[Reader-list] corridor spaces... the third posting/1

[sayandeb mukherjee]

dear all,
i regret for the delay in my third posting. this
happened since i was utterly occupied in doing certain
audio recordings and photography pertaining to my
research. nextly, my comp, where i work on is recently
giving some trouble. however, i present my third
posting along with a questionare in the interface
section. any responses to those will be very helpful
for me.

THE IIIRD POSTING

THE MAINFRAME (CONTINUATION OF THE LAST POSTING)

...these indigenously made houses were the examples of
pre-colonial architectural models abundantly 
applied by the then local architects. the advent of
european colonization and the subsequent 
British rule in India had its impression on Indian
architecture. consequently with its presence, there
had been impositions of the western architectural
models on Indian architectural firms. the English in
India and french in Indo-China and in their colonies
in North Africa, for instance tried to retain control
of the semantic content of the styles in which they
built. at the same time, however, the local elites
were freely using elements of western architectural
vocabularies to create their own 'hybrid' products. to
exemplify, in certain mansions in West Bengal -
'Dhanyakuria Rajbariat at barasat, 'panchthabi rajbari
at murshidabad, 'byen' rajbari, we find the
application of indian architectural elements like
'garur pakhi', courteyards (as stated above) alongwith
the adoption of Western architectural styles like
'neo-classical', 'art deco' or that which is
contemporary to the period. so to express it briefly,
in this colonial period, Indian architectural scenario
was an admixture of western architectural styles,
hybridized forms and also indigenous styles restoring
the designs of the traditional past/local past. much
later, during the post-colonial period there happened
much disintegration of the western content and a new
style evolved as post-neo classical and post art deco
that dominated and somewhat ruled away the other
forms; the form popularized as 'international style'
is still predominant today. but parallel to this
architectural historicity and improvisations of
styles, one concern among the architects was gradually
intensifying and creeping up as a primary one and
finally toward the end of the twentieth century it
overcaste the other issues of urban-scape; that was
the SPACE CRISIS. the severe infaltion of urban
population due to relentless migration of people from
different rural sectors to the cities for the need of
employment and the uncontrolled increase of
work-spaces rendered a steep decline of space. the
space-contraction while altering the facade of land
economy and its politics brought a new consciousness
and to some extent a kind of conscience that somewhat
prevented the elitists to lavishly and unboudedly
expand their territory thereby making a proportionated
existence. also the changing norms of the society
inflicted the big family of the past to get disjointed
( antonym of so-called joint family ) into nuclear
families that further negated the necessities of
making bungalows or mansions. resultantly the local
architects had to re-consider space thereby modelling
it according to the cardinal necessities of life.
small family houses, catering to the demands of the
land economy, thereby cropped up which used to be
simplistic/basic, yet gratifying a comrortable living.

My early childhood memories are associated with one
such small family house in Raniganj, a town in West
Bengal. Here I would like to express the spatial
configuration of the house where I lived in the period
of late 70s. 
a. A one storied house with one small balcony facing
the road and the entrance (main) was through that
unbounded balcony. 
b. No living room, the main door unleashes to the 1st
bedroom. This room was chiefly occupied by 7'-7'
wooden mahogany cot. The room was not big enough to
give a comfortable passage beside the cot to the other
rooms. 
c. This living-cum-bed room had a left side opening to
another bed room. This was a well lit up bright room,
very comfortable space for me to live-in, to study,
since it had a radio at the corner of it and was
therefore, a source of endeavor. Also from here, lying
on the bed, I could see the sky, the daylight falling
diffusedly on the bed and a portion of the boundary
that runs through out the house. I used to feel
reassured in this room, because it was attached to the

kitchen where my mother used to spend most of her
time. 
d. As it is already evident, the room led to an
opening at the left, the small darker chamber - 
the kitchen, where I still could have a nostalgic
feeling that I can see a silhouette outline of my
mother cooking our food.
e. The first living-cum-bed room led to a
non-functional room occasionally employed for
receiving guests.
f. My favorite space was my playground - the
courtyard. The non-functional room as mentioned above,
opens up to this well maintained, cemented space with
sky overhead and nature all around. The space, where I
had spent most of my leisure time of my childhood, was
well-protected by a fence. The self-explorations of
all seasons, all kinds of weather and its changes
happened here. The images and sounds got imprinted so
deeply that I can still recollect the sounds of
ice-crystals on an iron-bucket during a hailstorm, the
sounds of raindrops falling on different surfaces -
leaves, branches, cemented floor, rain shades, the
faded image of distant trees and its waving during a
storm, the stream created by a rapid collection of
water flowing through the small drain beside the
courtyard, the long banana leaves, the sounds of
fireworks blown during festivals. These memories are
so fresh that I can still see/hear and the events
appear to happen in front of me. The description also
reflects the intensive environmental associations as
we played in the courtyard. .... to be continued

THE INTERFACE

will be posted in a short while 










SAYANDEB MUKHERJEE
  FT#308, SUBBARAJU TOWERS,
  ROAD NO.4, VIJAYAPURI COLONY,
  KOTHAPET, HYDERABAD
  PIN: 500 035
  PH#9849383863



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