|
||
|
Architecture traditionally, i.e., before
the arrival of British on the Indian soil, was from the social point of
view, a creation of spectacular sculptural forms hewn out of stone.
Architectural material was stone; tools, chisel and hammer, and the aim
was glorification. In contrast, the every-day needs of a common man were
ruthlessly neglected. Then the British arrived on the scene, it was
through them that the first introduction to elementary modern building
construction and planning was introduced into India. Their aim, however,
was to house their organisations, and their people and whatever was
necessary to control an empire as big as India. Apart from self-serving
military cantonments and civil lines, they also left the basic problems
well alone. It was no intention of the British to educate Indians in the
art and science of architecture. Consequently Indian minds, during the
British reign, were completely out of touch with the progressive
thinking taking place in the rest of the world. The most significant
architectural phenomenon that took place during the first half of this
century in this country was building of Imperial Delhi. This was an
anachronism of the highest order, because, while at that time
contemporary Europeans were engaged in most progressive thinking in
architecture, Sir Edward Lutyen's was a masterpiece in high renaissance
architecture, the result of a way of thinking typical of the early
nineteenth century in Europe. It is interesting to note that at the same
time as the construction of Delhi, Europe was having "Heroic period of
modern architecture" in such schools of thought as "Bauhaus".
Independence woke us to a changed situation.
"Time had moved on. In place of religion or royal concern with
architectural immortality, this situation demanded attention to those
problems that had so far been ruthlessly neglected. The ordinary man,
his environment and needs became the centre of attention. Demand for low
cost housing became urgent.
|
Industrialism that
was to follow in India, spawned its own problems of townships and civic
amenities for workers. Fresh migration from rural areas to existing
cities also strained already, meagre housing capacities of existing
cities. The very scale of the problem was and still is unnerving.
8,37,00,000 dwelling units needed throughout the country and the demand
rises annually at the rate of 17,000 dwelling units, not to mention
rural housing. To face staggering problems of such magnitude,
twenty-five years ago, there were few Indian architects in the country
and practically no planners. There was only one school of architecture
in Bombay. But there was the will to build, with the limited resources
and technological know-how at our disposal.
We marched ahead and built an impressive
number of houses and other buildings of utilisation nature. In the
process we made mistakes and learnt from them. Each fresh attempt was a
step closer to building of forms more suitable for the Indian climate
and socio-economic conditions. In this process, architects also became
aware of the need for a certain amount of research work in new ways of
building and planning if we were to face the problem squarely as they
say. Since government was the agency with the largest resource, it had
to carry the heaviest responsibility for construction. Need for various
kinds of organisation on the national and regional level was felt.
Following is the list of governmental bodies that we have today, which
in some way or the other are responsible for building industry in India.
(1) CENTRAL PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT (C.P.W.D.)
This is a national organisation with
affiliated bodies at state level called Public Works Department
(P.W.D.). It looks after all the construction of government office
buildings, residential accommodation for government employees,
institutional buildings like the I.I.T., hospitals, public auditoriums,
conference halls like Vigyan Bhavan, and hotels such as "The Janpath"
and "The Ranjeet". etc. A number of other buildings, like Libraries,
research institutes, airports, radio and T.V. Centres, Telecommunication
building, factories and workshops are also looked after by the C.P.W.D.
Activities of the C.P.W.D. are not restricted
to building construction alone. The department also looks after
engineering, construction of granaries, warehouses, bridges and canals
that have helped the country in its fight against food shortage.
The Horticultural wing of the department has
involved itself with the creation of environmental comforts, like Parks
such as Buddha Jayanti Park and Mughal Gardens.
Activities of the department at present have
extended beyond the borders of the country. The Sonali-Pokhra road
project in Nepal has been completed and a hospital for children in Kabul
had just been completed and the department had been appointed as
consultant for work of the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Institute at
Mauritius.
