Theory and Discourse
Dwelling on Ideas | A Srivathsan
LA 45 |
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A collection of conversations with seven prominent architects documenting their views on architectural theory and design, tradition, urban issues and various practices the world over that leads to provoking debates and discussions. One also reads of how these Indian architects and others had once attempted to start an Indian architectural movement called Yantra and of their various journeys to become the masters they are today. |
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Book Review - Book- Dialogues with Indian Master Architects
Conducted and edited by Narendra Dengle
Published: Marg, 2015
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Dialogues, as commentators of Plato's work remarked, is a literary form that has a "delightful kind of philosophical drama." Conversations between characters, as a device, help bring complex ideas within the grasp of readers. Buddhist texts, Upanishads and epics have also effectively used this. Unlike ancient texts, which freely invented and imagined conversations, the book in the review is a record of actual dialogues that took place between an architectural writer and seven practicing architects.
Narendra Dengle, an architect and academic based in Pune, between 1999 and 2006, held a series of dialogues with seven senior architects who significantly shaped contemporary architectural practice and thinking in India. The purpose of the conversations, as Dengle describes, is to "get into the mind and consciousness" of the architects, and know how each one struggled in the profession "to hold on to his own ideological and creative convictions." This, he hopes, would convey the motivating ideas behind their works. Dengle has now put together these conversations as a book.
The seven architects who appear in the book are Achyut Kanvinde, Raj Rewal, Anant Raje, Hasmukh Patel, Balakrishna Doshi, Uttam Jain, and Charles Correa. Most of them commenced practice in the 1950s and 60s, and have remained influential. Three of the seven - Kanvinde, Raje and Correa - are no more.
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