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India R200

16 Volume 02 Issue 05 March 2013 / RKDS, Idnany, Pirani envelope as a mediator / Kamath Design Studio,

Bhattacharjee debating tactile engagements / Nemish Shah language conversations / a city within the city: SlicedPorosity Block by Steven Holl Architects / a tribute to the fearless mind of Lebbeus Woods / William Kentridge thestudio as a self-portrait / Giampiero Bosoni architecture of adrenalin / Abir Karmakar finding lost rooms

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New store: Mumbai. T: 24952323/24 W: akrutiliving.in E: [email protected]

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EditorialReferences, context and language are the three

subjects that have occupied our minds as we put

this issue together. The context of the city, the

relationship with history and our approach to the

subject of heritage are all present on our working

table these days. The manic obsession to study the

city makes a museum-object out of everything that

we encounter in the urban scenario we inhabit.

Setting up urban study labs, running to identify

research projects and topics that are ‘from the city’

has become very fashionable today; and some of

us serious researchers, who for long have engaged

with the city, not out of vanity but out of deep-

seated concern are discussing what approaches

to the study of the city and the urban condition

are truly necessary and critically productive. The

Op-ed based on a project titled Gurgaon Glossaries

in this issue hints at some of this. Our features

that focus on two artists— William Kentridge

and Abir Karmakar also emphasise the ‘detailed

engagement’ with work and subject. The interview

with Kentridge explores the process of thinking

through an artist ’s practice that is rich and nuanced,

invoking the studio as a site for thinking and

experimentation— a contained walking of sorts,

like a walk through the city! Karmakar draws and

paints the interior space— but this interior is very

urban. Teasing out the sense of contemporary

existence, metropolitan subconscious, and our

relationship to objects that make-up our physical

world, the painted frame-shots by Karmakar try

to excavate the real sense of being in the existing

world. It in turn draws sharp comments on the

world of interiors that we so take for granted, andthe objects of furniture, colour and luxury that we

treat as nothing more than daily needs of pleasure

as well as use. The interior is not the ‘inside’

against the ‘outside’ but the two are enmeshed

relationships of existence.

Talking of context and the city, we visit the

polyclinic building at Lahori Gate in Old Delhi

designed by Romi Khosla Design Studios.

Negotiating many neighbours— a mosque, a slum,

railway tracks— this island of hope reaches out to

its neighbourhood through its design approach.

A medical facility for patients of TB and HIV

from the neighbouring areas, who may hardly

be able to manage a meal a day, the architectural

programme had to address the question of setting

up relationships with the community and its

neighbours. Trust, confidence and a sense of

support had to be worked out so that the facilities

can reach out to the maximum people and this had

to be ingrained in the architecture for the polyclinic.

With this we also look at another medical facility —

a dental college— designed within the Jamia Millia

Islamia campus. Besides developing spaces for a

specialised education and the providing of service

to people in the campus and the vicinity, this

building too had to address the challenge of setting

up working relationships between the different

users of the buildings and its neighbourhoods.

In both these projects, architectural skin

emerges as the ground for deep descriptions and

explorations of values. How do we architecturally

value connections, user-space dynamics, visual

conversations within neighbourhoods, the sense of

being human? Transparency, movement and claritybeyond the enclosure have been the key factors

that have been addressed in the design of these

built constellations. The terrain of these buildings

actively engages with the atmospheres it occupies.

Architectural skin is the deep geography of these

built interventions.

Taking forward the discussion on museums in

Domus 965 we take a close and argumentative

look at the Museum for Tribal Heritage in Bhopal

designed by Kamath Design Studio. Language

of architecture is in the forefront here for

debate; context and history are being negotiated

through questions of cultural consciousness and

imaginations like identity, familiarity, symbolism,

etc. We make a very meticulous reading of thebuilding, literally like an ant crawling along

the walls and surfaces of this built assemblage,

discussing questions of architectural form,

structure, visual repertoire, sequencing spaces

and the practice of the architects. To this reading

we have an essay by Nemish Shah that provides

a counterpoint to two aspects— architectural

language and the idea of heritage/tradition. He

does a vivid comparison between many buildings

and the works of many architects across cities and

programmes to argue the ethics of practice, the role

of design and the sense of context and response.

The set of three buildings mentioned above bring

about a serious set of discussions vis-à-vis practice

and architectural imagination in India today. Over

the past year through a careful selection of projects,

and engaging with commentators who are very

observant, critical and argumentative Domus India

has attempted to lay out as well as map the current

architectural scenario in India. There is no time

to waste on crying over lack of critical journalism

in the field, when hardly anybody did anything

about it except the few like Gautam Bhatia or Romi

Khosla or A G K Menon who genuinely worked

towards it, and thought about it. Thoughtless crying

or negative criticism is not productive; a magazine

should struggle hard and build the capacity to

churn ideas, discussions, arguments and new life

— much like the myth of the churning of the ocean!

Architectural practices, studios and thinkers are

constantly producing thought-provoking projects,

dealing with precarious situations and challenging

scenarios— there is much good in between all

that we need not be bothered about; so the goodthat exists has to be debated and challenged as

a way of producing a dialectics of practice, and a

constant reworking of the field. In the same vein

we constantly visit earlier books and publications,

many ideas and many architectural events; in

this issue we continue with our discovery of, and

deliberations on the work of Karle Malte von Heinz.

An architect who designed some of the large and

important projects in India, especially in Delhi, as

well as many houses all across India, hardly finds a

mention in the narratives of architectural history

in India. A designer who lands up disturbing our

notions of style-time relationships, or brings forth

ornamentation-architecture nuances, is surely

someone we need to discuss and visit. Just as inour opening photoessay we visit the visual cosmos

of IIM building in Ahmedabad designed by Louis

Kahn, through the photographs of a German artist

who also measures the histories of certain specific

buildings in Berlin, Brasilia and California.

A rich collection of ideas comes across to you

through this issue of Domus India, and we

truly hope and wish that the momentum of

enthusiastically and decisively engaging with the

worlds of architecture, design, visual culture and

city studies will carry on through the spaces within

this publication.

