IA&B July 2015

VOL 28 (11)

JULY 2015

www.iabforum.com

INDIAN ARCHITECT & BUILDER

FOCUS The Discipline of Architecture IN CONVERSATION Munishwar Nath Ashish Ganju ARCHITECTURE Re-imagining an Educational Edifice: Shidhulai Swarnivar Sangstha ETHOS Learning from History

EXPLORE

VOL 28 (11) | JULY 2015 | www.iabforum.com RNI Registration No. 46976/87, ISSN 0971-5509 INDIAN ARCHITECT AND BUILDER

28 CURRENT

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32 PRODUCTS

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The latest news, events and competitions in architecture and design

from India and abroad.

Information of sate-of-the-art products, from across the globe, which

are recycled and eco-friendly.

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POST EVENT

Projective Histories

Exhibition held by sP+a (Sameep Padora and Associates)

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FOCUS

The Discipline of Architecture

SALES Brand Manager: Sudhanshu Nagar Email: sudhanshu_nagar@jasubhai.com

Introductory note

IN CONVERSATION

MARKETING TEAM & OFFICES

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Projecting Futures through Historical Extractions

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Printed at M B Graphics, B-28, Shri Ram Industrial Estate, ZG D Ambekar Marg, Wadala, Mumbai 400031and Published from Mumbai - 3rd Floor, Taj Building, 210, Dr D N Road, Fort, Mumbai 400 001.

Editor: Maulik Jasubhai Shah, 26, Maker Chamber VI, Nariman Point, Mumbai 400 021.

Indian Architect & Builder: (ISSN 0971-5509), RNI No 46976/87, is a JMPL monthly publication. Reproduction in any manner, in whole or part, in English or any other language is strictly prohibited. We welcome articles, but do not accept responsibility for contributions lost in the mail.

Architect Sameep Padora talks to IA&B about his significant projects,

work processes, his recent exhibition and practice sP+a which he set

up in 2006.

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Between thought and expression

In conversation with IA&B architect Munishwar Nath Ashish Ganju

highlights the characteristics of architecture as a discipline and

interlocks the methods of his practice within these expressions.

ARCHITECTURE

46

Connecting with our Intellectual Roots

The Dolma Ling Nunnery, a project envisioned by architect M N Ashish

Ganju, displays the art of learning from ancient values and understanding

the built environment as an unbound source of knowledge.

56

Re-imagining an Educational Edifice

Shidhulai Swarnivar Sangstha, founded by Mohammed Rezwan,

designs and constructs solar powered Floating School Boats.

62

URBAN

Transactional Objects

Rupali Gupte and Prasad Shetty exhibited their work, ‘Transactional

Objects’, at the 56 th Venice Art Biennial 2015, titled ‘All the World’s

Futures’ curated by Okwui Enwezor.

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INTERNATIONAL

Culture encounters Contemporary

The designers for the University of Taroudant, Morocco attempt

to bring cultural context and contemporary design together to

create an architecture that deserves a place in both.

76

CAMPAIGN

Navigating the Future‌

Design educator Ravindra Punde writes about the significance

of the quality and method of architectural education in India.

80

SPACE FRAMES

Pandals of the Durga Puja : celebrations of Kolkata.

A photo essay by Kunal Bhatia that showcases the celebrations of

the Durga Puja through the magnanimity of the pandals.

87

ETHOS

Learning from History

This research looks into interventions occurred in a historical context

in history, and further understanding and analysing the impact of the

socio-political proceedings using architecture as the tool to study it.

EXPLORE

rni Swa

Cove Printed & Published by Maulik Jasubhai Shah on behalf of Jasubhai Media Pvt Ltd (JMPL), 26, Maker Chamber VI, Nariman Point, Mumbai 400 021.

Printed at M B Graphics, B-28, Shri Ram Industrial Estate, ZG D Ambekar Marg, Wadala, Mumbai 400031and Published from Mumbai - 3rd Floor, Taj Building, 210, Dr D N Road, Fort, Mumbai 400 001.

Editor: Maulik Jasubhai Shah, 26, Maker Chamber VI, Nariman Point, Mumbai 400 021.

