[Reader-list] Architecture - History, Practice and Representation

[kaiwan mehta]

hi All,
Presenting here the work in progress and many ideas developing in the
first few months of this fellowship.
Thanks,
Kaiwan Mehta

POSTING 2

Title:
Reading Histories: Migration and Culture
Politics of Mapping and Representation: Urban Communities

There has been a certain way I have been reading architecture and
history in the C Ward (of Bombay/Mumbai) (which is the area of my
study and generically referred by me as Bhuleshwar – the core area of
the ward) (this for reference is the 'native' town of Bombay)

The basis for this Sarai Fellowship has been a study and methodology,
which presents a method of reading cultural histories within
architecture and the activities that architectural-urban spaces
generate.
Part of this posting will present this study (abridged format). (Part III)

While trying to explore spatial histories through oral formats,
another area of inquiry has been the question of representing cultures
– theirs memories and aspirations. The area (C Ward) exhibits a range
of architectural types which don't only communicate migration patterns
but also the politics of architectural practice. The mistri versus the
architect (educated in the colonial system) is important position to
understand the way the area is understood and represented in the
history of the city today. The local and tourist understandings of the
place (city) are caught in the politics of architectural production
through drawings.
The Part II of this posting introduces this argument.

A discussion with Mr Kamu Iyer (an architect practicing in Mumbai and
Bangalore) elaborated (through his personal experiences) the working
of contractors / mistris in the early twentieth century.
Another detailed discussion with and presentation by Dr Vibhuti
Sachdev (a researcher in traditional systems of building in India)
emphasised how communities of mistris developed systems of education
and construction and were conscious of the trained architects. The
mistri's books and catalogues of construction defined the nature and
appearance of architecture and hence defined people's ways of living.
Some of the books also showed designs for homes aspired by the growing
middle classes of the early twentieth century. (Can be elaborated)

I enlist here below, various observations and exercises that are
continuously feeding into this project – constructing histories and
its representations.

A workshop with some architecture students displayed certain biases in
reading cities and spaces. This will be transcribed soon. Two
important observations are;
- architecture students are confident of understanding spaces and
cultures and histories purely by observation and a full trust of their
spontaneous experience
- perception of architectural construction material (like plaster or
glass) was a key to constructing perceptions of history and people.

Another student study based on interview of business and trading
classes displayed the conflicts of relations between Gujaratis,
Marwaris and Marathis and also the later hawkers from UP and Bihar.
(To be transcribed soon)

An important part of the exercise is recording / documenting histories
as viewed by various observers and users. While many tourists are
surprised by the collection of architectural styles they see in the
area, they mention their ignorance about this architecture and this
area as compared to their knowledge and familiarity with the Fort area
through books on Bombay. They are also quick to draw references from
various other cities in Europe, for most buildings they see here. They
often indulge in questions of real estate in the area.

Various citizens of Mumbai, living in other parts and suburbs of the
city, once lived in the area. With growing affluence they shifted out
of this area. Today they still maintain links with the area in one
specific way, that being community functions like religious schools,
religious sermons, marriages and also celebrating other events like
birthdays and engagements in marriage halls in the area. The Swadhyay
movement and school of Shri Pandurang Athawle Shastri is still run
here, attracting many locals and Indian tourists. It operates from the
same site, which was the space from which the call for swadesh was
given. As for marriage halls, some old spaces operate with some new
renovations while some other buildings are newly spruced up to match
up with the 'classy' aspirations of the contemporary urban middle
class. Hence the area with continuations and modifications remains an
important site for people to connect with 'their people' and
communities. Whereas for many citizens, in the middle aged bracket,
the area is a 'central area of the city' to shop, from ribbon to
refrigerator, at bargain-able prices. This is despite the fact that
geographically the area is in extreme south Bombay and obviously a
city like Mumbai has many markets and centers of shopping. However at
the same time, very popularly citizens associate the area with dirt
and crowds – both out of control and irreparable. Cleanliness is an
issue that defines city space, it is a crucial factor historically.

II

Narratives in Plaster

The city always struggles between formal and informal notions.
Top-down planning and designs are often in conflict with individual
needs and aspirations. Often this is taken as problems of culture and
education. Different views or varying opinions on dress and 'taste'
are most often dismissed as those from undeveloped or super-developed
cultures, habits and practices.