—

KAIWAN MEHTA

domus 16 March 2013

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6

Stills from I am not me, the horseis not mine (His Majesty, Comrade Nose)DVCAM and HDV transferred to video

6 minutes 1 second

—

William Kentridge2008 All images courtesy Volte Gallery, Mumbai

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Stills from I am not me, the horse isnot mine (A Lifetime of Enthusiasm)DVCAM and HDV transferred to video

6 minutes 1 second

—

William Kentridge2008

In terv iew wi th ar t is t Wi l l iam Kentr idgeon pages 90-93 of t h is issueAll images courtesy Volte Gallery, Mumbai

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Gideon FinkShapiro writeson architectureand design. He

worked in thearchitecture

office of NewYork-based

Gabellini

SheppardAssociates, and

has createdpublic art

installationswith composers

Peter Adams

and SimonFink, as well as

with AmorphicRobot Works

in Brooklyn.He is currently

working on aPhD thesis at

the University

of PennsylvaniaSchool of

Design,examining

the Frenchengineer and

landscape

architectJean-Charles

Alphand. He isthe author of

the smartphoneapp Domus

Architecture

Guide to NewYork

12

March domus

Op–Ed / Gideon Fink Shapiro

A park for Roosevelt,40 years later

The belated completion of Four Freedoms Park, Louis I Kahn’s

memorial to Frankli n D Roosevelt in New York City, has

possibly inspired more eulogies to the architect than to the

president. Roosevelt’s legacy feels less secure today than it did

in Kahn’s time, with the American welfare state under attack

and the United Nations unable to arbitrate conflicts. On the

other hand, Kahn’s place in the history of a rchitecture appears

robust. Following Nathaniel Ka hn’s My Architect (2003) and

the restoration of Kahn’s Yale University Ar t Gallery (2006),

we now have a Kahn retrospective at the and the Vitra

Design Museum (2012-13), a new book on Kahn’s houses by

William Whitaker and George H Marcus (2013), and, of course,

the opening in 2012 of the monument at the southern tip of

Roosevelt Island.

In a curious way, the deferred execution of the Roosevelt

project, which Kahn and his office designed in 1973-74, became

an exercise in conservation. To build it was like restoring or

reconstructing a lost work from the past. It required technical

ingenuity and interpretive tact to follow Kahn’s construction

documents while addressing new factors such as rising sea

levels, seismic codes, access for disabled persons, and quarry

closures after the architect’s death in 1974. We cannot guess

what last-minute refinements Kahn might have made on site

during construction. But after almost four decades on the

boards, the project faced the same ultimatum as many ageing

buildings: adapt or die. The adaptations were relatively subtle,

thanks to assiduous efforts by all parties involved.

To get to Roosevelt Island from Manhattan you can take an

aerial tramway, floating with airy detachment over the river

and city. Once you reach Kahn’s memorial, however, you

experience the landscape in a deeply terrestrial way. Beginning

with the massive embankment that makes you pause at the

entrance, you are ensconced in a sequence of sculpted mounds

and excavations leading to the water’s edge. The enormous

granite staircase looks as if it might lead up to one of the

Beaux-Arts monuments that Kahn designed as a student under

Paul Cret. What really lies at the top of the stair is a vast urban

room defined by the structures along the East River. Here the

park gives visitors a sense of arrival and belonging withinthe wider urban topography. More immediately, visitors

find themselves in a tree-lined, wedge-shaped garden that

funnels inexorably towards the climax at the tip of the island.

Centred around a banal lawn, this pared-down green space

lacks the rich textures and detail ing found in Kahn’s pared-

down architecture. Evidently Kahn had not yet mastered the

expressive problems unique to vegetal building materials, at

least not in drawings. But the walled garden points outwards

beyond its walls, forwarding the eyes and feet to a horizontal

summit that compresses down into a room and fin ally bursts

open to the landscape.

This final room is so clearly the beginning of something, a

taking-off point, as well as a primal enclosure and gathering

space. Partially enclosed on three sides by 27 towering granite

blocks, it opens to the southwest as if to pour forth into theswirling tidal strait. The roofless square space resembles a

scaled-up version of the source pool in Kahn’s Salk Institute

courtyard (1959-65), or perhaps a scaled-down version of the

Salk courtyard itself. It somehow reconciles the scale of the

human body with the scale of the city and landscape. Amid the

heroic monumentality of the 36-tonne blocks one perceives the

quivering fragility of light trickling through the one-inch gaps.

This space, which almost didn’t get built, whispers something

about the contingency of a plan, the vulnerability of a city and

the impermanence of a civilisation. From the porous room we

feel, surprisingly, the smallness of the 20th century’s greatest

city. New York is inseparable from the advancing waters

that enrich it and threaten it; they must be respected as a

constituent part of its ground.

As Anthony Vidler observed, “For Kahn, architecture was above

all, and always, an art of memorial.” The Roosevelt memorial is

also a memorial to Kahn, to New York and to architecture itself.

In memory lies the germ of imagination, and in the space of

Kahn’s memorial one finds innumerable futures in embryo. The

granite-walled Room is not a tomb but a womb, an incubator of

projects. For Kahn it was to be “the beginning of architecture”,

the stem cell of urban plazas, civic buildings and public parks.

The monument urges us to renew not only Roosevelt’s four

socio-political freedoms (freedom of speech and worship,

freedom from want and fear) but also several architecturalvalues or “freedoms”, which I will venture to articulate, perhaps

absurdly, in a parallel format.

1 Freedom to form. Space and structure give shape to shared

ideals and needs.

2 Freedom to move. Architecture responds to the movements

of time, the environment, body and mind.

3 Freedom from linear chronology. The past, present

and future are simultaneous in the perpetual beginn ing

of architecture.

4 Freedom from autonomy. Architecture is implicated

in the world and it participates in cultural and

environmental production.

Kahn’s belief in a cohesive society and a common good,

expressed in countless projects, can sometimes seem too

abstract and insufficiently heterogeneous for our times. As the2012 Venice Architecture Biennale showed, few things are more

contentious today than “common ground”. But Four Freedoms

Park reminds us what makes architecture in the public realm

so exciting. Kahn said, “What one does can belong to everybody.

Your greatest worth is in the area where you can claim no

ownership.” It is precisely in this way that Four Freedoms Park

belongs to the landscape and the people of New York.

The memorial arrives on the scene like t he proverbial Socratic

gadfly, provoking difficu lt questions. With a new u niversity

campus soon to be developed nearby on Roosevelt Island,

and New York debating how to deal with r ising seas, we

have to think in terms of collective spaces. Kahn’s giant little

project challenges the city to remember and to begin, to form

and to move.

—GIDEON FINK SHAPIRO

Op–Ed

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ON STANDS NOW

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Ha ve a b ig idea? S hare i t w i

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DEBA TE 90 San tos h Desa i

and C h in taman i Rao:

Can soc ia l med ia ' re form ' In

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VOLUME 1 > ISSUE 1 > MA

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domus 16 March 2013

15

Editorial

Op-ed Gurgaon Glossaries

Notes from an urban situation

Op-ed Gideon Fink Shapiro

A park for Roosevelt, 40 years later

Journal

Photoessay Thomas Florschuetz

The past imperfect

Romi Khosla Design Studios, Ekta Idnany, Jasem Pirani

Envelope as a mediator

Kamath Design Studio, Suprio Bhattacharjee

Debating tactile engagements

Nemish Shah

Language conversations

SANAA, Imrey Culbert, Mosbach Paysagistes, Sam Jacob

A museum of time

Steven Holl, Lebbeus Woods, Christoph A Kumpusch

Light in the city

VV.AA.

