Alai Darwaza and Architectural Models as Tools for Teaching History

This is a model of the Alai Darwaza. 

Made in wood (Balsa and Tun) at a scale of 1: 50, the model is not only remarkably well-detailed and crafted, but it also captures all the essential features of the Alai Darwaza. The profile of its arches; the division of its elevation into a clearly delineated base, body and dome; the variation in texture through patterns, carving, and jalis — all these distinguishing characteristics of this building have been communicated even at this small-scale. 

What is even more remarkable is the way in which this model has been made. 

As a historic building, information about the Alai Darwaza is inevitably incomplete. When I started searching for recorded information, I found that measured drawings of the Alai Darwaza were not easily available in the public domain. I however, discovered some basic documentation of it in a series on Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). This publication, A Historical Memoir of the Qutb: Delhi by J A Page, Superintendent of ASI, was first published in 1926. It has been republished by the Director General of ASI, and is an important resource on the Qutub complex. Apart from some photographs dating from that time, the Memoir contains some drawings of the Alai Darwaza: a Cross-Section, North and South Elevations, and a scaled down Plan. 

Useful as these drawings are, they do not date from the fourteenth century, the time that the Alai Darwaza was constructed in. They thus do not represent the Alai Darwaza as it may have originally been, but as it is surmised to have originally appeared. The Alai Darwaza was extensively repaired in the early 19th century, with some changes made to its facades. The drawings by the ASI as printed in the Memoir, depict the Alai Darwaza based on conjectures about the original appearance of those parts of the Alai Darwaza which were repaired in 1816, and measurements and studies carried out by the staff of the ASI of the extant parts of the Darwaza in the early 20th century, as well as conservation work and excavations on its south face carried on from 1910 onwards.

This information about the Alai Darwaza is very much less than that normally available for model-makers. In newer buildings, drawings are more easily accessible since the process of  design followed is that details are first worked out through various drawings by architects prior to constructing the buildings. These drawings are then available to make models as required. For the Alai Darwaza, since only a few basic drawings were available, as a prelude to commissioning the model I had to specially take a series of photographs from the inside as well as the outside of the Darwaza. This was necessary to communicate the three dimensional aspects of the building as well as to explain its important structural and special details. To further clarify my understanding, I undertook some geometrical and spatial studies of the plans and elevations, to see if there were any links I could uncover between the size of the building, the proportions of its different parts, the location and size of its doors and windows, etc. It emerged from these studies that there was a strong geometrical and spatial relationship between various parts of the Alai Darwaza, which was very useful to determine missing measurements and decipher discrepancies in measurements.

This was then the basis on which the modeller had to make his model.

Not an easy task. Pammi ji undertook to take on this task. And with his team of Mohan Lal and Rajesh, he fulfilled it in time — within two months — creating a model of great aesthetic sophistication. 

Making this model is thus not just about craftsmanship — though it is beautifully crafted. It is equally an intellectual exercise: to study and distill the information, and match this with thorough knowledge of the materials that the model was to be made in. To then decide how these materials could best be put together in order to simulate the distinguishing characteristics of the Alai Darwaza. This requires visualisation of a special kind: it requires that the appearance and space of the building is assembled in the mind, and then translated into materials and processes completely different from that of actually constructing a building in stone, bricks and mortar.

There are very few takers for wooden models these days, primarily because of the rise of plastic models which are cheaper and faster to make. But plastic models come at a greater environmental cost and cannot produce the same aesthetic or tactile effect as a model of wood. Only a discerning few, who have the means to pay for the effort and hand-craft invested in a wooden model, and are also concerned about ecological impact, opt to get models made in wood. 

And there are very few model-makers who are willing to respond to this challenging task. As Pammiji says:”Jaise kayee janwar lupt hote jaa rahen hai, wooden models banane-wale bhi lupt ho ja rahen hai.’

How and why does Pammi ji manage to continue? 

The first reason that he does so is the sheer challenge. The second is that he cannot find it in himself to refuse to make models for people with whom has had a long and happy working relationship with — Snehanshu, in this case, whom I asked to request Pammi ji if he would be willing to make this model. At fifteen hundred rupees a day for a skilled model-maker, a team of even two or three people requires an outlay of ₹80,000 to 12,00,000, excluding the cost of material and equipment and tools. This is an expensive proposition, and there is no continuity of work. Pammi ji has therefore branched into interior-works. This is how he subsidises his model-making enterprise. He values this craft and does not want it to become extinct, and he values the stimulus of the intellectual and creative challenge of making a model with his own hands.

For a new building, the design process is that architects usually start with planning out interior functions. They then generate door/window-positions, connections with the outside spaces and exteriors based on these functions — in tandem with the overall requirements of the site. All this further informs the building materials to be used and the external and internal appearance. Architects, therefore in many ways, work from the inside out. 

I asked Pammi ji about the way in which he starts to plan a model. He said that he first studies the exteriors and the facades, and then mentally works his way into the building. He visualises the space inside through the medium of the material that he will make his model in. He then refers to the plan to structure his understanding of the facade and the elevation, mentally subtracting thicknesses of the material. This is then the reverse of how architects visualise their designs of buildings.

This ability of Pammi ji of working from the outside in, to reach how the internal spaces would look and be fabricated was especially important for this model — because, unlike most models, it was not meant to be just seen from the outside. The inside of the Alai Darwaza was to be both visible and accessible, especially to blind or visually challenged students.