Indian Architect & Builder: (ISSN 0971-5509), RNI No 46976/87, is a JMPL monthly publication. Reproduction in any manner, in whole or part, in English or any other language is strictly prohibited. We welcome articles, but do not accept responsibility for contributions lost in the mail.

i hula d i h S a e: Š Sangsth g a r Im

var

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BETWEEN THOUGHT AND EXPRESSION In conversation with IA&B architect Munishwar Nath Ashish Ganju highlights the characteristics of architecture as a discipline and interlocks the methods of his practice within these expressions.

Images: courtesy M N Ashish Ganju

IA&B: Is it true that you were amongst the first few Indian’s to study abroad? How was that experience and what struggles did you face when you returned to India?

AG: When I went abroad for studies, half a century ago, there were relatively few Indian architecture students in the UK, where I went.

Since then the stream of Indian architecture students going abroad has increased greatly. International travel is now commonplace and architecture students are keeping pace.

The experience for me was quite transformative, in several ways. I was 19 years old when I arrived in London, and this was the beginning of the sixties when London was becoming the centre of a cultural renaissance that was sweeping through Europe. The college I was attending was the Architectural Association School of Architecture, and it was a hotbed of the avant garde.

By the time I returned to India five years later, my perceptual make up was quite transformed. The environment in which I had grown up now evoked an unfamiliar set of responses. This became a great challenge, full of promise to discover a new reality. This process of discovery is continuing till date and I find it fascinating.

Munishwar Nath Ashish Ganju qualified from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in 1966. Having returned to India in 1967, he is currently researching through teaching and practice. He has taught at the School of Planning and Architecture, and the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi. He is the founding Director of the TVB School of Habitat Studies in Delhi, a visiting professor at the University of East London in UK, and the Universita IUAV di Venezia in Italy. His practice has taken him throughout the Indian sub-continent, first as a consultant to UNICEF and the Governments of India and Afghanistan, and later as a planner for buildings and campuses for public institutions.

Indian Architect & Builder - July 2015

IA&B: Architecture as a field involves several diverse segments of interest. What, do you think, defines your characteristic approach in the profession?

AG: It is correct that architecture encompasses diverse fields of interest. In fact it is quite common for architects to ‘celebrate’ diversity, even at the risk of losing coherence in expression.

What I find intrinsic to my approach is the belief that as professionals we are persons of learning, and this is our primary mode of thought and expression. People often confuse professional practice with commercial activity, and this makes their practice asocial, which creates a rift between the architect and society at large. My professional endeavour has always been to ground my creative self in the community which seeks my expertise.

in conversation

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© K T Ravindran ↑

Mother and child centre, Bagnan village, Bengal.

This is easier said than done, for it requires a commitment to universal values and action such that self-interest is subsumed in the common good. The practice then becomes a means of penetrating reality, rather than an exercise in displaying novelty.

IA&B: You are constantly associated with academics – how does your teaching and your practice overlap? What is the common ground?

AG: My academic involvement is not formal. There was a brief period when I joined the formal educational system to start a new school, but I soon realised that the rot in the formal system is very deep rooted and possibly incurable. My professional practice therefore is the real vehicle for research into architecture and its fundamental concerns.

As regards the common ground between teaching and practice, all my projects are in the nature of texts which seek to develop our understanding of architecture as shelter and container of human activity. Regardless of the functional requirements of a building design, my attempt is to find and express the truth of the site for human habitation. This concern works at all scales whether individual buildings, or building complexes, or urban systems. The attempt is to discover architectural reality in the present.

IA&B: You have previously stated, with reference to your book, “We attempt to discover architectural beginnings in the exploration and understanding of our native realities”. Can you please elaborate on this?

AG: When we began the dialogue which resulted in the book, Narendra and I spent a considerable amount of time to identify the core concerns of our enquiry into architecture. We went from the physical to the meta physical, but since we are not philosophers, we had to focus on built reality, which forms the basis of our learning.

When we start to go deeper into the recesses of our memory we get closer to our real self, which may be characterised as our native reality. Out of this inner understanding of our relationship with the environment we inhabit, the beginnings of our architectural understanding emerge.

IA&B: How do you manage socially driven projects like the Children’s Village in Bhopal to make them financially viable?

Beyond design, what roles does an architect play in a project of this nature?

