…exploring the blurred logic of the urban…
…an inquiry into aspirational urbanism and its implications…
…different schemes….different outcomes…. different outlooks!
…encounters with the urban…
Informal Settlements – Understanding + Interacting is an elective course (2013) for third year architecture students of Sushant School of Art and Architecture. Fifteen Students in three groups tried processes to interact and understand the informal settlements which steer away from the regular and formal analytical methods. Continue reading »
Allahabad, the city which hosts the kumbh mela for pilgrims 25 times the size of its own population. 30 million pilgrims (migrants) visited the city on 14th January for the first shahi snan, and witnessing this amazing phenomenon was a mix of surprise, confusion and bliss. This largest religious agglomeration on earth happens once in … Continue reading »
The famous haveli at Gali Qasim jan at Ballimaran, whose resident at one point was the epitome of Urdu poetry, is one of the many mute witnesses of the Mughal tehzeeb. Like with many, Delhi have made Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan also its own, to an extent that ‘Ghalib ki Dilli’ is a common phrase … Continue reading »
I felt sad that none of the politicians talked about any of the urban implications. Especially in light of the largest ever investment into urban areas through JNNURM, I thought Kamal Nath would have taken up some issues, because he is the urban development minister and was in trade ministry, which is a rare blend. Jaitly was speaking red and lefties were making arguments way too below their standards. Well! All others were just speaking something which I found really hard to make any sense in terms of logical argument. Continue reading »
Mehrauli, the oldest continuously inhabited place in Delhi, where there are still remnants ranging from the Mahabharata period to the tear soaked grounds of the last Mughal emperor to the insensitive atrocities of the Raj. Continue reading »
We need more urgently than architectural utopias, ingenious traffic disposal systems, or ecological programmes – to comprehend the nature of citizenship, to make a serious imaginative assessment of that special relationship between the self and the city; its unique plasticity, its privacy and freedom. ~ Raban Continue reading »
When we say slums, we are talking about a place which more than 93 million people call home. When India is having an upper hand in global economy through a demographic dividend, one in every eight child (0 to 6 years old) lives in a slum….. thus the situation is grave. Continue reading »
We often talk about social equity and development towards an egalitarian city, but often the aspirations of a metropolis curbs the life of communities at the bottom of the pyramid. Continue reading »
“The invisible man’s awful suspicion that, beneath the disguises, there may be nothing there at all, a rind without a heart, a reality of lies, is that comes disturbingly easily and often to the city dweller”
~ Ralph Ellison ‘Invisible Man’ 1952
Continue reading »
“the social state of a city depends directly on its moral state, and – I fear dissenting voices, but I must say what I believe to be truth – that the moral state of a city depends – how far I know not, but frightfully, to an extent uncalculated, and perhaps uncalculable – on the physical state of that city; on food, water, air and lodging of its inhabitants.”
~ Charles Kingsley Continue reading »
When understood as articulated moments among crisis-crossing networks of social relations and understanding, places do not posses singular, but multiple and contested identities. Thus, place-making is shaped by conflict, differences and social negotiations among differentially situated and at times antagonistically bound and others whose social relations are understanding span entire regions and transcend national boundaries … Continue reading »
दिल्ली में कई ऐसी बड़ी जगह है जो विशाल संख्या में लोगो के आवास हेतु बनाया गया था| ये परियोजनाए उस समय के आधुनिक परियोजना सिद्धांतो पे निर्मित है, इस लिए पूरी जगह का एक साथ विकास हुआ ना की एक एक भाग में, जैसे एक पारंपरिक समूह में होता है| इस तरह के निर्माण से कई … Continue reading »
Future is something that no one has ever seen and hence can only be picturised, but the picturisation of this future is greatly dependent on the past. The past is almost always glamorized, and hence the future is picturised as an idealized appropriation of the glamorized past. Ideologies driving Indian politics have also been derived … Continue reading »
As a matter of image, everything wants to relate itself in global terms, global power, world class city, multinational company and so on. The ones who got into this race first are the ones with more power to control this race, and hence all the later entrants tried to recognize themselves with respect to the … Continue reading »
Reblogged from mHS Blog: Nipesh P Narayanan, architect and urban designer with mHS argues that it is the poor conditions of slums that make them affordable. To find solutions for housing the urban poor, we need to stop seeing land as a commodity and view it as a resource for the betterment of citizens, he … Continue reading »
As published on Yahoo India (http://in.lifestyle.yahoo.com/blogs/traveler/delhi-fascinating-stepwells-step-step-083240446.html) —————– My explorations for baolis (step wells) started when I visited the art installation by Asim Waqif at Agrasen ki baoli. The installation was enticing with its message to conserve water and the joy of water that it projected, but what was more exciting was the fact that there … Continue reading »