Lebbeus Woods1940–2012

Contemporary Museum for architecture in Indiacurated by Kaiwan Mehta, text by Suprio Bhattacharjee

A portrait of the architect as animmigrant

William Kentridge, Roshan Kumar Mogali

The studio as a self-portrait

Giampiero BosoniArchitecture of adrenalin

Abir Karmakar, Kaiwan Mehta

Finding lost rooms

Rassegna

Façades

CoverThe lower level of the

Museum of Tribal Heritage

in Bhopal — designed by

the Delhi-based Kamath

Design Studio — is

conceived of as a generous

verandah offering spaces

for workshops conducted

by craftsmen and artisans,

defined by the superposed

structural order of steel

columns and steel beams

that support the building

volumes oating overhead

(Photo courtesy Kamath

Design Studio)

5 78

84

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94

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108

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12

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26

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Contents16

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Ahmedabad, IN

Prathaa : Kath-khuni architecture of

Himachal Pradesh

—

Journal

A recent exhibition at Hutheesing Visual Art Centre

in Ahmedabad by Design Innovation and Craft

Resource Centre (DICRC), Centre for Environmental

Planning and Technology University (CEPT)

presented an overview of a distinctive architectural

technique, highlighting our rich vernacular heritage

The vernacular traditions in India are in constant

flux, with a n increasing loss of indigenous skills

and knowledge. The locally-available materials

are being displaced with t he growing incursionof new materials for construction. Kath-khuni

construction prevalent in Himachal P radesh is

one such indigenous tradition of construction that

reflects excellent sustainable building techniques

using local materials a nd human resources.

The need to preserve such traditions led to the

inception of a collaborative project which aims

at disseminating knowledge about kath-khuni

construction technique practiced for centuries in

Himachal Pradesh.

This exhibition is a part of a research project,

an international collaboration initiated in 2011between the researchers based in the Faculty of

Architecture, Building & Plan ning, University

of Melbourne, Australia, and DICRC, Faculty of

Design, CEPT University and was partly funded by

the Australia India Institute.

Prior to this, an ex hibition in Wunderlich Gallery,

ABP Faculty, University of Melbourne, was

organised last year from 13 to 31 August 2012.

An online resource lab has also been developed

to disseminate the related information and

knowledge of this project. This project is a recipient

of the i nternational Zumbotel group awardfor Humanity and Sustainability in the Built

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Journal

Environment, 2012 with an honourable mention in

the Research and Special Initiatives category.

The research is featured in a book, Prathaa: Kath-

khuni architecture of Himachal Pradesh, which

documents the research on existing and emerging

building practices in Himachal Pradesh. The

relative isolation of the hills and the demanding

environment fostered the development of

distinctive prathaa (traditions) that has been

practiced for centuries. These indigenous building

traditions reflect the synthesis of material and

environmental constraints with social and

cultural beliefs and rituals. Published in 2013 by

SID Research Cell, CEPT University Ahmedabad,the book illustrates the role of indigenous building

practices in a dual sense: architecture as an

outcome of specific material assemblies to fulfil

specific functional purposes and architecture

as a process to bind together people, places

and resources in order to sustain particular

cultural norms, beliefs and values.The book has

been authored by Prof Bharat Dave, Faculty of

Architecture, Building & Planning, University of

Melbourne, Australia, Prof Jay Thakkar, Faculty

of Design, and Head of Research, DICRC, and

Mansi Shah, Researcher, DICRC. The authors

have very sensitively captured through their

research work an age-old building tradition in

these 145 intriguing pages of extensive researchand documentation. The book and the exhibition

consists of the panoramic shots of the region

where apart from the built-form, the culture and

context are evidently visible. Also the image-

based 3-D reconstructions developed for many

of the buildings give a fresh look to the mode of

documenting and recording.

This three-day exhibition and book launch held

at Hutheesing Visual Art Centre started with

an introduction to the project followed by the

authors sharing their experiences about the

research. The book was launched by architect

Nimish Patel congratulating the authors on their

effort and commendable work. He emphasised

the need and potential of publishing a series

of books on the title Prathaa comprehensively

documenting the rich vernacular heritage of

building practices across the country. Prof

Krishna Shastri (Dean, Faculty of Design, CEPT

University) inaugurated the exhibition and briefed

the audience about other activities of DICRC as

well. Exhibited through illustrative panels, video

and interactive media, the event hosted a wide

array of both national and international audience

including research scholars, architects, interior

designers, academicians and students. A lecture on

‘Approaches to Digital Documentation of Spatial

Environments’ by Prof Bharat Dave from the

University of Melbourne was conducted on the

second day which was followed by a screening of

the documentary film Landscaping the Divine by

Prof Molly Kaushal.

This project is part of a planned series of research

and documentation activities that will help to

create new paradigms for the understanding

of craft through the changing times. “With

the international collaborations, the aim is to

reach larger audiences, and creating newer

avenues and different methods of research and

documentation,” says Prof Jay Thakkar. Among

the next possibilities of this project is to develop

a comprehensive travelling studio where

researchers and students from CEPT University

and the University of Melbourne work together

in Himachal Pradesh. This could lead to the

development of collaborative design processes

through the deeply-rooted knowledge and skills

of craftspeople and design-thinking capacities

of students and researchers. This could be then

demonstrated and tested and thus would be

fed back to the indigenous building practices in

Himachal Pradesh.

The larger intentions of projects like this are

cyclic in nature, where the imagination starts

with a primary field visit, but later with detailed

documentation and extensive research, it can take

the form of a publication disseminating valuableinformation about it. Further, these initiatives

also act as a seed to many new thoughts,

which delimits the human capacity to think of

indigenous building construction techniques

as old and mundane. The connection with the

context and culture remains the core of the

building traditions across India, specifically here

in Himachal Pradesh; which differentiates them

from the modern techniques of construction

that are often disconnected from the context

and culture.

