urban revitalisation: reinventing our urban spaces

I am working on a talk to some engineers on a requested topic on urban beautification. This is my reaction:

Reinventing urban spaces

BS Bhooshan

The concept of urban beauty has been an elitist pastime. I see problem in a talk about urban beautification. It is that it begs further questions. And it suggests cosmetic skin deep action.

Beautification suggests something to be done to something which is potentially ugly or not in order. Is it not a way of looking at it. What is ideal beauty? Beauty as a concept comes from perfect ideals. Are they elusive. And never reachable as the parameters we are dealing with are innumerable. Perfect ideals are like unreacheable “ perfect justice” as told by Amarthya Sen. More over a city is not a thing of beauty. It may be enjoyeable place and a workable place. But not an object of beauty by itself.

We can’t start on clean slate. The question is how our spaces could be made workable and enjoyable.

Our urban history is like our general history: truncated bits and pieces and never continuous. So is our architecture of cities. We are always at crossroads. Never find a direction. And we raise wrong questions and get unsuitable answers. May be I too am raising wrong questions. You decide.

First let us not talk about the big cities. They are beyond my comprehension. Many will agree with me. They are humongous and sometimes, no always, very vital: full of energy and synergy. lots of potential. Good in many ways: opportunities. engines of growth. But their spaces are getting torn apart. There is identity crisis in all. Being too big is not the only problem, neither being too complex. They did not evolve from their roots: they jumped and leaped: Some from to colonial beginning and some from pastoral beginnings through British and/or royal legacies to Western ideals, American dreams and many more dominant influences.

Second, we always wanted models. Provided by desi as well as alien dreamers. We wanted to leapfrog into modern scientific era and represent it in our cities like we did in Chandigarh. And for some time it seem to hold out a panacea for all cities' problems. We forgot about Fateh pur Sikri or Jaipur or Srirangam. All new extensions since pre independence embodied contonement ideals or later, Chandigarh's legacy or American dreams of Clarence Perry or Runcorn or the garden city and satellite town prescriptions of UK . All towns seemed to dream of the grandeur of Champs Elysses of Paris. We all marvelled at Connaught place, at Rajpath and Raisisna Hills and thought of cosmetic surgeries in other towns much of which went awry. And still we lament about the cities and towns problems. We think the grand beautiful plans somehow offer a model for India. But I would rather look at more simpler solutions and local opportunities. Seemingly simpler lives and simpler urban spaces of less complex communities, perhaps, offer up a model, hidden in the muck. But one must look at the right places with right eyes. That will be the challenge. And how to make and modify them to suit current needs a place demands and opportunities it provides. Architecture plays a big part, for sure. Architects only a small part. We, meaning all, not just professionals alone, together should search.

I will show some examples and try to learn from them.

We will have to move from hardware to software solutions; meaning looking for spaces not big constructions. For example; mobility is important, not the roads. Education is aim, not schools. Health is the priority, hospitals are only one of the means to it. We may need adhoc and small tickles against grand physical plans. Aesthetics of a different kind, than the ones we have been admiring from the images of other cultures.