates or the search for reinterpreting this abstract thought into a new architecture today. Almost all articles refer to the pure physicality of both buildings tied together with a similar â&#x20AC;&#x153;formâ&#x20AC;? or staggering or connected with a single imaginary axis in plan and differing in the use of a different material. No writing refers to the deeper, richer meanings emerging from the older campus that might lead a path to build the new campus. Patel is quoted in the article as follows: ´7KH IRUP RI GRUPLWRULHV IURP WKH ROG FRPSOH[ LV WDNHQ XS DQG XVHG DV D PHDQV RI VWUXFWXULQJ WKH QHZ IXQFWLRQDO DUHDV ´

However, there is a slight reference to the following of an â&#x20AC;&#x153;architectural languageâ&#x20AC;? when the text narrates that Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s living and learning building were more closely linked, not just because of employing brick as a universal material, but because all the buildings in the old campus were like a jigsaw, an approach which could be called â&#x20AC;&#x153;all of a pieceâ&#x20AC;?. This approach as well as the close proximity however was abandoned completely by HCPDM. The shadier courtyards, enclosed by the buildings, with sudden changes in levels are traded for generous spaces on the same level. The common room, considered a very important area for student communication is shifted to the periphery. The writer contemplates that this might be due to the need for more seclusion by the present day students. ´3DWHO¡V EXLOGLQJV DUH PRUH OLNH DQ XUEDQ FRPSOH[ VRPH VWDQGLQJ FORVH WRJHWKHU DQG VRPH IXUWKHU DSDUW ZLWK FLW\ VW\OH VTXDUHV DQG D ODUJH D[LV H[WHQGLQJ LQ WKH ZDWHU WRZHUÂľ

The new dormitories however, are supposedly â&#x20AC;&#x153;pure luxuryâ&#x20AC;? for the occupants of the old campus. The use of smooth concrete is justified by stating the fact that it was considered to be invented by Kahn, as opposed to the raw, rough beton brut version used by Corbusier in Chandigarh. â&#x20AC;&#x153;With the fundamental formal analogies of a rigid geometry, the simplicity and reticence of the architectural language, SDLUHG ZLWK WKH DXVWHULW\ RI ODUJH HYHQ ZDOOV SD\V WULEXWH WR WKH PDVWHU EXW ZLWKRXW FRS\LQJ KLPÂľ

64

Demonstration in the case of IIMA

In 2008, Himanshu Bhurte, an architecture critic, wrote an article for the magazine MINT -­ The business of life. He begins with a catchy phrase: ´)HZ LFRQLF LQVWLWXWLRQV OLYH LQ LFRQLF EXLOGLQJV 7KH ,QGLDQ Institute of Management (IIM) at Ahmedabad is among those IHZ ¾

He gives a brief description of the campus, referring to the underpass as a â&#x20AC;&#x153;fulcrumâ&#x20AC;? of Bimal Patelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s layout. Unlike, other writings, however, he explains the outcome of the existence of that underpass. ´7KLV PDNHV SUDJPDWLF DV ZHOO DV V\PEROLF VHQVH 2Q WKH RQH KDQG VWXGHQWV DQG WHDFKHUV KDYH WR ZDON WKH VKRUWHVW SRVVLEOH GLVWDQFH 2Q WKH RWKHU WKH FRQWLQXLW\ RI WKH VWUHHW DOVR VLJQDOV D FRQWLQXLW\ RI VSLULW IURP WKH ROG WR WKH QHZ Âľ

The first reference to the metal screens in the building is made in this write up. â&#x20AC;&#x153;To offset, and at the same time heighten, the austerity of the concrete forms, Patel also introduced large metal screens, designed by Walter '¡6RX]D LQWR WKH IDEULF RI WKH EXLOGLQJ :K\ KDQJ DUW RQ ZDOOV ZKHQ LW FDQ PDNH XS WKH DUFKLWHFWXUH"Âľ +H VD\V

After stating the obvious challenges in designing a new campus, he states wisely â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is too early to make conclusive noises about the campusâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;that will have to wait till the trees grow to 30ft or 40ft, when they will add a layer of complexity to the simple forms with their colour and uneven shades.â&#x20AC;?

However, he observed certain things that become clear immediately. He says that while Bimal has been extremely successful in evoking the monumental scale, a sense of order and a coherent plan, it seems as if the elements employed perhaps to break the monotony or to â&#x20AC;&#x153;humanize the austerityâ&#x20AC;? of the buildings, like the small circular openings, the weak bursts of exposed brick walls, and the suddenly angled concrete walls in the open corners of the hostels, appear rather randomly, as if a â&#x20AC;&#x153;virus in the designing programme is constantly nibbling at the order in the most unexpected ways.â&#x20AC;?

To conclude, he says that the building does ultimately achieve a more fundamental quality that Bimal looks for in his buildings â&#x20AC;&#x201C; â&#x20AC;&#x153;memorabilityâ&#x20AC;?. â&#x20AC;&#x153;And that is one story about the space that only time will tellâ&#x20AC;?.

In the 20th Century world atlas, again a book, IIM features as a part of the architecture produced in this century. Once again, the first object of concern is the underpass that physically ties the two campuses together. Alongside this, there is reference to Kahnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s geometries and overlaying organisation as a â&#x20AC;&#x153;starting pointâ&#x20AC;? for the design of the new campus, then going on to differ only in the

65

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

ÀJ 'LDJUDP VKRZLQJ WKH FRQQHFWLRQV ZLWKLQ WKH DUFKLWHFWXUDO WH[WV DERXW WKH ROG FDPSXV RI ,,0$ DQG WKH QRWLRQV WKH\ JHQHUDWH

66

Demonstration in the case of IIMA

ÀJ 'LDJUDP VKRZLQJ WKH FRQQHFWLRQV ZLWKLQ WKH DUFKLWHFWXUDO WH[WV DERXW WKH QHZ FDPSXV RI ,,0$ DQG WKH QRWLRQV WKH\ JHQHUDWH

67

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

choices of materials and the creation of a “new architectural vocabulary” The axis is mentioned once again as are the staggered dormitories, their shared square courtyard, deep-­set balconies and the use of smooth concrete.