Rishav Jain

Indigenous Building Practiceshttp://himachal.crida.net/

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domus 16

19

March 2013

Bharti Kher continues with her narration and

translation of gender dynamic in relationship to

space in her recent body of artworks

Bharti Kher’s exhibition held at Nature Morte

from 19 January to 16 February 2013 titled Bind

the Dream State to your Waking Life dealt with the

co-relationship of domestic space and gender. The

exhibition comprised sculptures that were not

just dramatic but also tra nsient in nature. Kher

has used different materials for her installations

to express the myriad of emotions that a domestic

space conjures through the memory of that

space, its usage and its inhabitants. One of the

installations had a wooden staircase fixed to a

beam on the roof, with two large spoked wheels

driven through its middle depicting the wheel

of time in relation to a domestic space. Another

installation titled Time Lag by Kher displayed a

huge pillar that had been placed diagonally and

had pierced the upper half of the doorway and

a brick made of melted bangles hung from the

column almost like a pendulum of a clock. The two

artworks have been placed inside the gallery in

relationship to the original positioning of the door

and the staircase of the gallery respectively and

the artworks have sperm-shaped bindis attached

on the surface creating an etching-like pattern

that invokes a feeling of movement to both these

elements — staircase and column. This is not

the first time that Kher has used sperm-shaped

bindis on the surface of her artworks; and if one

remembers the Rinky-dink Panther , 2004 and The

Skin Speaks a Language Not its Own , 2006 both

had bindis pasted on the surface of the fiberglass

panther and the elephant giving a texture-like

effect to the life-size animals. Interestingly, the

gallery space of Nature Morte is appropriate for

the exhibition as the gallery is housed within

a residence and has different levels and stairs

within the gallery that forms a space within the

space. Among other works displayed in the gallery

was a diptych frame with shattered mirrors and

on the surface blue and black round bindis were

applied — the round bindis not only represents the

popular forehead decoration for women but alsosymbolises the third eye in Indian philosophy. This

particular work created a two-fold relationship

between the woman and the domestic space

firstly with the daily ritual of a majority of Indian

women who stick their bindis on the mirror and

secondly the reflection of herself through the

mirror; the work is reflective of the day gone

by and acts as a reminder of all the eventful

memories attached to a space. Other works

displayed include saris draped on cement pillars

as if they are meant to cover different parts of the

body and are placed in the gallery space along

with other framed artwork of bindis. Her works

attempt to weave the emotions and memories

of a woman attached to the interior or domesticspace where she might have spent a long time and

the usage of bindis of different shapes and sizes

in her works express a trajectory of periods both

historical and contemporary in relation to women

and her changing roles in the society. Her work

reflects contradictions of an enclosed space that

is the interior of the house and at the same time

it is also a private space that represents freedom

or independence.

Kalyani Majumdar

Nature Mortewww.naturemorte.com/

A vantage point fordomestic spaces

New Delhi, IN

Bharti Kher, Time Lag, 2012. Courtesy Nature Morte

Bharti Kher, Lao's Mirror, 2012 . Courtesy Nature Morte

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Bengaluru, IN

Mumbai, IN

A chronicler of Bombay/MumbaiAs a tribute to one Mumbai's most

prominent historians, Sharada

Dwivedi, who passed away last year,

the Prince of Wales Museum now

known as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj

Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) in Fort

hosted a memorial lecture in her

honour on 14 February 2013

Organised jointly by the CSMVS

and non-profit organisation, Urban

Design Research Institute (UDRI),

the tribute lecture was addressed

by British historian Charles Allen.

Dwivedi was one of Mumbai's

best-known historians and had

authored a series of books on the

city's history. She was also on the

panel of the Mumbai Heritage

Conservation Committee. She wasa mentor and a guide to many

heritage conservationists, students

and journalists alike. She insisted

upon calling the city that she grew

up in as Bombay and not Mumbai

as Charles Allen fondly remembered

of the avid researcher and historian

during his memorial speech. Allen

and Dwivedi worked together on

the book titled The Taj at Apollo

Bunder — a well-researched book

that documented the profound

history of the Taj Mahal Palace hotel

from its conceptualisation to the

present day. Another book that hasbeen a landmark in understanding

the heritage of Bombay/Mumbai is

Bombay: The Cities Within, which she

co-authored with Rahul Mehrotra

and is a beautiful coffee table book

with verses, sepia tone images that

invoke a sense of nostalgia for the

city and helped in raising awareness

about the city’s built heritage among

its inhabitants.

The event was followed by

announcing the winner of the

Charles Correa Gold Medal Award.

Since 2001 UDRI initiated the

annual Charles Correa Gold Medal

and it is given to young students

of architecture to encourage them

to come up with design solutions

in urban contexts. The winner for

2011 was announced by one of the

jury members — arch itect KamuIyer — and went to Anushka Raina

from the School of Planning and

Architecture (SPA), New Delhi, for

her sensitive design response in her

project titled Revitalization of central

business district in New Delhi and has

dealt with an important urban issue

which is the parking problems in

the crowded business centres

of Delhi which is also known as

Lutyen’s Delhi.

Kalyani Majumdar

Urban Design Research Institutewww.udri.org/

The rise of a capitalAfter exhibiting at the National Gallery of Modern

Art in New Delhi and Mumbai, Dawn upon Delhi: Rise

of a Capital has arrived in NGMA Bengaluru

A collection of around 250 photographs, archival

maps and town plans of Delhi from the 19th

and early 20th century takes us back to a part

of history of a city that is also the capital of

independent India. The images displayed at the

exhibition Dawn upon Delhi: Rise of a Capital

are from the coronation durbars of 1877, 1903

and 1911 and capture many interesting facets

of political and social dynamics apart from the

festivities coupled with pomp and show that took

place in the pre-independent city of Delhi. This

travelling exhibition has been jointly organised

by NGMA, the Ministry of Culture and the Alkazi

Foundation for the Arts. The collection is from the

archives of the Alkazi Collection of Photography,

Archaeological Survey of India, the Central Public

Works Department archives, the Ram Rahman/

Habib Rahman Archives and the D N Chaudhuri

Collection and it has been curated by Rahaab

Allana. The display gives a rare opportunity to

the viewers to take a historical journey of Delhi

through images that are from the era of the British

Raj; the images from 1903 durbar that wa s held to

celebrate the coronation of King Edward VII and

Queen Alexandra as Emperor and Empress of India

showcases the festivities with elaborate tents that

were installed at the coronation area in Delhi with

electrical light installations for the first time and

a specially uniformed police force was brought in

for this grand event. Apart from the photographs

exhibited, there are maps of modern Delhi by

renowned architects such as Edwin Lutyens and

Herbert Baker displayed. Interestingly, as one

walks through the gallery looking at images of the

pavilion from Delhi Durbar in 1911, one can almost

hear the sound of the trumpets and the drums

rolling as King-Emperor George V made the regal

announcement that the new capital of the British

Raj has been shifted from Calcutta to Delhi in

front of an astounding and probably unsuspecting

audience who witnessed the rise of the capital.

Kalyani Majumdar

Until 16.03.2013National Gallery of Modern Art, Bengaluru

http://ngmaindia.gov.in[Domus India 11 (October 2012) featured a photoessay with photographsand textual extracts from the exhibition and the related publication]

Photo courtesy UDRI

Photo courtesy ACP

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March 2013

Mumbai, IN

The weft andwarp of thingsThreads when set free speak the

language of art in Monika Correa’s

woven fabrics in her recent collection

of tapestries

Monika Correa in her recently held

exhibition at Chemould Prescott

Road titled Meandering Warp:

Variations on a Theme showcased

her collection of tapestries. To

understand Correa’s work on

tapestries, it is very important to first

understand the method of weaving.

