Friday, July 10, 2009

A sense of angst: a force of creation

Architecture always has been a search. A search for many things. Search of a core competance of the profession which will define architecture, a search for a philosophical justification for its existence distinct from some other related activities. a search for the intellectual content beyond the routine, a search to be different, a search for a point of departure, an ideology- low cost, green, energy, ecology, or USPs for the commercial world, etc. Extended to the professionals, it always ended up as a search for excitement, a search for name, fame and success and ofcourse, money.

In 70s when many of my generation started out, India was in a heroic stage yet in confusion. Trying to find an architectural identity - from the past and for the future. That is why the heroism, that we are setting out to be great again. There has been many an effort. But then we were trying establish as a nation. Perhaps, more a diffident nation coming to terms with the world after centuries of feifdom. One wanted to asert that we are a nation, a force, a cultural entity of note. Naturally many tried to look at our glorious past, even if it meant digging up too distant a past. More than looking at the past, we always showed impatience with the alien or assumed to be alien, more specifically, so called western ideas and architecture. In all our pusuits, we somehow detested the west as something terribly intruding into our legitimate glory. May be true or may be not, it also provided a platform for a search for alternatives. That in fact took us to many directions in architecture. Some scenographic excitements and some diatribes of social pathology too. Very little which provided a thrust forward.

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