At about the same time, Rahul Mehrotra, an architectural critique wrote a book called “Architecture in India since 1990”. The book presented an array of new projects by budding firms across India. Needless to say, IIMA’s new campus, acquired a position in his book. Apart from the previously mentioned objects such as the underpass, the layout, the axis, the material and merely stating the existence of a ‘new vocabulary’, it puts a finger on what that new vocabulary is.

“The use of smoothly shuttered exposed concrete as the primary building material, with fenestration in a combination of mild steel and wood, gives the new facilities a distinct vocabulary while in formal terms the new buildings allude to the architecture of the original campus.”

Mehrotra also questions and states the downside of deliberately attempting to follow the existing structures of the old campus by using Kahns diagonals geometries, semi-­circular stairs and composition using abstract forms and large surfaces.

“This is sometimes limiting in terms of the potential that could have been exploited in expressing a similar programme decades later.”

However, he commends the architect’s tact in overcoming a number of pragmatic problems with the Old campus. What, according to him are these problems, he does not state.

Architectural texts form the most direct connection within each other in order to generate meaning about the building. The story of the institution, represented in aset of events in the historicla texts are given a physical reference through the achitectural texts. The architecture thus recognises the value of the institution present in the historical texts and portrays the building as an embodiment of that value.

The adjacent diagram and the one preceding it represent the connection amongst these texts of the old and new campuses and the emerging notions, like spatial and experiencial qualities of a building, architecture designed to encourage a specific way of living etc.

Fictional Texts: The fictional narrative, being the most flexible of the three kinds, has the ability to navigate easily through the functioning of the other two narratives. In fact, the fiction is what creates the possibility of looking beyond what exists and the ability to address what is essential. In many ways, this text behaves like a

68

Demonstration in the case of IIMA

receiver of the other two texts, especially the historical text to create a new form of opinion.

The main piece of text that can be called a work of fiction is a novel called Second Degree – One crazy year at IIM-­A. The text addresses to the place as a pristine place of study, where the crème de la crème of the country come together. The author is already convinced, from the reputation of the course and the photographs available in newspaper dailies, that the architecture more than satisfactorily represents the place and therefore is usually in awe when he finds himself in the older campus. On the other hand, unaware of the new campus and expecting to be put up in the old campus, the author demonstrates several instances where he feels almost tortured by the large, angular, blank concrete facades of the new campus. In several instances, the author almost feels guilty of doing anything remotely clumsy in the Louis Kahn plaza as he feels that he is violating the place.

The narrative started with the introduction of two characters Priya and the protagonist, Prashanth John. An advertisement for admission into IIM Ahmedabad was shoved into his arms and he was forced to have a look at it.

Priya’s insistence made him think about the new one -­ year course offered at IIM and how it might not be a bad idea to escape his present miserable life.

Prashant decided to apply and a chain of events fell onto each other like the domino effect. He applied for the course in a hurry, barely managing to finish on time, was unable to sleep for the next few days and finally found out that he had cleared the admission and was now through to India’s most famed management institution.

Thoughts on how to leave his current office started flooding his mind. He was already intoxicated by the thought that he was now a student at IIMA, a cut above the rest of his mortal colleagues. He thinks of ways to resign in style, a celebrated hero, after having written a nasty letter to his boss.

Dreaming of freedom, he is late for office and hence late for a very important meeting with M.Suryashekar, a business tycoon. He is immediately pulled back to reality with this realization and becomes very aware of his position in the office for the next month. He cannot quit until the present project is complete. While pushing nights to finish the presentation in time, he is unable to read the pre-­ course material that was mailed to him along with his letter of acceptance.

All is forgotten and he goes to Ahmedabad by train where people look at him admiringly. Word spreads that he is going to IIM and the entire train begins to talk to him, asks him for advice, and befriends him. His mind drifts off to the

69

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

brick walled rooms, the library, the vast buildings and the lush green campus.

As soon as Prashanth gets off at Ahmedabad, he is shocked to realize that none of the autowalas know IIMA. ´, WULHG WR GHVFULEH WKH UHG EULFN EXLOGLQJV RQO\ WR EH WROG KDOI WKH EXLOGLQJV LQ $KPHGDEDG DUH UHG EULFN 5HIHUHQFHV WR WKH /RXLV .DKQ 3OD]D DQG WKH +DUYDUG VWHSV RQO\ VHUYHG WR PDNH WKH PXGGOHG VLWXDWLRQ ZRUVH ¾

Finally after a lot of commotion, he was assigned the youngest driver to get him to IIM somehow. On the way, while in a conversation with this driver, Prashant discovers that there is a new campus where this new one-­year program is being held. He is in for another shock when he is taken there. ´7KLV FRXOGQ¡W EH ULJKW WKHUH ZDV QRW D VLQJOH RQH RI WKH VLJQDWXUH UHG EULFN EXLOGLQJV LQ VLJKW %XW D JLDQW VWHHO VLJQDJH VDLG ,QGLDQ ,QVWLWXWH RI 0DQDJHPHQW ZLWK WKH IDPRXV ORJR UHà HFWLQJ WKH EULJKW VXPPHU VXQ $V WKH DXWR WXUQHG DQG KHDGHG GRZQ WKH JUDQG GULYHZD\ DQ HQRUPRXV IDFDGH RI JLDQW FRQFUHWH EORFNV FDPH LQWR VLJKW 7KH IDPRXV ODUJH FLUFXODU RSHQLQJV RI WKH ROG EULFN DUFKLWHFWXUH ZHUH YLVLEOH EXW VWLOO ² LW ZDV DOO GXOO JUH\ FRQFUHWH ¾

