Consejo y Otras Ayudas

In this context I would like to show a spectrum of my office’s works fusing traditional wisdom and commitment to innovative technologies within a regional context which is open to global currents.

Nehru Pavilion

The Nehru Pavilion was designed in 1972 as a museum to exhibit objects and photographic panels of Nehru’s life and times designed by Charles Eames. While working on the design, one had to keep in mind the personality of Nehru, a sensitive intellectual and democrat who would have hated any manifestation of pomposity to honour him.

How could a pavilion allow one to symbolize Nehru’s life? There were no relevant contemporary prototypes which necessitated a search for older models. Inspired by the Buddhist grass mounds in Nepal that contained relics of the Buddha, we came upon the idea of grassy embankments enclosing exhibition space at two levels. The circulation system for the exhibition was based on parikrama, the circumambulatory movement around the central shrine of temples, and the plan began to resemble Tantric yantras. The audio visual material of the exhibits and the traditional

ethos contributed to the design. Asian Games Village

In the realm of practical climatic considerations, the traditional morphology of the cities of Rajasthan has important lessons to teach for today’s low rise, high density housing developments, and it directly influenced the design for the Asian Games Village of five hundred housing units in New Delhi (1982). The institutional and sterile pattern of housing favoured by departmental engineers for public and municipal works, based on an endless repetition of a design, is rejected here. Instead, an attempt has been made to create urban norms from a network of pedestrian streets and squares. The peripheral road provides motor access from two ends to the parking squares, which in turn give way to pedestrian paths or to the garages of individual housing units. The village reinterprets several salient elements of vernacular design that have stood the test of time.

20 New Architecture and Urbanism: Development of Indian Traditions

Image of Jaisalmer (above): The alternation between solids and voids in the densely formed city of Jaisalmer is the archetype of the Indian urban fabric. The entire city is built within very well defined parameters

Tradition and Our Built Environment 21 National Institute of Immunology

Scientists housing clusters- National Institute of Immunology. Plan of National Institute of Immunology

An Afghan village near Kabul illustrates the traditional manner of forming an assembly of housing units into a cluster

(Left): The roof terraces of the National Institute of Immunology Housing, New Delhi (Right): Detail from an Indian miniature painting showing roof terraces

Another project, the National Institute of Immunology (1984-2006), New Delhi, a campus dedicated to research, comprising laboratories and housing clusters, is influenced by the traditional havelis. The manner in which havelis counter the intense heat of the day by building around courtyards was carefully studied, and their underlying principles were incorporated within the framework of current norms and functional requirements.

The use of community spaces within the campus has affinities with Indian citadels such as Fatehpur Sikri where a group of structures built around interlocking courtyards of varying scales and functions are linked to each other through gateways and shaded paths across enclosures with distant vistas and shifting axes.

Each of the clusters retains its identity as their architectural forms and internal spaces are different. However, the overall unity of the complex is maintained as all the buildings are interlinked with paved pathways and the spaces between them are carefully organized. The framed views from one cluster to another create a visual link along the pathways.

The design for the Institute carries some of the traditional planning principles but in no way has there been any attempt to embellish it with false arches, domes, or carvings. The inspiration from the past is reinterpreted in terms of rational reinforced concrete frame clad with sandstone grit to meet the practical functional requirements for scientific research.

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View of Central Institute of Educational Technology Central courtyard of Central Institute of Educational Technology The Central Institute of Educational Technology

The idea of blending traditional spatial arrangements with modern building technique is carried through in another project for a media school in New Delhi. The Central Institute of Educational Technology (1988-90) houses a school for communications which is fully equipped to the highest professional standards to produce broadcast-quality programmes as teaching aids in rural communities and urban centres throughout India.

The design concept is based on creating two interlinked courtyards, one small near the entrance and the second built around the existing tree, to function as an open-air multipurpose television studio. The bigger courtyard comprises an open-air stage and amphitheatre and it is enclosed at the ground floor by entrance hall, artists’ room, and canteen with the existing tree as the focal point of activities. The courtyards are in fact evocative of a madrassah, a traditional school, and surrounded on the upper three levels by passages linking library, audiovisual, and administrative activities. The upper two floors have decreasing floor areas resulting in roof terraces overlooking the central courtyard or the surrounding parks.

SCOPE

SCOPE is an office complex designed for large autonomous public sector organizations and was built in 1983-89 in New Delhi not far from Mughal Emperor Humayun’s tomb. The façade is designed to shield the offices from the sun’s direct rays so as to reduce the air conditioning costs.

The complex is divided into eight distinct blocks which interlock with each other around a central courtyard. The spatial organization is generated by combining four columns recalling minerates which act as structural supports, contain services and culminate on the roof as ‘chatris’ or parasols. The form and structures on the roof terraces serve the role of providing welcome relief from the offices for 7000 workers.

The form of the office complex is inspired by the Datia Palace with its intricate courtyards and roof terraces which

Plan of Central Institute of Educational Technology

Tradition and Our Built Environment 23 are extremely successful in lowering the temperature in

summer months. The harsh sunlight and scorching heat is countered by the enclosures within the office complex, lowering the air conditioning cost by thirty percent.