In weaving, there are two elements

one is the warp (longitudinal

threads) and the other is the weft

(the threads that run parallel to the

width). The loom has a reed which

is like a comb that keeps the warp

threads parallel to each other and in

the process of weaving the weft and

the warp interlock and form woven

textile but if at any point of time

during weaving the reed is removed

then the threads wou ld meander.

A trained weaver, Correa wanted

to experiment with tapestries by

removing the reed at some point

during the weaving process in

order to let threads drift. For this,

Correa uses a reed that she can

remove or put back in at any time

while weaving and that provides

an altogether new dimension to the

process of weaving and the language

of threads. The idea of the thread

taking its own course when released

from the comb finds its own way in

a journey of self expression in her

artworks. One of her works displayed

at the exhibition titled Black Nile

shows the meandering of threads

— freely yet carefully organised

— and depicts the flow of the river

through her experimentation

with textiles. There is fluidity and

energy in her artworks and gives a

three-dimensional effect to all her

tapestries. For a textile artist, the

canvas is not readymade as the artist

has to weave the canvas and hence

this medium of art is not only time-

consuming and labour-intensive but

also has exacting requirements. This

exhibition provides a fresh lease to

an artform that has a rich history in

India that traces back to the times

when India was the hub of textile

trade and cultural exchange with the

rest of the world and was probably

responsible for clothing the world.

Kalyani Majumdar

Chemould Prescott Roadhttp://www.gallerychemould.com

Title of newspaper : Domus

Periodicity of the : Monthly

publication

Language in which : English

it is published

Retail Selling price : R200/-

of the newspaper

per copy

Place of publication : Spenta Multimedia

Peninsula Spenta

Mathuradas Mill Compound,

Lower Parel, Mumbai 400 013

Publisher’s name : Mr. Maneck Davar

Nationality : Indian

Address : Spenta Multimedia

Peninsula Spenta

Mathuradas Mill Compound,

Lower Parel, Mumbai 400 013

Editor’s name : Mr. Maneck Davar

Nationality : Indian

Address : Spenta Multimedia

Peninsula Spenta

Mathuradas Mill Compound,Lower Parel, Mumbai 400 013

Name and address : Mr. Maneck Davar

of individuals who Spenta Multimedia

own the newspaper Peninsula Spenta

and partners or Mathuradas Mill Compound,

shareholders holding Lower Parel, Mumbai 400 013

more than 1percent

of the total capital

I, Mr. Maneck Davar, hereby declare that the particulars

given above are true to the best of my knowledge

and belief.

Mr. Maneck Davar

Mumbai

(sd/-)

Signature of

Printer and Publisher

Mumbai, March 2013

Stat ement o f Ow nership and OtherPart iculars as Required Under Rule 8

of t he Registrat ion of New spaper(Cent ral) Rules, 1956

Tapestry works by Monika Correa titled Black Nile (left) and Connections (right) displayed atthe exhibition in Gallery Chemould

Photos courtesy Chemould Prescott Road

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Journal

Since the 1960s, architects have been under the spell

of comics. For their part, car toonists have also been

attracted to architecture since longer still. With all

due distinction and precaution, we can even say

that an architectural drawing is similar in structure

(with its combination of pictures and words) to

that of a comic strip. The book Bricks & Balloons.

Architecture in Comic-Strip Form by Mélanie van der

Hoorn tackles the relationship between architecture

and comics. It shows how the connection more often

emerges in architecture than in cartoons, and howambiguous and opportunistic the link has been in

certain cases. The book is a response to this opacity,

presenting 70 authors whose work lies squarely at

the intersection between architecture and comics.

Based on first-hand interviews with architects and

comic-strip artists, Bricks & Balloons is an attempt

to cover the duality in an all-encompassing way,

with three chapters on the relationship between

comics and architecture criticism, and three on

the relationship between comics and architectural

design. The first section explains how comics have

been a vehicle for architectural issues (with the

reference scale more centred on that of the building

than of the built environment). The second part is

about how and to what extent architects have usedcomics to promote and popularise their work. The

Architects

and comicsWhile architecture is undeniably fascinated by comics,

it is also true that comics assign buildings an ambiguous role

of great potential, as demonstrated by two recent publications

Review

Manfredo di Robilant architecture historian

vast bulk of information (including bibliographical

references) is interspersed by anecdotes that enliven

it, despite the fact that the book’s non-diachronic

scheme favours theoretical issues over events,

offering a principally conceptual rather than

historical clarification of the architecture-comics

affiliation. Van der Hoorn’s interpretation aims

to demonstrate that between architecture and

comics, the latter can be a tool that functions as a

critical device towards the former because it has

the potential to reveal in unexpected ways howinhabitants interact with a building (or rather

how buildings speak to their inhabitants) and how

architects try to impose their authority by means of

building (or rather what buildings, actually built or

only designed, say about their architects).

Among the many cases illustrated in Bricks &

Balloons, Chris Ware’s Building Stories is possibly

the most vivid portrayal of the ambiguous and

potent role buildings can have in comics. Ware, a

cartoonist and graphic novel artist who has been

famous on the scene for at least 20 years, tells the

stories of the inhabitants of a four-storey residential

building in a non-specified Chicago neighbourhood.

He introduces the viewpoint of the building

itself, making it the first-person narrator. Thereis no real storyline. The tales are divided over “14

distinctively discrete books, booklets, magazines,

newspapers and pamphlets” contained in a box

with a pictographic listing of all 14 items, but does

not suggest a specific reading order. Perhaps it is

precisely the fragmentary nature of the material

in the coffer that transmits, or actually invokes,

the peculiar role of architecture, which in the

framework of the fiction overlaps its role of physical

setting with the role of co-protagonist, paradoxically

off-stage but gifted with omniscient and judging

insight. The building’s faculty to know everythingnot only derives from it being the physical container

of the lives of its inhabitants, but also from the fact

that its reality belongs to a wider time frame than

the human one. If the theme of Building Stories is the

solitude of its characters, particularly of the female

protagonist, the building is the only depository of

the common memory of their existences, making

it the only one who might be able to be truly

empathetic, even compassionate, in their regard.

When the leading character passes by the building

years later, she wonders why she feels so nostalgic.