The keyword here is â&#x20AC;&#x153;signatureâ&#x20AC;?. The image of the red brick building and the legends that surround it are so strong in his head that he is unable to accept the dull concrete in its place. The Old campus of IIM has now already become something of an icon, something myths are made of, just like the institution itself but somehow, in the authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mind, the new building just doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t live up to it. Once he is in the campus, he is allotted his room and he trots off to rest for a while. ´0\ URRP ZDV D PLQLDWXUH YHUVLRQ RI WKH JULP IDFDGH /DUJH FRQFUHWH VODEV HQFORVLQJ D ZHOO PDGH EHG DQG D ODUJH VWXG\ DUHD GRPLQDWHG E\ WKH URRP ,W ORRNHG D ELW OLNH +LWOHU¡V EXQNHU WKDW WKH\ NHHS VKRZLQJ RQ WKH 'LVFRYHU\ &KDQQHOÂľ

Once he is settled and strolls out into his dormitory, we are introduced to the rest of the characters i.e. Sweety, Varun, Subbu, all of whom end up being a part of Prashantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gang.

They decide to take a walk around the campus, desperate to visit the old one.

They run into some seniors and feel insecure about their stay here. The walls seem to close in on them. Even in this depressed state of mind, where the corridor seems to change dimension, the Louis Kahn Plaza is a welcome sight.

They watch the football match for a while. Already afraid in his heart, Prashant

Demonstration in the case of IIMA

watches the footballer score a self goal and takes it as a metaphor for the selfish, brutal “go get it” attitude that this institution is so famous for. ´, JODQFHG DW P\ QHZ IULHQGV 7KH\ ZHUH VWDULQJ LQWR WKH IDU GLVWDQFH DQG , VXVSHFW ZH ZHUH WKLQNLQJ WKH VDPH WKLQJ ²:K\ WKH KHOO GLG ZH DSSO\" µ

The domino effect continues as Prashant overslept and would have been late for his first class, had he not decided to skip breakfast. It was at this crucial moment that he meets JigneshKampania who decides to eat instead of attending class on time. The professor is introduced as an extremely stern person. The bunch is introduced the method of case study. Professor stresses the need to work with numbers, context, teamwork and class participation.

It is stated that ‘Learning was a continuous process and so was evaluation.’

Teams were assigned and the first assignment given -­ team name and creative presentation of theme was expected.FinallyPrashant reaches the mess after a long day and is served with the aloo-­cabbage sabzi by Rambhai, who works at the canteen.

After a heavy meal Prashant finally decides to hit the sack for a while when he is called in by his teammate -­ Berrywala to meet at his room for a discussion for the assignment. ´ ZDV WKH URRP DW WKH HQG RI P\ OREE\ DQG WKH GRRU ZDV RSHQ ZKHQ , UHDFKHG WKHUH 7KH WLQ\ URRP ZDV SDFNHG ZLWK ÀYH SHRSOH DQG WKH\ VWRSSHG RQ VHHLQJ PH VWDQGLQJ LQ WKH GRRUZD\µ

Here, we are introduced to his team members – Prasad, Patantar, Dakshish and Anth. Decisions regarding the presentation were taken after a long discussion.

Prashant was to draw the logo, team name – Jenes.

It was finally the night of the presentation and all of them gathered in the lawns. ´7KH JLDQW FRQFUHWH EXLOGLQJV ORRNHG VRIWHU LQ WZLOLJKW DQG SURYLGHG TXLWH D PDJQLÀFHQW EDFNGURS WR WKH VPDOO VWDJH ZH ZHUH WR SHUIRUP RQµ

Here, the key is backdrop. Never has the Old campus been described as a backdrop. It is never perceived as a plane surface. The new building, however, serves its best when it is a two dimensional object, providing a magnificent image.

71

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

One by one, each team presents and the anticipation of team J increases. This is followed by a comedy of errors with the presentation, one that nobody would ever let Prashant forget about.

Gradually, they are introduced to the gruelling course, the heavy textbooks, and the impossible timings. The quiz was the most horrifying thing that could happen to them and soon, the first quiz was announced. There is pin drop silence in dorm lobbies and Prashant notices everybody’s stress relief strategies.

As the quiz drew nearer, “time seemed to slow down now that I was facing imminent death”. The quiz was such a ‘cruel’ imposition that the teaching assistant actually had an internal wager on what the highest score in the quiz would be.

A morose discussion about the quiz takes place over food, chai and coffee while everybody decides that their future is extremely bleak. The quiz triggered a war like environment in the entire universities. Teams were making strategies, making up cases, employing spies to get ahead of the other teams. Sure enough, Prashant too was called to be a part of his teams was strategy.

The classroom wars are over when the term exams end and they are free to go for their term breaks.

When the second term begins, grades have been put up and Prashant realizes that he is ridiculously low on the grade sheet. Berrywala makes him realize that it is because of his low class participation. To explain to him the strategy for class participation, the next lecture is used as an example. Since positioning is very important for this to work the organization of the entire classroom is described vividly.

Before the term gets over, the festival has already arrived and a comedy of errors happens there too. It was then time for placements and Prashanth decides that he is not interested in getting placed and getting into the same grind as he was in before. Finally it is time for convocation and the Louis Kahn Plaza is described again with all the joy that it contains.

In another narrative, Dorm Spaces and Sociability, an IIM student analysed the relationships between different kinds of spaces on campus and the sociability of the students. Firstly, the very idea that a management student thought that the space affects the way we think is a direct reference to the importance the building holds in his mind. The study states that dorm residents enter social space the moment they leave the room. The student identified dorm 14 in old campus and dorm 20 in new campus to interact with dorm residents. Students pointed out

Demonstration in the case of IIMA

that going to canteen together for lunch and dinner or going to campus gate for a cup of tea were common spaces for socializing. The ground floor foyer, verandah type space, dorm terrace, and corridor in front of the rooms also fall in the same bracket.