Lisbon Ismaili Cultural Centre

Modern architecture and urban design can achieve greater richness, variety, and symbolic content if it is informed by underlying regional historic values rather than superficial quotations. Precedent and progress are combined in the design for the Lisbon Ismaili Cultural Centre in Portugal. Our aim was to draw upon Islamic philosophy and to assimilate Iberian peninsula building traditions and be innovative in terms of construction technology. We have been influenced by the space enclosures perceived in the Alhambra, Spain.

The design is based on three interconnected enclosed gardens fulfilling distinct functions. The entrance courtyard is designed to welcome visitors and is based on the principles of charbagh (quadrite garden) with flowering SCOPE Office Complex (left); Datia palace (right)

Generalife garden, Alhambra Central Court, Lisbon Ismaili Centre

plants and running water. The aim is to transform the mood of the visitors from the external stress to internal calm. The community courtyard functions as an enclosure between social halls and multipurpose hall. It would provide the spillover space for cultural and community activities. The jamaatkhana courtyard is an extension of the prayer hall, surrounded by a cloister, and would have an ambience of serenity. It is at the head of the complex but isolated from it by the change of level and a gateway.

The other important consideration is the utilization of local stone in terms of the latest building technology. Granite is used as a structural element in conjunction with epoxy glues and steel for the design of enclosing walls based on Fatehpur Sikri jali patterns and computer calculations. The doctrine of cosmic unity “where one is part of the whole” is central to Islamic philosophy and spiritual concerns. Islamic art is essentially a way of depicting and discovering this unity through geometrical patterns. The discipline of mathematics and the basis of structure

24 New Architecture and Urbanism: Development of Indian Traditions have common points in modern science and ancient civilizations.

The fascinating geometrics of the stone jalis of Fatehpur Sikri, Agra, and Spain depict a rare combination of the skills of the craftsmen and mathematicians. These geometric jalis have a structural potential and we have evolved from them a concept using new construction technologies for building walls and roofs true to the contemporary vocabulary of stone and steel.

Jali pattern, Fatehpour Sikri View looking up at the church ceiling Lisbon

View of prayer hall

Prayer Hall lattice shear walls, Lisbon Ismaili Centre

Detail of composite structure of granite and steel

Tradition and Our Built Environment 25 Parliament Library

The Library for the Indian Parliament is located adjoining the existing Parliament Building and the colonial complex designed by Lutyens and Baker to house Presidential Palace (Rashtrapati Bhawan) and the central offices for the Indian Government.

Lutyens’ classical European composition forms the focus of the central vista in New Delhi. He had maintained that the design was meant to demonstrate “the superiority of western art, science and culture” in India. A response to the urban context of the circular Parliament building as well as the intellectual challenge posed by Lutyens was important. The solution was to design a Library complex which resonates with its surroundings, evokes the traditional spirit of enlightenment but is based on modern technology and

values of democratic India. View of Rajpath

Plan of Parliament house and Parliament Library

The analogy of a relationship between a Guru and the King may not be far fetched while comparing the new library with the existing Parliament.

Both visually and symbolically the central hall of the existing Parliament denoting peoples power, concensus and democracy, is linked to the central core of the new complex, symbolising knowledge, on a central axis, through a sequence of spaces culminating in the auditorium. We have conceived within the Indian Tradition a formal structure, but built it in a contemporary idiom to capture

Functions and circulations Adinatha temple Raunakpur Datia Palace Development of Taj Mahal the essence without mimicry of past historical styles. The symmetrical and balanced composition of the Taj Mahal, the Raunakpur Temple and the Datia Palace were the inspiration. The spirit of the library complex is gentler, closer to the ambience of the inward looking sagacious Raunakpur Temple complex, where the natural light is filtered through open spaces between the central block and the surrounding mass. The central core of the library building comprising the MP’s reading room, the meeting room, the research and archival areas, are surrounded by courtyards formed by the outer ring of peripheral activities.

26 New Architecture and Urbanism: Development of Indian Traditions

View looking up at the dome of Parliament Library

Instead of creating one anonymous building, separate blocks were proposed for each main function to give identity to the individual segments.

The development follows distinct movement patterns. -VIPs to the complex.

-Scholars to the library.

-Public to the Museum and, auditorium.

Diverse public spaces within the library are roofed with a variety of steel structural lattice, lifted above the walls and columns, to provide diffused light below. The dome for the entrance hall is based on a series of squares and octagons reminiscent of geometrical patterns and jalis built with elements of stainless steel tubes. The joints of these were cast separately at foundries in South India and then connected to the tubes with bolts. The entire structure was supported by a ring beam and lifted above the roof level by supporting columns. The shallow domes on part of the steel structure are fibre cement shells or bubbles. The Focal central dome was conceived entirely in stainless steel structural members and covered with four petals of reflective glass in two layers. The diffused light in the middle of the complex provides daylight to the two basement levels as well as the surrounding circulation paths.