And for one moment it seems as if the secret life of

walls and architectural elements is able to enter into

contact with the intimate life of the inhabitants, as

perhaps too few architects imagine can happen.—

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↑

Chris Ware

Building Stories

Random House, London 2012

pp. 260 (14 items)

www.randomhouse.com

↑

Mélanie van der Hoorn

Bricks & Balloons

010 Publishers, Amsterdam 2012

pp. 224

www.010.nl

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Journal

Photo Alice Berton

↑

Justin McGuirk

Edge City.Driving the Peripheryof São Paulo

Strelka Press, Moscow 2012955 KB

www.strelka.com/books

↑

Alexandra Lange

The Dot-Com City.Silicon ValleyUrbanism

Strelka Press, Moscow 2012

273 KB

www.strelka.com/books

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Both the e-books by Alexandra Lange and Justin

McGuirk for the recently founded publishing

house established by the Strelka Institute, for

which McGuirk is publishing director, are tales of

divided cities, critiques of the lack of government

or corporate responsibility for city making that has

led to polarised outcomes which, they argue, waste

opportunities for positive change. In both cases

the authors embark on a critical dérive, necessarily

by car, exploring these isolated, disjointed

communities, speculating at the same time on the

lack of political will to regenerate the downtown.Lange argues that both the city and t he dot-coms

have a lot to gain by applying some of the creativity

they employ in building online and technology

empires to engage with the space bet ween the

metropolis and their insular suburban enclaves.

Lange’s case study underpins a bigger protest: dot-

coms promote city campus zones free of the public

realm, that elusive space of difference. Unwrapping

her points from her ample descriptions of their

corporate locales, the reader is gradually drawn

into her polemic about their enclavism and at what

cost it comes to the spatial identity of the civic as

a concept. The other cardinal sin in Lange’s book

is that dot-coms occupy buildings that actually

do not appear to need contemporary architectu re.Whether it is Facebook’s adoption of hacker chic,

A tale of two

territoriesTwo e-books analyse the history of two urban territories: Los Angeles’sSilicon Valley, a “pastoral capitalist” home to dot-com companies,and São Paulo’s periphery, home to the favelas of the informal city

Google’s dated office design with “insulated

yurts” or Apple’s un-campus, she lambasts them

for their inward-looking corporate creativity,

obsessed with “groupthink” and a transparency

that hardly allows for mavericks. Packed with

seductive options for eating, modes of working

and offering private shuttle buses (Facebook) due

to security issues, their patriarchal culture sucks

employees into their working culture. This is

hardly new: corporate culture has a strong history

of patriarchal embrace. But of the dot-coms, only

Google has expressed a wish to build workerhousing and to lobby for a zoning change. McGuirk,

by contrast, focuses on the ways in which the

housing deficit, as a result of speculation taking

precedent, impinges on the health of the formal

city. São Paulo’s 1971 master plan led to its endless

landscape of towers, but did not include the

periphery, a place where settlers were left to fend

for themselves. He quotes architects such as Jorge

Jáuregui, Urban-Think Tank (-), Christian Kerez

and , who have been retrofitting the favelas

in conjunction with , the city’s housing

authority. But his road trip continues wit hout

discussing t heir innovations—Jáuregui’s Urban

Attractor Cell, or what - call their “natural

arena” at Grotão, for example. That could bebecause the point of McGuirk’s e-book is to argue

why the informal city cannot be incorporated

into the formal city through better transport,

infrastructure and employment. He is concerned

about the status of the favelas, suffering actual

and threatened evictions in the lead up to the

2014 World Cup; the legacy of successive mayors

pandering to real-estate lobbies that fund their

election campaigns rather than coming up with

a vision for the periphery. What is the formal

city? Impeded by traffic-clogged roads, he finally

makes it to Alphaville, one of the largest gated

communities in the world planned in the mid-1970s, a town ringed by a steel fence topped with

barbed wire, concealing neat streets of mansion

houses with swimming pools. But that is not it,

and nor is formal entirely defined by the historic

centre, seen as either in decline or enjoying a new

quarter, Nova Luz, with a cultural centre by Herzog

& de Meuron.

Integration, responsibility: who is going to make

the next move? Who really wants to make a

stand? Typifying a new genre of polemical writing

about the city and its evolution, about how civic

aspirations should avoid being swallowed up by

corporate and real-estate interests, both e-books

valuably open up major debates on the futu re of

urbanism and the kind of game-changing it caneffect in the 21st century.—

Review

Lucy Bullivant Architecture critic @lucybullivant

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The past imperfect

Thomas Florschuetz

This sets a process in motion thattakes place after the preceding event,but which understands this event asits starting point. So the unfinishedshouldn’t be seen as a fragment -that is what the extract is - but as aproductive process, a thinking thingsthrough, a making of associations.”These photographs have been taken

across four cities — Berlin, Brasilia,Ahmedabad and California.

Thomas Florschuetz is a Berlin-basedvisual artist and photographer. Architectureis an important subject in his works. Hisrecent exhibitions include Extract, VitraDesign Museum Gallery, Weil am Rhein,2013 and a show at the Durbar Hall atKochi-Muziris Biennale 2012

The photographs of ThomasFlorschuetz, who was the only Germanartist showcased at the recent Kochi-Muziris Biennale, connects fourdifferent buildings in different locationsthrough a language - architectural atone level, but also the photographicframe on the other. Time, andarchitectural imagination, rather a

sense of utopia within architectureis revisited by these images - not toglorify the utopia but rather in a wayof asking questions of it, asking thatimagination in visual grammar torevisit its own history. Florschuetzin an interview comments, “Thegrammatical tense is its (photography’s)inner essence in a certain sense: therecording of a situation, the fixing ofa particular extract from reality ontoa surface. But the clocks don’t stop.

Photoessay

Enclosure (Brasilia) 05C-print183 x 228 cm2008/10Courtesy Diehl, Berlin

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Enclosure (IIM) 30 C-print183 x 123 cm

2010/13Courtesy Galerie m, Bochum

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The past imperfect Thomas Florschuetz

Enclosure (IIM) 44C-print153 x 103 cm

2010/13Courtesy Diehl, Berlin

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Enclosure (La Jolla) 08 C-print150 x 123 cm


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Enclosure (La Jolla) 11 C-print150 x 123 cm


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Untitled (Palast) 53 C-print183 x 228 cm

2006Courtesy Galerie m, Bochum

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Untitled (Palast) 56 C-print183 x 253 cm


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Enclosure (Neues Museum) 25 C-print183 x 150 cm

2009/10Courtesy Galerie m, Bochum

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Enclosure (IIM) 59 C-print183 x 123 cm


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39

We take a close look at two medical facility buildings in Delhi, both designed byRomi Khosla Design Studios, that straddle two very different sites and contexts.In both these buildings, architecture emerges as a mediator of ideas and values,and this is achieved by a descriptive working of the building skins that are alsothe tectonic structure of the built constellations - that understand culture andsocial relationships

The emergence and collapse of

every grand narrative has had

profound effects on architecture.

The recent speedy emergence

of megalomaniacal urban

manifestations and the resulting

crisis have also given cause to

much soul searching. The crash of

the housing real estate market i n

the United States that catapulted

the recent state of economic affairs

symbolises architecture’s giddy

collusion with commerce and t hedilemma of belief suddenly faced

by architects around the world.