Some students even mentioned corridor space and talking across the balconies, sometimes from different floors as a good place to chat with each other.

Many blogs were released on the Internet and they are personal discourses on the reminiscence and awe that the authors have towards the spaces in IIM. In 2006, a student wrote about his experience in IIM on his first day in the article “First day at IIMA”. He talks of the old and the new campus saying: ´+RZHYHU WKH PRVW VWULNLQJ IHDWXUH WKDW GLIIHUHQWLDWH PDLQ DQG QHZ FDPSXV LV DUFKLWHFWXUH 0DLQ FDPSXV LV DOO DERXW EULFNV DQG QHZ FDPSXV LV DOO DERXW FHPHQW 6WLOO WKH DXUD DQG FKDUP LV WKH VDPH 9LNUDP 6DUDEKDL /LEUDU\ LQ PDLQ FDPSXV KDV DQ DZH HIIHFW ZKHQ \RX HQWHU LW IRU WKH ÀUVW WLPH 6R PDQ\ ERRNV DURXQG \RX WKDW \RX PD\ IHHO ORVW DPRQJ WKHP ,FRQLF /RXLV .DKQ SOD]D DQG +DUYDUG VWHSV DGGV WR WKH FKDUP RI PDLQ FDPSXV µ

73

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

ÀJ 'LDJUDP VKRZLQJ WKH FRQQHFWLRQV ZLWKLQ WKH ÀFWLRQDO WH[WV DQG WKH QRWLRQV WKH\ JHQHUDWH

74

Demonstration in the case of IIMA

Another write up in 2009, talks of the students discomfort in the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;oldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; rooms of the old campus and his want to live in the luxurious dormitories of the new campus: â&#x20AC;&#x153;As people pointed out, IIM Ahmedabad seems to be a more IXQFWLRQDOO\ HIĂ&#x20AC;FLHQW FDPSXV ZLWK DOO HVVHQWLDOV LQ SODFH DQG UXQQLQJ VPRRWKO\ 7KH URRPV LQ WKH ROG FDPSXV DUH ÂśROG¡ 1HZ FDPSXV URRPV DUH PXFK EHWWHU %XW OLIH LV RQ ROG FDPSXV 6R RYHUDOO , DP QRW UHDOO\ GLVDSSRLQWHG WR EH RQ ROG FDPSXV Âľ

Later in 2012, the write up The brick walls at IIMA and how they inspire me makes a direct reference to the effect of the building on a studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mind. The student is convinced that it is the brick walls and the air in the Louis Kahn Plaza that generate inspiration of the most extraordinary kind, instigating the will to strive to be someone beyond the ordinary.

Hence the fictional texts carry the notions emerging in the historical as well as the architectural texts and spin together into a combined notion. The institution and the building therefore are no longer separate entities. Instead, they exist and grow together, constituting a part of the same legacy. The adjacent table shows the connections amongst the fictional texts and the emerging notions.

The Collective functioning of these three kinds of texts: The three systems of texts -­ historical, architectural and fictional function not juts within themselves, thye also interact, intersect and influence each other .

For example, the historical and architectural texts at the first reading appear to exist as separate entities, covering their own subject areas. The historical texts talked about the evolution of the institution, its values, its culture, the students, the faculty while the architectural texts talked about the evolution of the building, its elements and sometimes how it responded to the brief. But slowly the historical texts started to portray the campus and , the walls of the building as an embodiment of the students and professors of the institution.

The campus seemed to have absorbed the properties of the people living there and the students and the faculty also seemed to have absorbs the quality of the building. The fictional texts directly indicated this shift in perception. The classic example is the the book published in 2012 -­ â&#x20AC;&#x153;The brick walls at IIMA and how they inspire meâ&#x20AC;?. It talked of how the campus is an integral part of the legacy of IIMA and how the inspiration to grow is derived from the very walls of the building and the atmosphere they create. Historical and architectural writings have celebrated the value of the campus to an extent that in future there is

75

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

ÀJ 'LDJUDP VKRZLQJ LQWHUWH[WXDOLW\ WKH GHSHQGHQFH RI RQH WH[W RQ DQRWKHU WR JHQHUDWH FROOHFWLYH PHDQLQJVV RYHU WLPH

76

Demonstration in the case of IIMA

virtually no possibility of any texts written without referring to it. Probably this is the only building in the country that enjoys this pre-­eminence.

What this explains is that the building gains value only when it carries with it the experiences of numerous inhabitants, passers by and admirers. These stories, when narrated help form an image in the minds of the readers, leading them to imagine and experience the space. In a way stories have to be written, as much as the places as are produced. Let us now look at the perception of the two IIMs refer to each other intertextually in the following section.

Intertextuality and the emergence of meaning: All texts, from being individual entities in the sixties, seventies and eighties, derived meanings from each other to produce ‘hybrid’ texts (texts involving historical, architectural and fictional aspects) in the nineties and beyond. The connections among these texts is represented in fig 3(7).

In 2011, T T Ram Mohan began his book ‘Brick by red brick’, by saying “It’s the exposed brick structure that strikes you when you arrive at the old campus of the Indian Institute of management, Ahmedabad. The architecture conveys an impression of solidity, of something built to last.” This notion was formed after forty years of text production since the construction of the old campus.

The evidences leading up to this emerge from the historical, as well as the architectural texts.

Since 1965, when the building of the old campus was nearly complete, the architectural texts talked about Kahn’s Journey in India, leading to the quality that he had achieved in building IIMA. His visit to Fatehput Sikri, Sarkhej Roza and other ‘monuments’ seem to have impacted the fortress-­like formation of the dormitories. This idea was first introduced in1967, when an article in the Zodiac magazine claimed the school and dormitories to for a unit like the monastery.