AG: The orphanage in Bhopal for the SOS Children’s Villages of India, was like many of my projects which by and large are dealing with

To read more: http://www.magzter.com/IN/Jasubhai-Media-Pvt.-Ltd./Indian-Architect-&-Builder/Art/

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Nuns debating in the main courtyard.

Indian Architect & Builder - July 2015

architecture

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Connecting with our Intellectual Roots The Dolma Ling Nunnery, a project envisioned by architect M N Ashish Ganju, is a model towards an architecture that lays down the foundation of learning from ancient values and understanding the built environment as an unbound source of knowledge.

Text: Lavina Bulchandani Drawings: courtesy M N Ashish Ganju

“Ancient societies give special importance to learning from experience of elders, and even greater importance to the transmission of knowledge from generation to generation.”

- M N Ashish Ganju

A

rooted example of this principle can be seen in the Dolma Ling Nunnery. Located in the Kangra Valley, near Dharamshala in Northern India, this institute is dedicated towards higher education in Buddhist philosophy and Tibetan culture. An educational facility giving importance to learning from previous generations, Dolma Ling not only displays this ideology in its spiritual practice but also confirms to the model of learning from traditional wisdom, in its methods of building construction.

At about the turn of the last millennium, His Holiness the Dalai Lama encouraged the Tibetan Women’s Association to establish a nunnery which was the first institute dedicated specifically to higher Buddhist education for Tibetan Buddhist nuns from all traditions.

Anchored with its well-structured 17 year curriculum of traditional Buddhist philosophy, the Dolma Ling has grown in to an institute for modern courses in Tibetan language, English, basic mathematics, and computer skills. Now accommodating nearly 250 nuns, who carry on the legacy of ‘learning from experience of elders’, the nunnery demonstrates an interdependent relationship between the built environment and its people. The Dolma Ling Nunnery both supports and furthers the task of building as a method of understanding ancient traditions and development of skills.

© Charu Ahluwalia

The institute, which started construction in 1993, was formally inaugurated by the Dalai Lama in December 2005. Over a period of 13 years, the architect worked in collaboration with the users to construct the buildings on a piece of agricultural land measuring about five acres, to house the 250 nuns, their classrooms, the support facilities for housing teachers and staff, the assembly and the library, the dining hall and the kitchen, the administrative office, a healthcare facility, and a guest house. Additional facilities developed later are a solar powered community bathhouse; a debating court for large scale debating meets and tournaments; a retreat centre with individual meditation huts for long term retreats; and yet to be constructed a new learning centre for nuns from outside the Tibetan community.

To read more: http://www.magzter.com/IN/Jasubhai-Media-Pvt.-Ltd./Indian-Architect-&-Builder/Art/

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‘Floating Schools’ set up in 2002 through the organisation Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha.

© Abir Abdullah

RE-IMAGINING AN EDUCATIONAL EDIFICE Implementing a transformative impact upon education and communities in the flood prone regions of Bangladesh, the Shidhulai Swarnivar Sangstha (founded by Mohammed Rezwan) designs and constructs solar powered Floating School Boats.

Text: Lavina Bulchandani Images: courtesy Shidhulai Swarnivar Sangstha

“If children cannot come to school, then the school should come to them.”

A

prolific thought by architect Mohammed Rezwan altered the outlook towards educational infrastructure in the flood prone regions of Bangladesh. Conceptualising the idea of ‘Floating Schools’, Rezwan set up the pedagogical facility of School Boats in 2002 through his organisation Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha. Currently catering to 1,810 children who attend classes on 22 School Boats, the establishment of this model empowers the local community by constant engagement with its people.

Flooding for most part of the year, roads to schools are rendered inaccessible during the monsoons of Bangladesh. This results in many children missing school days during these extreme climatic conditions. Addressing this issue, the School Boat is an innovative

Indian Architect & Builder - July 2015

and sensitive solution to this problem. The Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha builds and runs the School Boats in the north-western flood-prone region, where road access is very limited and boats are the only viable mode of transport all year round.

With only US $500, an old computer and a noble vision, Rezwan dedicated his ambition towards giving life to the thought ‘combine a school bus with the schoolhouse, and use the traditional wooden boat to create a floating space’ and bring education to the doorstep of the underpriviledged.