Architects, largely an outmoded

species in the planning of important

types of building such as hospitals,

prisons, air ports and probably even

schools, have seen their roles largely

relegated to fulfilling commissions

for clients who can a fford to engage

in aesthetics.

Can architectu re go beyond its

capacity to serve the whims of the

privileged few and be a conduit for

social change? Can architecture

rediscover the belief that buildingscan perform a benevolent function

Envelope as amediator

Design

Romi Khosla Design Studios

Photos

Saurabh Pandey

Text

Ekta Idnany

Jasem Pirani

in the survival of a community? As

architects we are always conscious

that “The edifices and buildings that

comprise our environment have

a profound effect, psychologically

and physically, on our behaviour” 1.

Illustrating the case in point and

trying to reposition architecture

and the role of architects post

the economic collapse— the NY

MoMA’s seminal exhibition Small

Scale Big Change: New Architectures

of Social Engagement , October2010, focussed on 11 projects

across five continents that trained

the spotlight away from the

architectures of indulgence towards

an architecture that largely results

from a dialogue with those from

underprivileged societies2 for their

benefit. Perhaps the more pertinent

question for architects is whether

the architectural dialogue can

maintain its disciplinarity while

trying to affect social change.

Designed by Romi Khosla and

Martand Khosla of Romi Khosla

Design Studios, a charitablepolyclinic 3 building located near the

↑

The façade of thepolyclinic has blue andyellow aluminium louversthat serve dual purpose

of providing ventilationand enclosure

Delhi

1New Architectures of SocialEngagement , Niamh Coghlan, Aesthetica magazine,1 October 20102http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/10643The poor in and around LahoriGate area are in very badhealth due to drug addiction,physical incapability and socialdesertion. Some have criticaldiseases like HIV and TB.They are homeless becausethey simply cannot afford

shelter. Barely managing tofeed themselves, they pullrickshaws or engage in casualdaily labour. Some are sexworkers and others get bythrough begging.The Polyclinic, which will bea day care referral medicalrelief centre, will servethese poor people in theneighbourhood who cannotafford to get medical treatmentand check-ups. Completingthe Polyclinic in this denseand crowded locality was noteasy. The Polyclinic site hada dilapidated Chungi buildingthat had provided shelter forthe homeless and was a hubof drug-related activities. Fullyaware of these problems, the

architects worked closely withthe local community

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Envelope as a mediator Delhi, IN

40

Lahori Gate area of Old Delhi can endeavor to provide answers

to some of these questions and more. Catering to the poorest

and those living on the fringe of the urbanity of the national

capital, the polyclinic was comm issioned and donated to the

Municipal Corporation of New Delhi, by t he Sir Sobha Singh

Public Charitable Trust. The building stands situated in the

heart of the old city of Delhi, contesting boundaries with

the railway line, a masjid and a burnt down slum. Whi le it is

conventional in arch itecture to hold the context sacred, how

does one deal with a context that is hostile in accepti ng the

architectural agent? The architects realised that engaging

the local community and enlisting cooperation from the

adjoining masjid and rai lway authorities would enable them

to surmount the odds.

The building for the polyclinic stands pristine amongst the

rubble of the erstwhile slum, platonically perfect, hark ing backto the days when Modernism predicated that architecture

could bring one closer to Utopia. Almost mimicking the

urban situation it hopes to counter, the face that the building

presents to the world, or at least the world that passes by on

the railway tracks, appears c ubed, sterile and serene. This

western façade is exactly that— a façade, a solid curtain with

a punched-in picture frame that hangs off the front of the

building, shadi ng the glass screen set behind by deep recessed

balconies on every floor. Behind the added veil of an iron

security mesh, thi s side hardly betrays what might be inside.

The particular articulation of this “curtain” enables the ruse

of an open floor plate completely concealing the fac t that the

services of the building are housed right behind it.

On the other side, the building opens up to the community

that it hopes to serve and is in dia metric opposition to thewestern face. The entrance through this side is perched on a

modest porch that almost feels contiguous with the ground

plane of the neighbourhood. The low plinth tiled in Kotah

and large glass panes of the entryway blur the divisions of

the outside and inside. Further throwing caution to puritan

ideals of the other side, this façade is a brightly pai nted

unmonolithic cur tain bounded on both edges by the concrete

side walls. It would appear as if the interior of the bui lding

is pushing itself outward from within the confines of the

concrete shell. Large expanses of g lass that make up part of the

curtain allow a complete reveal of the inside of the building,

while also a llowing the occupants a view of t hose who

might be hesitant to reach out for help. The banal ity of the

alumin ium louvers that serve to provide natural ventilation

all the while ensuring privacy contradict the careful detailing

of the building. The precise gaps where the curtain wall pulls

away from the side walls embeds storm water dra in pipesrendered in shiny stainless steel appearing as innocuous

structural glazing members. Horizontal breakers that shade

the glass also ser ve to mark floor levels and act as ironical ly

risky balconies with absent railings.

The building is deliberate in the humble expediency with

which one can read it and it is this that a llows it to exist

and be accepted within the chaotic milieu that surrounds

it. The same idea also extends into its theoretical reading —

syntactically the building is using the module of the ‘Maison

Dom-Ino’ diagram proposed by Corbusier as the basic building

block of Modern Architecture. The plan is a virtual nine

square grid with equa l bays along the north-south axis. But

along the other axis t he final western bay is foreshortened

due to the available site conditions. The architec ts choose to

deal with this compromised bay with amazing intuitivenessreminiscent of Baroque spaces. They highlight the diminutive

Above, left: The entrance isperched on a modest porchthat almost feels contiguouswith the ground plane of theneighbourhood. The lowplinth tiled in Kotah and largeglass panes of the entryway blur the divisions of theoutside and inside. Above,right: the polyclinic has beendesigned keeping in mindits close proximity to otherbuildings. Opposite page, top: the building stands situatedin the heart of the old city ofDelhi, contesting boundarieswith the railway line, amasjid and a burnt downslum. Opposite page, bottom:a view from one of the roomsof the polyclinic showing

the horizontal breakers thatshade the glass and alsoserve to mark oors and actas ironically risky balconieswith absent railings (therailings are supposed to beinstalled at the door itself)

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bay by detaching it off the mass of the buildi ng by providing

a gap, rendering it into a ‘free façade’, all the while using the

available poché to conceal service areas.

Materially, as well, the building contr ibutes to the above

dialogue and enha nces the graphic legibility of the project.