Along with that, it also motioned the high corridors; deep porches the designing of the school around the court and the presence of the amphitheatre – all meant to promote the idea of ‘meeting’. This could be continued from Maria Bottero’s writing for the Zodiac in 1965. The idea of meeting was explained spatially, saying that the space and function seem to follow an ‘interior law of necessity’.

This was also in reference to the dormitories.

This notion of Kahn’s architecture as the space that obeyed the laws of nature was revisited in the article in 2006 in the book ‘Enlightened Spaces’. Joseph Rosa wrote that unlike the modern approach of making the building and letting the signage decide the functions of the building, Kahn’s brick buildings at IIMA were metanarratives of the programme they were built for. This notion, from

77

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

being an act of architecture, started appearing in the historical narratives in the year 2000, as the building being an imitation of the institution and the people in it. The building was looked at as an embodiment of its people and the ideals that in institute stood for. The newspaper article ‘India’s own Ivy league college’ said that the corridors of IIM are like a labyrinth until one reaches the ‘inner sanctums’, quite like the managers that the institution produces. This also takes us to T T Ram Mohan’s ‘Brick by Red Brick’ where he says that the ‘building and the students at IIM have a deceptive ordinariness about them’.

Aside from this idea of ‘meeting’ Bottero’s article goes on to describe the perfect brickwork, used as a ‘delicate stretched skin’ to cover all the functions, the rhythmic repetition of elements like the loggias and the buttresses and the play of the large forms in the sunlight. Sunlight also made an appearance in the magazine in 1967 when the author described the interior as the place where we ‘live, work and study’ and the exterior as ‘that which is given to the sun’.

The element common to both these articles is the use of large courtyards. In a larger scale, if one is to look at all of Kahn’s work until then and his on-­going projects, one would not miss the use of courtyards in different ways for different purposes. Kahn’s search for the use of courtyard to transcend the particularity of its use is enunciated by Kathleen James, in ‘Louis Kahn’s Indian Institute of Management’s courtyard’ (1984). James also mentioned Kahn’s vision of sublime spaces as compared to his necessity for a humanistic understanding of a community.

In 1993, Vincent Scully added a new dimension to the notions already present about the red brick buildings of IIMA. He talked of Kahn’s building as a ‘deliberate misreading of the Roman ruins’. He specifically mentioned Kahn’s ‘brick order’ i.e. the use of both a concrete lintel and a brick arch as derived from the Roman Ruins in Ostia. This is the same ‘chords of concrete’ and the ‘thrusts of arches’ that were mentioned in 1967 in Zodiac. He termed Kahn as a romantic classic architect, looking for fundamentally sublime effects.

In 2002, Gautam Bhatia repeated most of the notions mentioned above in his book ‘A moment in Architecture’. The monastic shell first made its appearance with reference to his room in the dormitory of the old building. The room, providing a bare minimum of a bed, a desk and a window, representing sleep, study and light is a metaphor for a monastic life which according to Bhatia is essential for an academic life.

This same dormitory room was talked of by a student, later in 2009 (Random Thoughts), saying that the room in the old campus was ‘old’ and uncomfortable and that he would much rather stay in the luxurious rooms of the new campus.

In fact in the write up about the new campus in Phaidon World Atlas in 2012, it is also said that the dormitories are more spacious in the new campus and the blocks are set slightly far away from each other, unlike the Old campus, perhaps

78

Demonstration in the case of IIMA

because the students today prefer their own space as opposed to a community space, which was essential in Kahn’s design.

However, the book “Second degree”, also written in 2009 provides insight into the unbearability of the new campus and the rush of fresh air at entering the old campus. This text, while describing the room as having a ‘well made bed’ and a ‘large study’, also described it as grim, like one of ‘Hitler’s bunkers’ that they show in the discovery channel.

Bhatia also makes a reference to Bottero’s feeling of the architecture conjuring a ‘disquieting’ atmosphere. He talks of the high corridors and the repetition which give rise to the element of rhythm, also motioned by Bottero. Bhatia claims that it is this hypnotic rhythm that does not allow the mind to perceive any change, any shift from the monotony of reappearing forms and shapes and hence the mind only perceives absence. This in turn gives a calm, silent and still feeling, so important for a student who has to focus and concentrate.

When Bhatia wrote of the high corridors and the emotion one experiences while walking through them, one is reminded of the article in Zodiac that quoted Kahn’s own obsession with the corridor as being a place of meeting outside the classroom. The corridor also finds its place in TT Ram Mohan’s historical narrative. Mohan describes feeling a ‘sense of immensity’ and a sense of ‘elevation’ while walking through the corridors of the old campus. Kahn intended the corridor to be a place where informal discussions can happen and there is no difference between the teacher and student anymore.

This notion comes across once more in Bhatia’s narrative where he quotes Kahn’s idea of a school as “a school begins with a man who does not know he is a teacher, talking of his realisation to a group of people who do not know they are students.”

According to Bhatia, this philosophical distinction between teaching and learning is the reason the campus of IIMA possesses an architectural quality that elevates it beyond other campus plans.

Bhatia also subconsciously talked of Scully’s inference about Kahn having derived his architecture from the Ruins of Rome. Bhatia said that the entire campus had a look of ruin, incomplete and bare and presenting a monolithic rusticity. This notion is repeated by Mohan in 2011, while describing Kahn and his life before he came to India. Mohan says that Kahn is ‘said to have derive his style from the Roman Ruins’. In an anecdotal historical narrative, B V Doshi recalled Kahn himself talking about his building as ‘ruins in reverse’.

79

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

Bhatia concluded his written journey saying that as the sun sets, one could see the precise brickwork and its severe geometry and slowly, layer-­by-­layer, the shadows disappeared into darkness as the space recedes with sunlight.

As far as the institution is concerned, T T Ram Mohanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s historical narrative talks of the notions of autonomy of the institute, the culture of freedom, creativity and innovation in the institute and the strength of the institute being the quality of its students. These notions can be traced back to the events covered in the newspaper articles appearing in the seventies, eighties and the nineties. These articles indicated the amount of discussion that was taking place in the country for the development of the field of management.