|
|
|
(2) TOWN COUNTRY PLANNING ORGANISATION
A planning organisation is responsible for physical and
land-use planning on a national scale and then detailed land-use
planning on regional scale. In other words this organisation is
responsible for earmarking National land for various uses, such as
Towns, cities, industry etc., considering factors like economy, ecology,
communication etc. thereby ensuring balanced and planned physical
growth of the whole nation. Apart from this the organisation is engaged
in preparing development plans for existing cities such as Delhi to
ensure controlled growth of these cities.(3) HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION : HUDCO was set as a fInance operating body to deal with a revolving fund of 200 crores. Its main objectives are : (a) To finance Urban Housing. (b) To undertake setting up of new or satellite towns. (4) CENTRAL BUILDING RESEARCH INSTITUTE C.B.R.I. conducts research into various methods of economical construction and various other aspects of the building industry. It is a research oriented organisation. (5) NATIONAL BUILDING ORGANISATION : N.B.O. is an organisation which acts as interface between all incoming technological information and practising architects and builders. (6) HINDUSTAN HOUSING FACTORY : H.H.F. concerns itself in encouraging the technology of prefabrication throughout the country. (7) STATE HOUSING BOARDS TO DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITIES : Apart from all these, are state housing boards in all the mentioned above bodies which are responsible for implementation and designing of the housing needs, and general controlled growth of the existing cities according to drawn up master-plans for development. For financial help they depend on agencies like HUDCO. Together with the help of all the organisation, by no means an exhaustive list, government performs various roles, from public works to deployment of financial resources, from research to distribution of fundings to building industry. Much has been done, much remains to be done. On the architectural horizon today find us with a new generation of architects and planners. Today we have nearby fifteen architectural schools throughout the country and certain equipment and knowhow of naturalized building science and technology and a growing experience with new material and methods and large scale planning. All this had not been easy. However, it was not huge, building institutions, but individuals that have been responsible for evolving a new aesthetics bridging the hiatus between traditionalism and modernism. Painstakingly these individuals have worked, over the years, learning both from abroad and our experiences with traditional architecture, to bring about various schools of thought responsible for the spirit of modern Indian architecture. The emphasis now lies not on awesome monumentality, but factionalism with accompanying virtues of economy, simplicity and utility. It is relevant here to go into the development of these ideas. As a matter of fact some ideas of modern architecture were not to come to us until 1950, when Le Corbusier at that time was a leading figure in architectural circles created Chandigarh, one of his most ambitious projects. This had a tremendous impact on the mind of Indian architects, who had so far only seen-either glorious temples or forts of the past or the Imperial British capital of New Delhi in the name of modern architecture. Overwhelmed, they found this expression of modern architecture quite acceptable. It was grand and sensational and at the same time was based on rational basis of climatic analysis and planning freedom. In the years to follow, buildings spring up all over India which had similar expression and the same materials. But ideas of Le Corbusier had to be crystallized before they could be adopted in India. Some realized that concrete and plastic forms were after all not the solution for all Indian architectural problems, howsoever sensational they might be. |
There was another
parallel phenomenon going on at the same time which was to influence the
course of modern architecture in India to come. Indian architects were
going to Europe and America to seek higher education and cultural
inspiration. The Indian architectural community took its inspiration
from ideas developed in the western world. During the sixties these
architects who received their education in the western countries
commanded high positions as professionals as well as teachers. They
taught, practiced and experimented with what they had learnt in the west
against the harsh realities of India. The process of fermentation of
ideas was turned on. There were many realizations that were to form the
rational basis for architecture to come.
First of these realizations was that if we
have to do anything worthwhile in India for Indians under Indian
socio-economic and climatic conditions, the west was no place to look
for inspirations or solutions. We will have to evolve our own patterns
of development and physical growth, our own methods and materials of
construction and our own expression of foregoing. This realisation
created a sense of vaccum and because of the poignancy of the feeling of
vaccum, the search began, and architects started looking in different
directions for various answers. In each direction partial perception of
truth was declared as the total truth. The fact however, remains that in
each direction we have moved closer to rational basis of modern
architecture. One of the first places where Indian architects looked for
inspiration for expression of total architecture of India, is our own
village and folk architecture. Architects studied with keen interest the
way people solved problems long before western influence was felt in
India. From desert settlements of Jaisalmer, to village developments of
hills, plains and sea-coasts, all became the focus of study. Complex
planning were analysed and looked into for inspirations. There are some
daring architects who have gone as far as to study the human settlements
in the heavily populated areas of existing metropolitan cities, built
without the help of architects, looking for solutions of high density,
low rise economical housing; a challenging problem for India. It is the
contention of these farsighted architects, with a hard nosed realism,
that in such kinds of dense developments, with simple methods of
construction and conventional low cost materials, when laid out in a
planned manner, that we will find the answer urban housing for our
really poor masses. While some of these architects were busy looking for
answers in what we already have in our traditional settlements, others
were exploring how industry can be made use of in solving the aspect of
building problems. Prefabrication has potential in large scale housing,
large span structures and industrial buildings on anywhere were
repetitive units can be employed. But so far in India, industrialization
of the building industry has not made great headway for lack of
technological infrastructures to support it, therefore its influence is
only limited to fascination of imagery. However, one aspect of
technology that can be successfully applied in architecture is invention
and manufacture of new building materials from industrial waste to
replace the traditional building materials like steel and cement of
which there are tremendous shortages.
|
|
There is the growing
realization among architects that just to build visually beautiful
buildings will be useless, unless it is backed by infrastructure of
services, such as water supply, electrical supply and communication
system of rapid mass transit, etc. In other words it is not an
individual building but the total environment that matters. All this
calls for serious attention on patterns of physical growth that will
take care of layouts of all these services in an organised manner.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment