We are experiencing very challenging and difficult times as the world is in a continuous state of flux. While we aim to steer our way safely, it is also a golden opportunity to rethink and reassess the past and perhaps work towards a more just and equitable future.
When we redefine our lives and thoughts, we prioritise sustainability and thereby Nature. I would like to quote Arundhati Roy, Indian author, activist, and an architect by education, who said, “Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers, and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it”.
Architecture, like civilization, is dynamic and evolving.
While exciting architecture is being built all over the world and thus expanding the vocabulary of contemporary architecture, architects in India have to find a balance in design, enabling us to be part of the new and creative experiments.
We work in a world of computer-aided design with digital design technology. We need to include all new creative ideas in our practices. Creativity flourishes when new ways of looking at the same problem are brought forth, and when people with different backgrounds, training, and experiences bring their perspectives onto the drawing board.
We need to find effective ways to come together as a design community.
In India, art, craft, and design are evident in every part of our lives since they are inherent in our culture. But we are still struggling to find effective ways to come together as a design community and create a platform where the world can view and appreciate the wealth of knowledge and century old designing skills.
Instead of just concentrating on ‘Iconic’ architecture in countries like India, we should be building ‘relevant and appropriate’ architecture. We need to keep moving forward using new design concepts, ideas, and technologies, while retaining our link with whatever has gone before as this is what defines us.
