Lacking Imagination?

A G K Menon in a post published on The Wire questioned the lack of imagination and increasing generic-ness in Indian planners' work, we examine the same

Any work of architecture is a part of a larger built environment its constructed in. Bourdieu’s ‘self structuring structure’ analogy applies perfectly to a work of architecture as the built environment consists of cultural and identity markers which reflect the nature of the society that work of architecture/building is embedded or placed in in addition to its relation to surrounding buildings and spaces. These spatially produced relationships, however, are changing due to globalisation as increasingly structures like malls, commercial complexes, office complexes, all with glass exteriors are being replicated and reproduced in the global south since they denote the future. They seem to represent value attached to development and progress. These structures which have come from a consumerist and capitalist culture are what it means to be modern in the contemporary world. This seems to inform the planning practice of Indian urban planners as well and architects who design structures which seem to have no relation to the local Indian cultural context. Rather, they seem to be placed by transporting it from the west, and the propping up of similar structures is transforming the cityscape in the Indian context, and leading to the creation of cities which can best be compared to tabula rasa cities following a generic pattern derived from Western spatial understandings and can be reinvented without any connect to their pasts. Even in the Indian context, modernity and aspirational building seems to influence architecture and planning practice in cities, for instance, HITEC city in Hyderabad or the planned cyberhubs in the city like Cyberabad. There is always a ‘catching up’ to the structures present in the west and the developed world because in those structure lies the promise of future development something which is desired by the countries of the global south.

In such a contemporary practice of urban planning, what AGK Menon calls for is a self reflexive planning practice in India, where urban planners need to ask themselves that do they need to look outward for problem solving or look inwards and follow the principles of indigeneity for local problem solving. However, conservationist methods to preserve the ‘Asian’ identity have been problematic in many Asian countries not just India, when many cities in the global south have a colonial past so the cityscapes are dotted with various colonial constructions which are non-indigenous and Western. Issues of conservation and heritage are complicated by these imperial or colonial histories of many of Asia’s urban environments, as well as by pressures of economic development and population growth. Menon notes this pattern too, where he says that even when taking inspirations by global trends, the global market is the arbiter of decisions, not ust in contemporary planning practice but how it is taught as well, which means colonial prescriptions form the canons of the disciplines of planning and architecture.

Menon’s concern with the lack of indigeneity in the imagination of Indian planners and architects hints towards a worry about the loss of ‘Asian’ identity in the wake of modernity and globalisation and this is something not new. In fact, the assertion that the distinct Asian identity lies only in its traditions and its consequent problematizations are not new as well (Logan 2002:xii). According to Beynon,”As contemporary built environments continue to develop, however, identity remains contested, as does the question of cultural sustainability in relation to architecture as even indigeneity continues to be redefined, as it is important to recognise no culture is constant and it is ever evolving and dynamic in the face of new cultural influences. The question remains, therefore, in a contemporary environment, can architecture and planning engage with its traditional role as cultural symbolism and planning as the most efficient use and allocation of space to the needs of the population in a given area while at the same time remaining open to newer reinterpretations, reimaginings and reappropriations of its fabric, its spaces and surroundings to move towards more aspirational ends?” (Beynon, 2010)

The role of planning and architecture is rooted in attempting to provide solutions rooted in a cultural context in order to remain relevant and useful. The United Nations 2002 Kanazawa Resolutions provide some useful definitions for discussion of the question about the interaction between architecture or planning to the local cultural context in India. The resolutions argue that that sustaining cultures in contemporary life is a matter of ‘dialogical coexistence’. The notion of  cultural heritage in a contemporary and globalised world order is linked to pluralism, cultural modernity and looks at cities emerging from a series of fluid processes resulting in ‘spatially constructed communities’ (Zukin 1995:289). So for planning and architecture to remain rooted in a local cultural context does not mean a reinvigoration of the culture of the past but rather an ongoing dialogue with the dynamism of cultural change and the people of a culture(s).

In order to answer the question about the links between architecture, planning and cultural identity, one can look at the paper by Beynon where he has examined the concept of dialogical coexistence of the Kunzawa Resolutions in relation to Southeast Asian built environments. In the urban context, Beynon says that there are self conscious architectural attempts to straddle tradition and modernity as well as notions of a broader collective identity, whether in service of nation building or in the case of Thai architect Sumet Jumsai, constructed imaginings of a pan Asian future. We can see this argument playing out in the context of Indian cities like Delhi as well, with attempts to make Delhi into a world class city. In an essay by Ghertner, he argues that an aesthetic regime exists which seems to determine legality of buildings based on their planned or unplanned appearance and is codified in laws and judgements, taking the example of the Vasant Kunj Mall complex which came up on land designated for other uses in the Delhi Master Plan simply because it aligned with the broader aspirations for the National capital to look like a world class city and not a city ridden with poverty in the form of slums. Beynon, in addition to the urban context, also looks at an increasingly globalised context, where identities are being reshaped by cross cultural consumption, material and ideological flows, and contemporary identity and the roles of tradition, locality and architectural expression are being questioned and needs to meet the test of relevance and usefulness at the global stage.