In an 1970 article talked about how the students were urged to launch their own ventures. They even innovated simpler library classification systems in 1973.

In 1980, IIM was getting various assignments from important organisations and was considered able enough to train faculties from other management institutions. By the end of the nineties, the newspaper articles celebrated the success of students of IIMA. The campus interviews were a huge success and IIM started enjoying an esteemed status among the management institutes.

In the year 2006, Joseph Rosaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Enlightened spacesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; collected all the above notions about the old campus and tied them up in a well-­articulated narrative.

These notions included the arrival of Kahn, the association with B V Doshi and the institution being modelled after the Harvard Business School. This book was published several years after Khanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s death and already the notions, which were very simple and straightforward in the previous narratives became slightly elevated, mythical in nature. The â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;severe geometry of the brickworkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;monolithic formsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; became â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;monumental massing of the school buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;rhythmic elementsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;play of formsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;deep porchesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, the corridors and the hierarchy of the institution became â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;a study in scale and proportion. With the appearance of this text, these ideas of light, form, order, scale, proportion, monumentality, Roman ruins, silence, repetition, rhythm, autonomy, strength of students, the arrival of Kahn and the collaboration with HBS, about the old campus had pretty much come to a point of saturation.

2006 was also the time when the construction of the new campus was completed.

Thus from hereon, all texts talked of the old and the new campus together, conveniently repeating the aforementioned ideas of the old campus. The appearance of fictional narratives and personal experiences participated in the borrowing of ideas from the architectural narrative to the historical and the other way around. This borrowing, coupled with personal experiences produce new fictional texts.

Demonstration in the case of IIMA

The fictional articles ‘2008 -­ IIM Ahmedabad -­ the journey’, ‘2009 -­ those 28 hours at IIMA’, ‘2009 -­ Random thoughts’, ‘2012 -­ Louis Kahn -­ IIM Ahmedabad’’, 2012 -­ The brick walls at IIMA and how they inspire me’, ‘2012 -­ Thought Junction’ – all talk of the same notions both about the old and the new campus.

In 2012, the text The man who romanced the sun, bricks and silence rekindled the images of sublime spaces, timeless rhythms, interplay of silence, light and shadows and Louis Kahn’s fondness for large courtyards that we gained from Bhatia’s memoir.

As far as the new campus is concerned, exactly similar notions about the new campus as mentioned in the historical texts appear in almost all kinds of texts produced after 2009. The same notions are circulated, with very little or no variation in opinion. The underpass, the continuum, the change in material, the continuation of diagonal walls and circular openings, all appear in exactly the same manner, even in architectural texts.

The writings by Himanshu Bhurte and Rahul Mehrotra differ at this point.

Himanshu Bhurte in his article, while appreciating Bimal Patel’s attempt at building an extension to the masterpiece that Kahn created, criticised the random use of Khan’s forms – diagonals and circular openings in his building. The use of brick is deemed as weak and under confident and the unnecessary angles in the corners and the weak bouts of little circular openings are said to compromise the much-­required solidity of the building.

Rahul Mehrotra in his book ‘Architecture in India since 1990’ also after describing the obvious underpass, the use of concrete and the continued use of diagonals, says that this might have been a lost opportunity at discovering the emergence of a new interpretation of an old programme.

It is clear from the fictional texts and the historical texts about IIM Ahmedabad that there has been a slight shift in the character of the institute from the time that it was built. The institute from being a struggling simple institute who’s goal was only to learn and innovate from a bare minimum to become the best Business school in India has now become a demanding School at the top, accustomed to luxury.

However, some ideals are still the same. The old campus has become a part of the IIM folklore and ‘Life’ as the student puts it is still on the old campus. Thus the two campuses have now become a way of representing the institution in different periods of time.

In 2013, the articles in the newspaper like “Kahn and his kahaniyas in

81

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

Ahmedabad architectureâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ahmedabad where masters crafted their dreamsâ&#x20AC;?, started turning more architectural than usual. Ahmedabad is posed as this sacred land where masters of the modern era were allowed to create what they desired.

Finally, in the same year, the fictional texts took all these notions â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the historical and architectural and spun them into one fictional narrative, for there is no institution without the building and there is no building without the institution.

This is best illustrated in the following example from a write up by a studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s blog in the internet: ´6R ZKHUH GRHV WKH LQVSLUDWLRQ FRPH IURP" ,W¡V DOO LQ WKH DLU DQG LQ WKH YDFXXP RI WKHVH ZDOOV 1RW MXVW WKLV WKH EHVW IHHOLQJ LV ZKHQ \RX DUH VLWWLQJ LQ IURQW RI 9LNUDP 6DUDEKDL /LEUDU\ ZKLFK LV RSHQ DQG WKH JOLGLQJ ZDYHV RI DLU WRXFKHV \RX 7KDW¡V ZKHUH WKH LQVSLUDWLRQ FRPHV IURP 7KH ZDON LQ IURQW RI WKRVH ODZQV LV PXFK PRUH LQVSLULQJ DQG IXOO RI LGHDV Âľ

Chapter - 4 Conclusion 83

Conclusion

Himanshu Bhurte, architecture columnist with the Mint, writing about that the new Indian Institute of Management mentioned that -­‘It is too early to make conclusive noises about the campus—that will have to wait till the trees grow to 30ft or 40ft, when they will add a layer of complexity to the simple forms with their colour and uneven shades.’ He wrote this in 2008, two years after that campus was completed. The trees have now grown in the campus, hardly adding any complex shades to it. The school block is spotted as soon as one enters, with an inviting ramp that goes right up to the corridor that takes one to the classrooms. As one walks through the corridor, the water tower of the old campus – often mentioned as the symbol for learning is always visible. In the extreme heat of Ahmedabad, sunlight seeps from the extruded balconies, making the ‘inside’ suddenly much cooler than the ‘outside’.