Familiar with the obvious history of our colonialism and our education
from it, architects in the late nineteenth and through twentieth
centuries got trained either in the manner of the Beaux-arts and later
the Bauhaus. Under the aegis of the orientalist Europeans –
academicians and architects, they 'explored and discovered' the
'wealth of 'Indian' art, architecture' and hence the claim to
'tradition'. From the Greek revival at the Asiatic Society building to
the Gothic of Victoria Terminus, changes in notions of English
tradition itself are available for discussion. Where as the 'static
history' of India as defined by the likes of Marx, was coded in few
elements of art and architecture defined as 'Hindu and Buddhist' and
'Islamic', evident in the many history books written, e.g. Percy
Brown. Partha Mitter's Much Maligned Monsters makes me realize the
scattered view the European scholars had of Indian art and
architecture. They were unable to comprehensively develop a social or
philosophical understanding of art and architecture in India.
Basically they never accepted the dynamic and multiple natures of
developments in the Indian subcontinent. They wanted to fit all in one
bracket, they could not and conveniently they landed up selecting and
choosing, ideas and representations that suited them. Efforts at
explaining 'beauty' by the likes of Coomaraswamy also borrowed from
the European Greek yardstick.

Artists and architects trained under the orientalists carried on with
all the views discussed above with passion for nationalism and
appreciation of the European rationalist analysis. All could co-exist.
The tool of the architectural measured drawings was seen as the magic
key to understand art and architecture. The skills were deeply
ingrained in the minds of the Indian students.

Lot of these issues are debates in themselves and we could discuss
them. We will use them now specifically for the purpose of this paper.
As we continuously talk about these issues we fail to realize that
there is a specific definition of 'architecture' we deal with here or
include here. We only, in all these discussions, include architecture
of 'importance' which is largely by definition religious and political
architecture. The examples fall into the bracket of monumental
architecture, and when we say History of Architecture it is assumed
the history of 'great' and 'big' architecture. There was a term –
'Lesser Architecture', which was used for smaller, essentially
apartment building designed and built for the growing Macaulian Indian
working class in Bombay. These were yet planned and designed
structures, mostly by architects, surveyors or engineers trained and
licensed in the British system of education. One found them mainly in
the Dadar Parsee and Hindu colony areas, planned development to
accommodate the new middle-class, which served English offices,
schools, hospitals, etc.

What was completely ignored, which happens not just in India and for
colonialism, but in the world, were buildings of local population
built and designed to live in this growing colonial city, by the
tastes and imaginations of the people themselves. We should not
confuse this with local architecture in the countryside or villages
that falls in the bracket of ethnic and traditional architecture,
which breathes the same importance often as monumental architecture,
with an often patronizing or all inclusive attitude. What I am talking
here is about the lower middle class – workers and traders, their
architecture that goes ignored or misrepresented.

These are simple buildings where contractors were the architects and
constructors, the client invested in his aspirations. Everyone here
belonged to a caste or a community, they enjoyed that association, how
much ever they may have bitched within it. So their aspirations and
often philanthropy extended into temples and social spaces, which most
of the time meant spaces for marriages or entertainment or festivals.

The paper will next investigate into how these built forms and spaces
were imagined architecturally and why they would be the object of
scorn or dismissed for not only 'Lesser' but decadent architecture.

Beaux-arts and the revivals, Orientalism and traditionalist notions
followed immediately by the modernism of steel and concrete created
certain notions of good and bad architecture. Old was good and
decorative in orders only, new was smart, crisp and true to form and
material, that is devoid of any embellishment or decoration. Stone was
solid and lasting in glory, concrete was progressive. Art Deco was
progressive concrete with industrially crafted designs, the new
balance for the upcoming comprador bourgeoisie classes. So the
architecture that had decorations, and that too moulded in plaster
within imitated styles was 'not' architecture or most generously
'gaudy' and shabby architecture. However as I mentioned at the start
of the paper these connotations were also derived from the fact that
these buildings were owned and designed by people from particular
castes and communities. To observe at this point that the early and
till mid twentieth century architects came from upper caste Pathare
Prabhus, CKP upper caste Maharashtrians and also Parsees.

I summarise the argument and raise questions as I move to discuss the
examples specifically. The popular modernist idiom believed in
decoration being corruption of form, material and design, famously
stated in 'decoration is crime' by Adolf Loos. But these were god-size
large narratives of men who imagined themselves to be designing
'truth'. Decoration is the 'truth' of the common man. It is their
memory and their aspiration; it is their love and fantasy. The local
or 'native' town of Bombay in and around Bhuleshwar presents us with a
quaint parade of architecture, colour and material. Architects trained
in the modernist tradition fail to recognize human aspirations encoded
in a building, the same ones though, often opportunistically jump on
the bandwagon to 'conserve' equally quaint but globally popular forms
and styles.

Often these forms classified as 'tradition' or 'modern' or 'classical'
become merchandise in an open market. How can we deal with these
fancies? How are our imaginations formed? How do the popular masses
associate with and use such objects and symbols?

III

Architecture is a matrix of cultural codes and also a site for
anthropology. One has to understand architecture as a potential
archive not in terms of the physical building but the life that
unfolds within it, the craft and decoration that mask it, the material
and technology that draw skill and references to construct it.
Architecture has to be read as a novel, where facts are mingled with
poetic imagination, and this imagination is our great archive to be
unearthed. Architecture essentially deals with human societies, their
memories and aspirations.