The light from above the roof level is an important feature of the design symbolizing the idea of enlightenment in the library.

Section- BPST Block View looking up at the dome of Jain temple, Raunakpur

Focal central glass dome Courtyard of Parliament Library

Tradition and Our Built Environment 27 The small domical shells on the roof garden compliment

the classical domes of the surrounding landscape. The grass and shrubs on the roof are grown on 60cm of earth which provide excellent insulation for the air conditioned spaces below.

Sustainability enhanced by technical innovations is an important consideration for the library design.

We are living in a globalized world of fantastic changes. Nokia from Finland, Toyota from Japan, computers from U.S.A. and Airbus from Europe are part of our daily lives. The use of mobile phone, internet, computer software and intercontinental travel has revolutionized our world. The new building materials like structural glass, aluminum composite panels and tools for cutting stone are changing the methodology of building.

We have to learn the process of melding traditional architectural values which respect nature and urban context with cutting edge technologies to solve the problems of our developing societies. Historical assimilation of the Buddha images in Afghanistan and China has a message for the contemporary globalized world.

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Globalisation And Tradition

Robert Adam Architect, UK

I will not attempt to discuss conditions peculiar to India or the relationship between Indian traditions and globalisation. I take my warning from the late Edward Saïd: “a European or American studying the Orient … comes up against the Orient as a European or American first, as an individual second” (Saïd; 1994; p.11). I know from personal experience that there’s something in the traditions of a culture that can only be understood by those brought up with that culture or, at the very least, fully immersed in it for a prolonged period.

I can, however, talk about the phenomena of globalisation and tradition. Globalisation is global and so anyone on the globe can discuss it. Tradition is a universal human phenomenon so can be discussed as a phenomenon by anyone.

At first sight, it would seem that globalisation and tradition are on a collision course and that this conference is a record of that collision. I don’t think that this is quite right. To understand this, we have to try and understand globalisation – not an easy task as it’s always hard to understand anything that is in progress.

Any discussion of the modern condition anywhere in the world must include a discussion of globalisation. As Anthony Giddens (one of the subject’s major theorists) says: “For better or worse, we are being propelled in to a global order that no one fully understands, but which is making its effects felt upon all of us”(Giddens; 2002; p. 6-7). We must recognise that, as another theorist, Martin Albrow, tells us: “Globalisation is the most significant development and theme in contemporary life and social theory to emerge since the collapse of Marxist systems” (Albrow; 1996; p. 98-90).

So what is globalisation?

As a term it seems that it originated – quite symbolically as it turns out – in an American Express advertising campaign in the mid-1970s (Niezen; 2004; p. 47). It was a phenomenon waiting for a catchword and, once coined, the word spread quickly to sum up what has become, again according to Giddens: “the intensification of worldwide social relations

in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa” (Giddens; 1991; p. 64)

This “intensification of worldwide social relations” has many facets and these can be individually important. They are most summarily listed by the German social philosopher Jürgen Habermas: “By ‘globalisation’ is meant the cumulative processes of a worldwide expansion of trade and production, commodity and financial markets, fashions, the media and computer programs, news and communications networks, transportation systems and flows of migration, the risks engendered by large-scale technology, environmental damage and epidemics, as well as organised crime and terrorism” (Habermas; 2006; p. 175). A formidable list.

What is globalisation? (©Wolfgang Ammer)

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Image courtesy: UN Photos)

The key initiating events of this process, again significantly, took place in the middle of the last century under American tutelage. These were: the Bretton-Woods Agreement of 1944 which led (eventually) to the creation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund; the creation of the United Nations in 1945; and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

The Bretton-Woods Agreement, recalling the international catastrophe of the Great Depression in the 1930s, set up a global system for regulating international trade based on the United States and European free-market system. The United Nations, following the failure of the League of Nations and the World War that followed, attempted to establish a system for the avoidance of inter-state conflict. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, after the shock of the industrial genocide of the Holocaust, put in place an Anglo-Saxon concept of the right of individuals over and above their community, nation or state. All three events significantly modified the nation-state system, created in Europe by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which gave states - and only states - both the right to wage war and absolute rights over the lives of their citizens.

The advancement of transnational human rights was stalled by the Cold War. The record of the UN has been disappointing and its authority has been further undermined by the USA in the lead up to the Iraq war. Outside communist control, however, the internationalisation of free trade and the establishment of an accelerating series of international treaty organisations have, from the beginning, led to a highly successful capitalist global free-market

Tradition and Our Built Environment 29 economic system and a corresponding growth of global

industries. So successful, in fact, that non-communist states have had to adapt to global industry, rather than the other way round, and the structural strength of the free-market global economy contributed to the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1989 and has been adopted, with reservations, by China in the last two decades.

Leading the way in the new global economy were North- Atlantic and primarily American corporations. These were the inheritors of the unique combination of rationalist and scientific philosophies - called ‘The Enlightenment’ - in eighteenth-century Europe, the Industrial Revolution and free-market system in Britain, and the libertarianism of the American Revolution. These collectively came to be called