Conference on ‘Cultural Heritage and Indian Art: Continuity in Change’, Department of Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology, Punjab University, Chandigarh (16-18 Feb 2004)

Living Museum, perceiving “site” as the museumSeminar on Planning of Heritage Site Museums in relation to tangible and intangible heritage, Orissa State Museum, Bhubaneshwar, Orissa (15-19 March 2005), organized by National Museum, New Delhi

Jagannath Temple Complex at Puri and Ranpur, Orissa. Assisted Architect R.J. Vasavada on the measured drawings of the Jagannath temple complex at Puri and Ranpar, Orissa, for German Research Council, Orissa Research Program (ORP), 1999.

Architectural solutions to a hot-arid climate, study of a courtyard house at Bundi, 1999


Place
a study in the Indian context

Diploma thesis, School of Architecture, CEPT, Ahmedabad, 2001
Guide: Kallol Joshi

SYNOPSIS

Everybody experiences “Place” as it is one of the most fundamental experience. It was the first year exercise in 1992 that first created this awareness of “place”. Suddenly, the presence of “place” was recognised. I recollected many places of the childhood - their vivid image began to come. While travelling or even in a photograph, I started noticing “places”. I began to realise that “place” has a very definite quality. Later travel and stay in Europe for over a year, strengthened the idea of “place” as being basically similar, be it in any culture or region. At the same time there seemed some difference between European places and the Indian places.

This thesis was an attempt to understand what makes this “place” and what is this “Indian” character, and what lies at the base of this Indian-ness. At the base lies the Indian approach - a holistic approach to things and life. It is the understanding of self-similarity - the macro in the micro - of the relationship of part and whole; an understanding that both are essentially same.

The Study:
The study consisted of travels and experiencing several types of Indian Places. Parallel to this, reading of Indological works mainly by A. K. Coomaraswamy and Stella Kramrisch continued. The reading introduced to me several Indian concepts and the travels provided the opportunity to see their concrete and living manifestation.

The many types of places were all helpful in gaining an overall understanding. Data is based mainly in the form of photography; where necessary illustrative sketches and drawings have been made. This was a study of qualities and the concepts that play a definite role in creating definite qualities in “places”. It was about general or universal types, rather than being related to any specific conditions (of a specific example).

The first part of the study deals with the idea of “place” (its universal aspects). The second part becomes specific and considers “place” in the Indian context. That is where the Indological reading played its role. Initially it was very difficult to word the qualities and concepts. Many times it was even difficult to distinguish a concept from an experienced quality. As the study progressed, with more experience and understanding, there was more clarity. It was then, that a structure began to appear: the base concepts and their relationship to the qualities. The architectural qualities were categorised as the physical qualities of things, and as experiential qualities. These were related to the Indian concepts which were the source of their character.

The thesis was a putting together in a systematic presentable form the understanding gained through the study. It therefore selects some and not all of the work that happened during this time. All examples were important and contained almost all of the qualities covered in the study. Yet in some, some attribute was more striking than others, and are used to illustrate those attributes. Many times many qualities are equally striking, and the same example appears again. Eventually a few were selected to sum up the conclusions of the study - both in terms of “place” as an experience, and the “Indian” qualities.

Samvarna Roof

The sam-varna (similar shapes) roof of the Hindu temple has great symbolic meaning.  Due to its cost of construction and other factors it was later replaced by simple dome roofs.  To measure draw parts and the whole, and to assemble them error-free into a drawing demanded geometric and structural understanding of Hindu temple construction, which was gained over incremental drawings, abstractions and rechecks on site to eventually arrive at a dependable grid. It became particularly difficult as the structure was a shaken rebuilt of the original erected temple. The process naturally extended into a reverse-engineered 3D of samvarna roof from the drawing, to confirm the accuracy of the drawing.




Garhapatya

The study of the Hindu temple from Stella Kramrisch’s book by the same name, required complementary illustrations; Garhapatya posed more than one interpretation.  Thus I created each. The principles of Hindu temple construction as a layered construction (one upon the other) in its developed form, originate in the vedi, garhapatya being at the base of it.