While functiona l need dictates that the building is robust,

vandalism-proof and economical yet the architects manage

to clearly reinforce the diagram in t he material reading on

both the façades— one is clearly able to discern the three

structura l bays. While the side facing the tracks is a mere

rational rendering of the divisions, the louvered façade

chooses to tell more about the interior function. The vertically

continuous blue louvered bay calls out the stacked staircase

hidden behind it. The yellow pai nted louvers indicates floor

areas such as landi ngs and corridors. Glass is used largely

to de-materialise boundaries inside and allow views to

the outside from the waiting lounges. The use of concrete,

plaster, steel, glass and the use of the primar y colours on the

louvered façade, alludes to the traditional materia l palette

of Modernism and yet the same materiality also allows

the building to enter in subtle competitiveness with the

commercial edifices of t he contemporary urban city. It is the

above dialogue that could allow the buildi ng to create a sense

of pride and ownership amongst the community. It also al lows

the architects to further the disciplinary conversation withinits own fraternity.

Architecture does not necessari ly need to return to the

belief in any all pervasive grand narrative to reposition its

importance to humanit y. But perhaps if architects were to re-

appropriate some of Modernism by sievi ng out dated ideals

such as the ‘architect as the mastermi nd or celebrity’; and

adopt the entrenched belief that power of architecture and

architectural space can nurture, enhance and improve the

survival of a community while engaging their participation

— then, architecture might rebalance itself in the humanities

rather than occupying lofty and lonely perches in high art.

—

EKTA IDNANY

Architect

This page: Glass is usedlargely to de-materliseboundaries inside and allowviews to the outside from thewaiting lounges. Oppositepage, top: the verticallycontinuous blue louveredbay calls out the stacked

staircase hidden behindit and the yellow paintedlouvers indicates oorareas such as landings andcorridors. Opposite page,bottom: rear view of thebuilding

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1

3

2

41 Lobby

2 Office

3 Consultation Room

4 Toilet

5 Rest Room

6 Pantry

7 Lift Shaft

8 Balcony

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X X

0 5m

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DesignRomi Khosla Design Studios

P r i ncipa l A rc h i t ec t sRomi Khosla, MartandKhosla Design TeamRajnish Pant

St ruc t ura l Cons u l t an tSEMAC India

1 Ground oor plan

2 Section X

3 East elevation

4 West elevation

Elec t r i c a l Cons u l t an tSEMAC India

Plumbing Consul tantSEMAC India ClientThe Sir Sobha Singh PublicCharitable Trust

Loc at i onOld Delhi

Project Area1093.5 m2

Construct ion Phase2009 - 2011

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6m

6m

6m

DesignRomi Khosla Design Studios

P r i nc ipa l A rc h i t ec t sRomi Khosla, MartandKhosla

Design TeamMaulik Bansal,Ram Pandarathil Nair,Megha Shah

1 Ground oor plan

2 First oor plan

3 North elevation

4 Section CC

5 Section BB

St ruc t ura l C ons u l t an tSEMAC India

Elec t r i c a l Cons u l t an tSEMAC India, MaxMEP

Plumbing Consul tantSEMAC India

Civ i l ContractorCPWD

Pro jec t A rea11,696 m2

Cons t ruc t i on Phas e2007 - 2009

2

1

2

4

5

10

1112

1313

17

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19 19

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30

31 32

33

3334 34

35

363737

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40

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C

CB

B

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55 6

8 79

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1112

131514

16

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1920

1921 22

23 23

24 25 26

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29 29 1313

1 Entrance

2 Lobby

3 Central Block/ Library

4 Terrace Garden

5 X-ray Room

6 Darkroom

7 Scanning

8 Staff Room

9 Faculty Room

10 Reader’s Room

11 Lecturer’s Room

12 HOD’s Office

13 Toilet14 Store

15 Deep Freeze

16 Mortuary

17 Technician’s Room

18 Dissection Hall

19 Preparation Room

20 Store

21 Histology

22 Museum

23 Lecture Room

24 Stores and Services

25 Staff Common Room

26 Faculty Changing Room + Common Room

27 Cafe

28 Kitchen

29 Students Changing Room + Common Room

30 Waiting Room31 Dean’s Office

32 Record Room

33 Demo Room

34 Biochemistry and Pharmocology Lab

35 Physiology + Pathology + Microbiology Lab

36 Oral Biology and Oral Pathology Lab

37 Consulting room

38 Public Health Dentistry Clinic

39 Sterilisation room

40 Office

ClientJamia Millia IslamiaUniversity, New Delhi

Loc at i onNew Delhi

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The envelope or exterior of the bui lding is what defines the

boundary between t he inside and the outside. The exterior

appearance is what we first experience or see of a building. In

a similar way, we see people first as how they visually appear

to us. In both of these cases it can be said that we are seeing

the “skin” of the object. “Skin” is the boundary of the object

that separates the object from the space around it. The “skin”

of a building— its façade— is sometimes considered to have

a social and cultura l role in representing what is inside the

building. Traditiona l typologies of buildings such as “ temples,”

“villas”, or “municipal buildings” usua lly have sufficient

connection to a system of understandi ng that we know the

programme of the building from the architectura l elementsthat are used to make the ex terior form.

The articulation of the skin of a buildi ng is about the

movement between the inside and the outside— one that

is defined by the programme that is concealed and revealed

within . Bernard Tschumi states that the envelope of a building

is what excludes or includes by its articulation of the surface

by fortification or porosity, by veiling and by screening. This

suggests that movement from inside to outside is constitutive

of space rather than being a product of space. Gilles Deleuze

and Felix Guattari, two French philosophers, have said it well,

“A substance is said to be formed when a flow enters i nto a

relationship with another form.”

Principal arch itects Romi Khosla and Martand Khosla of Romi

Khosla Design Studios based in New Delhi, were entrusted

with the responsibility of designi ng a dental college for theJamia Millia Islamia Un iversity in New Delhi. The college

besides being a teaching centre for dentistry also provides

dental care to the people in the sur rounding areas. The

programme therefore had to be designed keeping the three

users in mi nd; the common public, the doctors who were going

to teach and practice and for students who were going to learn

and assist. The architects realised that it was crucia l for the

programme to be simplified so that it i s easily understood

by the three end-users and al lows the users to flow from one

space to another. This defines the envelope as a connector from

the inside to the outside.

Romi Khosla Design Studios ensured t hat the façade was

designed to serve dual func tions. The northern façade of the

building behi nd which the clinics have been located suchthat the structural curtain wall glazing provides enormous

daylight for dental treatment. On the southern elevation, the

glazing has been confined to horizontal narrow open ings

that protect the southern side of the building in the clin ic

areas from heat gain. Here one can argue t hat the skin of the

building is as a n organising element that relates functionally

in connecting so ciety to the building in a non-spatial way.

Therefore, the underlying relationship is that the skin/

envelope separate as compared to making connections, by

transforming space i nto a represented system.

Programme, envelope and context form the basis of

architecture and bui ldings. Herzog and de Meuron have

designed, with artis tic vigour, a number of buildings where

the surface of the building , its “skin”, is not of familiar

or traditional architectura l forms. These projects includethe Dominus Winery i n Napa Valley California, where the

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The varying levels oftransparencies, openings andclosings in the faç

Documents

Domus India 2013-03