[Abstract accepted for poster presentation at the Oxford Conference on Architectural Education held in July 2008]
challenging mimesis: re-envisioning architectural education in the Indian subcontinent S. Bhattacharjee23 ,A.Sane13456* 1
LBHSS Trust’s College of Architecture,
2
Rizvi College of Architecture, University of Mumbai, India
3
Council of Architecture, India
4
University College London, UK
5
Charles Wallace Research Fellow 2006-07, UK
6
INTBAU, UK & India
Email: nebula.suprio@gmail.com / a.sane@ucl.ac.uk The nature of architectural education in India has largely been a derivative of the draughtsman’s educational curriculum with a focus on drawing skills and the creation of ‘workable buildings’. Some instances of atelier formation have succeeded in pioneering a philosophy based architectural school of thought in various pockets of the country. However, these philosophical inclinations have been largely towards the ‘West’ (drawing from sources like the Bauhaus, Marxist or Foucaultian theories) and hence there is a gaping void in the understanding of indigenous social, cultural and literary philosophies and its implications for the creation of a built environment that emerges from the ethos of the land and its people. The global capitalist economy within which India finds itself as a key player has further sealed the scope of any inward enquiry and the field of architectural design has been swept away by the flood of an international clonelike mall culture. However, this mimesis in India deep-seated and operates at all levels, whether it is in the importing of western architectural models or attempting to recreate her own past through pastiche architecture. A theoretical umbrella of the act of mimesis forms the governing framework for the key argument of this presentation. An absence of the process of “enquiry/ observation/ critique/ understanding/ acceptance/ rejection” is responsible for this mimetic existence. A paradigm shift ‘inwards’ is called for which has ‘questioning’ as its genius loci. It is in the understanding of both tradition and modernity as much contested terrains, that one sees the formation of a rooted yet new (evolved) identity (which is comfortable in its own shoes and not screaming for attention!) with a scope to create further associable and sustainable identities in the future. Keywords: globalization, mimesis, evolved identities, indigenous philosophies