The new in IIMA, it seems, cannot exist without the old. The overbearing presence of the master’s building is felt even if it is not immediately visible. The aura of the old campus is strong. Would it be ever possible for the new campus to break free from the old and have a life on its own? It can, but not until it generates its own stories.

This thesis shows that unless new narratives are formed and stories circulate, the new cannot have a life of its own. For that, the building needs texts and more texts.

Architecture itself is not enough to evoke and speak about itself. Today, when asked about the Old campus, without having to strain much, one can think of words such as `monumental’, `austere’, `sacred’, `inspiring’ and `masterpiece’.

These are the notions that have been cultivated through the years in different kinds of writings. Architecture has its own intrinsic qualities, but unless it is extracted, spotlighted and circulated it tends to remain invisible. Text seeks to extend a valuable idea that is already manifested in the building by grasping them, carrying them in words and circulating them.

In the case of IIMA campus, writings about the new buildings lack diversity, referring only to the continuation of ‘form’ as if that amounts to the continuation of spirit or of its own spirit. Even the word ‘form’ is not free of problems in this case. To Kahn, ‘form’ referred to the inherent shape of a space that a human activity dictates, in order to physically represent that activity.

Bimal Patel on the other hand talks of form as if it is plainly the resultant ‘shape’ or a certain orientation, without any reference to what dictated it.

Paul Goldberger, who is currently probably the most established and respected architecture critic in New York today, said “I think if you don’t engage all of these social issues, let’s call them, to some extent, then you’re just kind of just comparing shapes. And architecture criticism has got to be about more than that.” This is probably that distinguishes the new and old texts are reflections

85

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

and manifestations of this absence.

Architecture has not become an event in the new campus, not yet. There is no grand narrative, there is no dialogue between the servant and served spaces, no one is asking what the arch wants to be. The building does not yet have any definitive architectural story to say. It does not mark a new timeline. The texts reminds you that and the building is seen in the image of the institute and not something of its own. It is the reverse of the old where the presence of Khan gave it a different head start. Texts announced it loudly and clearly This raises an important question about the role of texts in perceiving meanings.

Architectural writing in the west is as now saturated with extensive and at times excessive writing. As Vanessa Quirk describes in the article ‘The architect Critic is Dead’, architectural writing has reached a period of backlash. Much of the fatigue towards architectural writing has come up because of the portrayal of only one kind of building and only one kind of architecture. For example, the famous critic of the New York Times, Nicolai Ouroussoff has been criticised for writing only about either Rem Koolhaas’ CCTV building in Beijing, Steven Holls’sVanke Centre in Shenzwn or ZahaHadid’s Opera House in Gangzhou, and the likes. There are hardly any articles about small but effective efforts to build sensible architecture. This fatigue is experienced not only among the professionals but also among the general readership. This resentment towards architecture that has been emerging in the past few years is also an example of text influence. The audience, it seems is tired of the excess of architecture that is being produced, that do not have a ‘mission’ and are being written about in the same way – like an object. Writing about architecture in the newspapers has become more descriptive in nature, something that only displays facts without delving into either the architectural or the sensory aspects of the building.

Writing the building as if it were a story is now in the past. This may not be the case of India.

The Indian condition is in contrast to this. Although similar star obsessed writings are being produced in India -­ buildings that are literally large enough to make an impact or buildings built by an architect who is popular enough to make an impact-­, there is no fatigue experienced in the audiences. . In the case of IIMA for example, it was fairly simple to write about the architecture of the old campus as if it were a story because of the immense amount of previously published stories about its various aspects. The new campus however has only been written about as an object to be looked at and not something to be lived in.

In spite of the example that the old campus offers about the possibility of ‘lived spaces’, the new campus represents the corpus of architecture today that remain something that form a ‘magnificent backdrop in the twilight’. (Second degree-­ one crazy year at IIMA).

86

Conclusion

Architectural criticism in India is an emerging field and even newspapers have become an important tool for the architects today. An increasing number of newspapers have started writing about architecture but it is still treated as a part of the news or as a lifestyle event. This too has an impact. Unless buildings acquire a celebrity status, writings do not focus and this skews the general understanding about architecture. The same skew in understanding can be spotted within the profession, or even among students of architecture because of the writing in the architectural magazine, dominated mainly by deceptive images of ‘star’ buildings. We may criticize the subject of what is being written about but we have to acknowledge that the writing itself is influential.

This can lead to undesired impacts like only certain kinds of firms being approached for, pushing a star culture, leading to clients and government desperately looking to mega architects for their projects. This has already reached the shores of India like asking Zaha Hadid to do the Kolkata Museum of Modern art, Herzog and de Meuron, the Chennai Tech Park and Fumihiko Maki, the Bihar museum.

If this is the problem with the current writing, the question is “Where do we go next? What kind of writing and what kind of architecture matters?”

Cathleen McGuigan of the Architectural record stated that there is a sea change possible by getting away from the “object building” and “considering context”.

Justin Davidson of New York magazine thinking on similar lines, said that new writing have to make an individual think about “what it’s like, to live three blocks away from the building in the review.”

This thesis, if it emphasises one central point it is that reading about architecture becomes as important as practising it, if new kinds of architecture needs to be supported, writing that connects them has to commence.

Katherine Jose states in an article for ‘capital New York’ that architecture is not architecture unless there are people interacting with it, and therefore the experience of interacting with it matters, and the context, and the process.

Viewed in that light, it almost seems that architecture and its texts has to do just that.

87

Bibliography 89

Bibliography

Books and papers used for case study of IIMA: John Prashant, Second Degree – One Crazy Year at IIM-­A, Eklavya Education Foundation, Ahmedabad, 2009.

Ram Mohan T T, Brick by Red Brick, Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd., 2011.

Indian Journey, from Corbusier to Kahn, Zodiac, Jul-­Aug 1965.

