Fatalism Of Architecture Or Architecture Of Fatalism?

The following essay critically reflects on the morphogenesis of architecture in the South Asian territories while debating and positioning on the role of the architect in shaping our built environment. It builds its premise on readings such as Correa’s ‘Change and Continuity’, Raj Rewal and Romila Thapar’s ‘Tradition and Change’, Yatin Pandya’s ‘Contemporary Indian Architecture’ and ‘Courtyard houses of India’ etc.

- Aditi Dora

Much like the city is a collection of socio-cultural landscapes of people and place, emotion and expression and time and travel, the nation is an agglomeration of urban and rural systems seen through the alchemy of time and space. Place in its geographical and climatic milieu and society in its socio-cultural fabric, forms the mix through which one analyses the spirit of decisions, evolutions and impacts. The numerous filters of people, culture, religion, activity and history form multiple overlays of South Asia’s multidimensional overtones.

As architects, we often reflect on the environs in which we have evolved, developed and called ourselves citizens. The metamorphosis of any societal system from barbarian to tribal to democratic has been non linear and shaped by the dualities of traditional and modern, change and continuity, local and global coupled with the underpinnings of politics, power and economics. In the histories of a people and their experiences of a combined past, lie the tiniest nuances of pause, reflection and erudition. It is these gaps in time, that have brought change, whether appropriate or inappropriate and it is these discontinuities of life – in general and in generations – that pose one of the important challenges to an architect, where there lies the power to transform the socio-cultural landscape of a country and its architectural manifestations for the g-local scenarios.

Here, the role of an architect as a creator of built (and unbuilt) expression, as a sculptor of sustainable and humane living environments and as an interpreter deciphering human values comes into place.

South Asia: The breeding ground for ethnicities, geographies, territories and religions