Migration has always been an area of interest for anthropologists,
sociologists and urban researchers. One will never be able to deny
that Bombay has been a city of migrants, who came attracted by this
'city of gold'  and who made it the cogs and wheels that churned
India's economy.

Although the city grew into prominence only after the English realized
its political and geographic advantages as a port, Bombay existed
quite interestingly in the local consciousness. Lying on the trade
route from the Deccan and Konkan to Kathiawar, it was a charming
pilgrim spot. The loose cluster of its islands, though swampy and
marshy, had a local plantation economy based on coconut and coir
first, and then on rice and a variety of fruit groves. These same
fruit groves till date give various areas their contemporary names
like Phanaswadi (Jack fruit (phanas) grove), Khetwadi (collection of
fields (khet)), Chikalwadi (marshy area), Bhangwadi (an area occupied
by traders of Opium) or Parsiwada (an area where parsis lived).

What is interesting is to look at the colloquial use of the term
"wadi". If one moves in the region of Kathiawar, Gujarat the term wadi
refers to a fruit grove. Whereas in Bombay, till date, the term
popularly refers to a living quarter. Interestingly the term "wada"
comes from the interiors of eastern Maharashtra. The two terms, wada
and wadi, seem to then have a correspondence, or one derives from the
other. The term wada refers to a palatial house like the Shaniwarwada
in Pune. The wada is very typically a courtyard house, like Greek
houses or the Italian palazzos. Rather it is a house with a string of
courtyards, where each courtyard is surrounded by rooms fronted by a
continuous verandah, and constitutes a creative and time tested
response to climatic regional conditions. The entrance courtyard was
always approached by a monumental gate, celebratory and always an
image of the owner's social position. The entrance courtyard and the
otlas flanking the entrance were used for entertaining guests. This
practice one still observes in the rural houses of say Udwada,
Navsari, Surat, Bharuch in Gujarat or the matriarchal houses in
Kutichira, Calicut, all being a part of the west coast trading
heritage. Trader houses develop in clusters but the wadas of agrarian
households are like small castles scattered within groves and fields.
One wada would house a large joint family with often attached servant
quarters.

Many temples in the locality often resemble the wada type. The
Radheshyam or 'monkey' temple on Kalbadevi road, the Javba temple on
Juggannath Sunkersett road and a Ganesh temple with a very ornate and
delicate porch having equestrian brackets on Vallabhai Patel road are
good examples to refer. These structures still maintain large
quantities of structural woodwork, carved ornately colored in bright
pinks, blues and green. The Ganesh temple at V. P. road and the Javba
temple have a characteristic front yard and verandah, whereas the
'monkey' temple has a heavy wall which is profusely rendered with
stucco displaying Krishna and his cows, Kathiawari dwarpalas and women
musicians and dancers. This temple also called the Sunderbagh was
built in 1875 by the son of Thakar Mulji Jetha, a name familiar with
the large cloth market in the Crawford Market area.

The wadi is no longer a family castle but houses many migrant
farmhands. Of the seven islands the H-shaped Island to the south was
covered with paddy land and fruit groves till early eighteenth century
and as agricultural production and trade grew the islands often
attracted farmhands. They came from Kathiawar and the Deccan, both
drought prone regions connected to Bombay along trade routes.

Wealthy Hindu and Muslim merchants from Gujarat, Kutch, Kathiawar and
Marwar often migrated to the island of Bombay. These merchants boomed
to prosperity with the economic boom in the city.

These same areas of Bhuleshwar and Kalbadevi, with their cluster of
wadas and wadis also developed into the 'intellectual capital of the
Gujaratis'.  It was the area which also developed the culture of
Parsee – Gujarati theatre referred to as the Rangbhoomi. Often it has
been suggested that Rangbhoomi developed from bhavai , however it
takes its cue from Shakespearean theatre.

Bhangwadi, a popular site for the night theatres of labourers, with
its ceremonial entrance, an elephants standing over it, started
expanding in the 1860s. This was the time when cotton trade was
growing, as a ripple effect of the American Civil war and enterprising
tradesmen from Gujarat migrated to trade in cotton or as weavers and
set up residences at the site of the cotton trade – Kalbadevi, where
the Cotton Exchange still stands. A typical wadi, with a courtyard
surrounded by Chawl like structures once residences now housing
offices. It still has its palatial entrance constructed in the form of
a multi-storied elephant with its howdah (ambadi) saying "Wisdom above
Beauty". Its entrance façade had a row of carved windows with carved
galleries and pillars along its edges. Migrant Kathiawari craftsmen
were skilled craftsmen who gave exquisite and ornate facades to many
buildings in the area.