Many planners, however do take the local regional specifics into consideration with the larger universalising trends when making plans. Dashrath Patel, considered an iconoclast by many including Menon, represented the modern Indian aesthetic in his work by giving a nod to Indian sensibility in his work and not blindly following the colonial prescriptions of his disciplines, but also managed to capture the changing and growing nature of India in post-independence. Critical regionalism as a planning strategy given by Tzonis and Lefaivre and given widespread recognition by Kenneth Frampton, attempts to link modernism and regional identity, taking what Frampton describes as “an arriere-garde position, ...one that distances itself equally from the Enlightenment myth of progress and from a reactionary, unrealistic impulse to return to the architecture forms of the pre-industrial past.” (Frampton 1983:20)

As opposed to this, there is also an idea of distancing ,which indicates idea of ‘universal civilisation’ by Frampton as derived from post Enlightenment Western world view. Alternatively, Perera has proposed a ‘critical vernacular’ position, in terms of his native Sri Lanka as not referring to a mere ‘style’ but to a cluster of broadly defined design practices that draw upon traditional Lankan forms of space creation and creating more appropriate buildings in independent Sri  Lanka (Perera 1998:144).

Perera’s argument is similar to Menon’s viewpoint as it contests the authority of Western models of modern architecture, instead investigating indigenous models for their adaptability to contemporary conditions, looking for ways contemporary Asian society can reconnect with its colonial past as a period of societal rupture rather than progress, an ironical association still made in the context of Indian cities with colonial buildings signifying progress, something which can hardly be achieved under conditions of colonial rule. The best examples of neo vernacular architecture operate as test cases for the coexistence of old and new ways of thinking. The most publicised examples can be luxury villas or resorts, whose architecture serves to create a romantic sense of locality, while demonstrating a genuine reinvigoration of traditional craft wisdom as cultural production is encouraged by touristic interest. On the other hand, cultural reinvigoration meant for touristic consumption leads to production of an ‘exotic’ aesthetic which is different from maintaining past lived culture in rapidly developing urban conditions of Southeast Asian cities. More appropriate examples can thus be, the roof of Malaysia’s National Library symbolising the traditional Malay headgear or the National theatre in Malaysia which evokes the traditional table arrangement (image below).

Malaysia National Library

However, a selective promotion of cultural motifs in official buildings needs to come with a disclaimer as it may be disingenuous in promoting certain folkloric aspects of certain cultures and conflating nationalism and ethnicities, while it is questionable how much such an overt cultural symbolism can influence the culture of the broader built environment. Alternatively, therefore, an adoption of a broader notion of contemporary culture is always possible to avoid folkloric representations. Iwabuchi, has discussed the exportation of Japanese technology and pop culture, to describe the late twentieth century realisation that Asia is no longer the passive recipient of globalised culture but actively produces and exports it too. More recently, Iwabuchi with Muecke and Thomas have also argued, that what has become more prominent is the emergence of popular Asianism whose main feature is not traditional Asian values or culture but capitalist consumer/popular culture. (Iwabuchi, Muecke & Thomas 2004:1)

To conclude, we can look at various examples cited above and arrive at certain practices to inform Indian planning practice in the contemporary world. The best case to take from is that of Singapore. Street culture has always been a key element in cities of Southeast Asia, and even though building structures are important, sometimes the street is so densely populated by hawkers and various other sellers of goods on the streets, the buildings are rendered completely invisible in the face of a sensory dominance by the street life. Beynon cites Brenda Yeoh’s example of SIngapore’s massive Suntec City convention centre as a place that has been extensively appropriated by a wide cross section of the local community for uses unrelated to the purpose of the building. The use of the building in terms of actual practice and the lived aspect of it is actually informal and opposed to the original intended ‘official’ uses. This multiplicity of incongruous uses is indicative of the nature of contemporary society. Building’s success is that it allows for this unintended engagement with its spaces, not that it evokes history or culture consciously in any of its diverse users. Even in India, the Informal sector forms a large part of city life and economic activities. However, increasingly there are attempts to formalise this bustling aspect of city life not only by effectuating structural economic policies but also in a more materially pronounced way by creating spatial transformations within the city which disenfranchise any involvement in public spaces by informal actors like street vendors. Although certain legislations in the context of street vendors specifically, have been brought into effect but they remain powerless in the face of various constructions with the power of global capital and the state behind them. More flexibility and fluidity is something which is needed in planning practice, to make allowances in terms of mixed land use especially in public areas to preserve the lived streetscapes in our cities.

References:

Beynon, D. (2010). Architecture, identity and cultural sustainability in contemporary Southeast Asian cities. [online] academia.edu. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/6218443/Architecture_identity_and_cultural_sustainability_in_contemporary_Southeast_Asian_cities [Accessed 8 Mar. 2019].

Menon, A. (2019). When it Comes to Urban Planning, India Suffers From a Poverty of Imagination. Retrieved from https://thewire.in/urban/dashrath-patel-india-architecture

Bourdieu, P 1990, In Other Words: Essays towards a Reflexive Sociology, Polity, Cambridge.

Frampton, K 1983, ‘Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture or Resistance’, in Foster, Hal (ed.), The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, Bay, Seattle.

Iwabuchi, K, Muecke, S & Thomas, M 2004, Rogue Flows: trans-Asian cultural traffic, Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong.

Lefaivre, L & Tzonis A (eds) 2001, Tropical Architecture: Critical Regionalism in the Age of Globalisation,  Wiley- Academy, London.

Logan, W 2002, The disappearing ‘Asian’ city: protecting Asia’s urban heritage in a globalising world, Oxford University Press, Oxford.