Collecting students from different riverside villages, the School Boat finally docks at the last destination where on-board classes are arranged. After the class, the boat drops the students at their respective docks and then moves forward to pick other groups, again it arranges another on-board class and after the class it drops

architecture

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© Abir Abdullah ↑

Currently 1,810 children attend classes on 22 School Boats.

© Abir Abdullah ↑

‘Combine a school bus with the schoolhouse, and use the traditional wooden boat to create a floating space’.

To read more: http://www.magzter.com/IN/Jasubhai-Media-Pvt.-Ltd./Indian-Architect-&-Builder/Art/

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CULTURE EMBRACES CONTEMPORARY The designers for the University of Taroudant, Morocco attempt to bring cultural context and contemporary design together to create an architecture that deserves a place in both.

The design functions are sensitively arranged around open and semi-open patios and gardens creating different worlds, different intimacies, and different places in one place.

Text: Meghna Mehta Images: courtesy Fernando Guerra – FG + SG Drawings: courtesy Saad El Kabbaj | Driss Kettani | Mohamed Amine Siana

Main entrance of the University of Taroudant, Morocco.

Indian Architect & Builder - July 2015 Indian Architect & Builder - July 2015

international

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SECTION THROUGH LABORAT0RIES

SECTION THROUGH CLASSROOMS

SOUTH ELEVATION SHOWING LIBRARY

Indian Architect & Builder - July 2015 To read more: http://www.magzter.com/IN/Jasubhai-Media-Pvt.-Ltd./Indian-Architect-&-Builder/Art/

Learning from History Adaptations and influences from the past are seen and witnessed in the present through their understanding and articulation. Excerpts from history can be seen as a conscious or an unconscious effort through diverse forms in art, architecture, culture, design and innovation derives its context from the understanding of history as well.

Architectural history represented through the physicality of buildings or ruins can generate a regardful amount of information through visual or graphical learnings to comprehend not only the optical and corporeal manifestations but also the emphasis of social, political and economic scenarios pertaining during the time. The importance of the study of history and further adapting features through subjective associations making a conscious effort to apply it to create better works is unfathomable and mostly underrated.

Indian Architect & Builder - July 2015

ethos

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[1] – Frontispiece of Marc-Antoine Laugier: Essai sur l’architecture 2nd ed. 1755 by Charles Eisen (1720-1778). For Laugier, man’s first house, consists of four poles, four beams and a roof. He believed that all architecture imitates this primitive construction, and conversely buildings based on these principals are good architecture. To Vitruvius, architecture originated in man’s imitation of animal shelters, and the development of architecture ran parallel with the history of civilisation.

[2] – Athanasius Kircher’s drawing of The Tower of Babel. This is the subject of three oil paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. which depict the construction of the Tower of Babel, which according to the Book of Genesis in the Bible, was a tower built by a unified, monolingual humanity as a mark of their achievement and to prevent them from scattering.

[1]

“The facts speak only when the historian calls on them: it is he who decides to which facts to give the floor, and in what order or context” - E H Carr, What is history?

The primitive hut conceptualised by Marc-Antoine Laugier had been standard in architectural theory since Vitruvius brought the idea to life with an image of the hut.

Various theories state that Ancient Greek temples owed their form to the earliest habitations erected by man. In the primitive hut, the horizontal beam was supported by tree trunks planted upright in the ground and the roof was sloped to shed rainwater. This is also believed to be the inspiration behind the basic Doric order. It was sought to be the ideal principle for architecture or any structure at the time. Laugier believed it was the standard form which all architecture embodied.

The Tower of Babel imagined in the early 16 th century, seemed to have derived its inspiration from the Roman Colosseum is considered the first vertical imagination of habitation.

Harappa

4000 BC

[2]

Mohenjo-daro Stone Henge

Pyramids of Giza Temples at Abu Simbel

Tower of Babel

Persepolis

Acropolis

Parthenon

The Great Wall of China

Arch of Titus

Colloseum

Pantheon

Old St Peter’s

2600 BC

1600 BC

610 BC

515 BC

429 BC

400 BC

206 BC

82 AD

99 AD

128 AD

325 AD

1264 BC

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