James Kathleen, Louis I Kahn’s courtyard at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad , Journal of Architectural Education, Sept 1995, pg. 38-­49 Scully Vincent, Louis Kahn and the Ruins of Rome, Engineering and science, 1993, pg 3-­13.

Bhatia Gautam, A moment in Architecture, Tulika Books, 2002, pg. 115-­123.

Rosa Joseph, Louis I. Kahn: 1901-­1974: Enlightened Spaces, Taschen Basic Architecture, 2006, pg. 59-­60.

Klaus-­Peter Gast, Modern Traditions: Contemporary Architecture in India, Springer Vienna, 2007, pg. 60-­67.

Mehrotra Rahul, Architecture in India Since 1990, Pictor Publishing Pvt. Ltd, 2011, pg. 96-­99.

Phaidon Editors, The Phaidon Atlas of 21st Century World Architecture,Phaidon Press, 2012.

1963 -­ Classified Ad 14 -­-­ IIMA – ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Times of India (1838-­2003) 1964 – Exploration Of The Evolving Symbols Of India: Work At National Design Institute – ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Times of India (1838-­ 2003) 1964 – Projects: Past and Future – ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Times of India (1838-­2003) 1970 -­ IIM graduates urged to launch own ventures -­ ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Times of India (1838-­2003) 1971 -­ New techniques in management needed – ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Times of India (1838-­2003) 1973 -­ Simpler library classification system developed – ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Times of India (1838-­2003) 1978 -­ In the city today – ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Times of India (1838-­2003) 1980 -­ FAO project for Ahmedabad IIM – ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Times of India (1838-­2003) 1998 -­ Economics and management education – ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Times of India (1838-­2003) 1999 -­ Red hot: A national challenge – ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Times of India (1838-­2003) 2000 -­ India’s own Ivy League college – ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Times of India (1838-­2003)

91

Buildings, Meanings and text : the case of IIMA

2003 -­ Kahn’s charm Inspires IIM’s twin – 2005 -­ IIMA new campus upholds same values -­ Times of India Archives, 2000-­2013.

2013 -­ IIMA opposes Umbrella body – Times of India Archives, 2000-­2013.

2013 -­ DNA -­ Where Masters crafted their dreams.

2013 -­ DNA -­ Kahn and his Kahaniyas in Ahmedabad architecture.

2008 -­ IIM Ahmedabad Extending an icon – Live Mint – press release Shatdal Arvind, Dorm Spaces and Sociability, W.P. No. 2011-­10-­04, October 2011 http://prashantbhoyar.blogspot.in/2009/02/those-­28-­hours-­at-­iim-­ ahmedabad_26.html, April 2013. http://blog.abhinavjain.net/2009/06/iim-­ahmedabad.html, April 2013. http://www.coolavenues.com/bschools/061204/diary_vinamra_iima_1.php, April 2013. http://rakesh-­thoughtjunction.blogspot.in/2012/04/iima-­campus.html, April 2013.

Other Bibliography: Books and Book Sections: Crystler C. Greig, Writing Space -­ Discourses in Architecture, Urbanism and the Built, Routledge, 2004.

Rattenbury Kester, This is Not Architecture: Media Construction, Routledge, 2002.

Mitter Partha, Much Maligned Monsters – History of European reactions to Indian Art, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1977.

Tournikiotis Panayotis, The Historiography of Modern Architecture, The MIT Press, 1999.

Lannoy Richard, The Speaking Tree – A study of Indian Culture and Society, London, Oxford University Press, New York, Bombay, 1971.

Frampton Kenneth, Modern Architecture – A critical History, Thames and Hudson, 1980.

Abbott, Porter H, The Cambridge introduction to Narrative, Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Cobley Paul, Narrative, Routledge, 2001.

Bhatt Vikram and Scriver Peter, Contemporary Indian Architecture – After the Masters, Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd., Ahmedabad, 1990.

Hollis Edward, The Secret Lives of Buildings, Granta Publications, 2011.

Dharwadker Vinay, The Collected essays of A.K.Ramanujan, Oxford University Press 1999.

Clarke Georgia, Crossley Paul, Architecture and Language-­ constructing Identity In European Architecture, Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Bibliography

Pallasmaa Juhani, The Eyes of the Skin, Wiley, 2005.

Barthes Roland, Image Music Text, Fontana Press, 1977.

Barthes Roland, Criticism and Truth, Continuum, 2004.

Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, DOVER PUBN Incorporated, 1931.

Zumthor Peter, Thinking Architecture, Birkhauser 2006.

Theses and Papers: Nair Nisha, Curiouser city – Masters thesis, CEPT University.

Livesey Graham, Narrative, Ephemerality and architecture of the contemporary city, School of Architecture McGill University, Montréal.

Ifversen Jan, Text, Discourse, Concept: Approaches to Textual Analysis, KONTUR nr. 7, 2003.

Burke Peter, History of Events and the Revival of Narrative, Pennsylvania University Press, 1984.

Ricoeur Paul, Narrative Time, The University of Chicago Press, Critical Inquiry, Vol. &, No. 1,On Narrative (Autumn, 1980), pg. 169-­190.

Nigianni Betty, Architecture as image-­space-­text, University of East London Institutional Repository, 2007.

Internet Archives: http://www.archdaily.com/298276/architectural-­criticism-­in-­the-­age-­of-­ twitter-­paul-­goldberger/, January 2013. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/why-­dont-­we-­read-­about-­ architecture/, January 2013. http://www.designersandbooks.com/blog/seeing-­things-­you-­have-­never-­ seen-­them-­books-­every-­architect-­should-­read—paul-­goldberger, January 2013. http://users.aber.ac.uk/dgc/Documents/S4B/sem09.html, May 2013. http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/texts.html, May 2013

Illustrations: All tables, charts, sketches and diagrams are done by the author unless mentioned otherwise. All photographs clicked by the author.

93