Bhangwadi was the famous theatre of Princess Street. It incorporated
dwellings of performers and a company kitchen. The atmosphere was of a
labyrinth of lanes leading up to the auditorium. Then there were soft
sounds of music, theatre books for sale. All this added to the
experience of seeing a play.

Another beautiful complex with elephant heads guarding its entrance is
Madhav Baug. The complex at Cowasji Patel Tank, a water body once, now
covered up. It is a community and religious center for many in Bombay
even today. The Baug was established more than a century ago. The sons
of Madhavdas established the community center in the pious memory of
their father. Madhavdas' great grand father came to Bombay in 1692
from a place close to Diu in Saurashtra. His success in business
brought prosperity not only to his family and his community but also
the city for which he was also respected and recognized by the East
India Company. The family also established a sanitarium for visitors
to the city. The complex today holds the Laxmi Narayan temple built
with Gujarati decorative motifs in stucco. Another building beside the
temple is a very baroque structure, today housing the Trust offices.
The complex has a library building very similar to a large pitched
roof house encircled by a deep verandah in the type of coastal
Gujarat. It is interesting to note that some fire temples in the city
follow the same building type. The most interesting structure of the
building is the community school and hall. A U-shaped building with
classical elements composed on its façade. The most striking element
is the pediment on its central wing. The pediment holds a relief of
Laxmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth, surrounded by elephants, lotuses
and other motifs of prosperity. In the case of this building in Madhav
Baug it is interesting to contrast the Hindu goddess of prosperity on
the pediment against the figure of Athena, the Greek goddess of
victory on the pediment of Parthenon, the root of classical revival.
Yet the gateway and the gatehouse beside it are beautifully designed
with Gujarati elements, a huge fortress styled door and just outside
it is a panwala shop in well carved wood with a composition of
mirrors.

Streets in the locality of Kalbadevi or Bhuleshwar or Girgaum often
have buildings where facades have Neo-classical elements such as
semi-circular arches, columns with Corinthian or ionic capitals,
double height columns, pediments, baroque ornamentation, festoons in
stucco, etc. Richer landlords often had their contractors visit the
Fort area for a inspiration in building design. Hence brick
residential buildings had a stone façade wall with classical elements.
A building along the Kalbadevi road interestingly resembles the Opera
House; one near the Girgaum Portuguese church has a Palladian façade
with double height columns. Close to it are two buildings with
Venetian or Mediterranean elements such as balcony, wooden louvered
ventilators and colored glass lights. One can note the closeness of
these structures to the Khotachi Wadi, which is a complex of Venetian
styled houses made after the Portuguese influence.

Today the whole city is geared up for creating a pseudo-revival of
Graeco-Roman imagery in Hiranandani architecture for the new bourgeois
of the city or conserving the colonial heritage buildings in South
Bombay. People hold festivals for new forms of theatre and
experimental theatre. In this entire frenzy, one is forgetting a
culture that vibrantly existed once. It is a culture of the people
that ran the trades of Bombay and made it a glorious finance city
today or a culture of people who proclaimed "Quit India".

I often refer to "8 Men on a Tower", the Rajabai Tower attached to the
library building in the Bombay University campus. Clock towers have
symbolized towns, forts cities in the colonized world. It bears on it
8 men all dressed differently. These eight men symbolize the eight
communities in Bombay that contributed to the development of the city.
The clock tower creates and ideology of Bombay's founding fathers and
progress in its urban environment by creating a hierarchy of
communities and citizens. on the tower, figures representing various
communities, identifiable by their costume, are placed to demarcate
and celebrate prominent social groups. Costume being symbolic of
ethnic and native identities, the ideology of the clock tower
acknowledges and encourages the making of Bombay's urban community on
the basis of group identities.  It shows the existence of various
social groups and their differences encouraged.

With this I end my talk. What I have tried to emphasise in this paper,
is how historians, conservationists and partisan festivals that claim
the city ignore a complete and important urban culture very often. It
is a pure contrast between public culture versus defined and
monumental culture. I would also like to draw attention to the fact
where academic training and that represented in the act of
architectural drawings supercedes intuitive methods of building. That
the act of drawings defines structured thinking represented in the
measured drawings of monumental India or the design for new monumental
Bombay. That which is derived from the working of contractors and
local aspirations is not appreciated in the value judgment of trained
professionals. This value judgment carries on with the modernist
hatred for decoration and ornamentation.

Various notions of history and systems of education as hegemonic
systems define our values and notions. And this will define the future
of how we view history and hence ourselves.



-- 
Kaiwan Mehta
Architect and Urban Reseracher

11/4, Kassinath Bldg. No. 2, Kassinath St., Tardeo, Mumbai 400034
022-2-494 3259 / 91-98205 56436