The immediate objective of making this model was to use architectural models as tools for teaching history, an exercise initiated by Professor Radhika Chadha from the Department of History at Miranda House. How does one explain the main features of historical architecture for visually-challenged students of Miranda House, especially the structural logic of basic building elements and techniques? A tactile 3-dimensional model was felt to be an effective way to communicate the forms, proportions, volumes and profiles of built structures. By appropriately scaling down these built spaces, the students would be able to touch and explore doorways, ceilings, roofs, internal and external wall surfaces, etc.

For the Alai Darwaza, three important areas needed to be accessible to them. These were: 

• the square floor plan; 
• the walls that transition from four-sides to sixteen-sides and form the base for the circle of the dome; 
• and the circular dome itself.

Within these three broad areas of the interior, the important structural elements of Alai Darwaza needed to be included so that students could understand the geometry and volume of the spaces and how the building was roofed. The exterior, as mentioned in the beginning, had to be made such that even just through the sense of touch, the main elements of the facade as well as the entrances and ways of spanning them, could be easily understood. This then was how the project of using architectural models as tools for teaching history for visually challenged students was conceived, and the first part of it completed - thanks to Pammi ji.

Hidden Connections: Product Design, Urban Planning, and Industrial Economies

These images are screenshots from the 2010 documentary film, The Light Bulb Conspiracy.

I asked the post graduate students of Industrial Design after our class viewing what they thought of the film. Had it changed their attitude towards what and how they buy, use and design? What was the most striking thing they took away from the film?

One of the students answered that the desecration of the local landscape and people - because of discarded electronic waste shipped to Ghana from European countries under the guise of 'second hand goods' - was what had disturbed her the most. And that she would probably think twice now before buying and discarding industrially processed goods.

"But hadn't she ever noticed similar sights in India, and especially in the NCR?" How was it, I asked, that she hadn't been similarly disturbed by barelegged children rummaging in rubbish heaps and the mounting trash all around and in our cities and towns? She said she had noticed them but somehow the enormity of it hadn't registered in her mind.

Thinking about it later, I realised that the reason that she - and the others students in the class - had not linked the sight of children in trash with the malaise of a cycle of endless consumption of toxic goods, was because of the way we plan and build today. 

Poor people, like the refuse of our urban life, are pushed away to the peripheries of our cities - and our imaginations. We see them in ones and twos or threes - not altogether. And so it is easy to ignore them. To not think about where they come from, how the live, why they are on the streets at all.

By segregating people and spaces based on different income-groups in economic and urban planning, we have created living hells. Pre-colonial cities - that we often vilify - seem far more humane in comparison.

The French traveller, Francois Bernier, describing the city of Shahjahanabad in the mid-17th century, writes about: ‘...the five streets apart from the two principal ones’, where are ‘dispersed the habitations of Mansebdars, rich merchants and others’... [i]ntermixed with these different houses is an immense number of small ones, built of mud and thatched with straw, in which lodge the common troopers, and all that vast multitude of servants and camp-followers’.

It is clear that the well-off and the not so well-off lived in close proximity in such a city -  which makes it difficult to profess ignorance of the condition of the poor or relinquish responsibility for that condition. Not just that, but also the mode of economic production in the city of that time was decentralised and craft- based. Neither driven by planned or perceived obsolescence, nor requiring vast amounts of raw materials. And so such a city does not create the colossal waste or landscapes of degradation that characterise our economies today. 

Bernier has his biases, which are evident in his observations. He avers that ‘there are no streets like ours of S.Denis', and '[t]hat which so much contributes to the beauty of European towns, the brilliant appearance of the shops, is wanting in Delhi'. He is disapproving of the shops here, where:

‘For one that makes a display of beautiful and fine cloths, silk and other stuffs striped with gold and silver, turbans embroidered with gold, and brocades, there are at least five and twenty where nothing is seen but pots of oil or piles of butter, piles of basket filled with rice, barley, chick-peas, wheat, and an endless variety of other grain and pulse, the ordinary aliment not only of the Gentiles, who never eat meat, but of the lower class of Mahometans, and a considerable portion of the military.’

In his disapproval of the main markets of Delhi where both necessities and luxuries find place, Bernier carries his own cultural references. We see that even before the entire world was cursed by deliberate planned and perceived obsolescence built into industrial production, spatial and economic segregation was seen as a desirable practice in Europe. 

We too now seem to have fallen hook, line and sinker for that line of thought. If the Ghazipur landfill site was in the midst of Delhi - next to the School of Planning and Architecture for instance or en route to the Parliament in the heart of New Delhi - would planners, bureaucrats or politicians, in their own interests, not be moved to do something to reduce it?

Unfortunately, as The Hindu reports, living near a landfill site has been normalised - even when it is recorded to be 236 feet tall and covers nearly 70 acres. 

And so our planning policies continue the waste generated by industrial economies. 

And we continue to perpetrate heedless and toxic product design and urban design.

Poison in Our Palette: Getting Wise to What’s Inside and Outside Our Homes

Painting the walls of our homes every year (for those of us who are more particular) or maybe every other year (for those of us who aren’t), is something quite routine - especially when the festive season approaches. And part of good practice to get us ‘beautiful homes’. Or so we believe.

But what if it isn’t really a good practice? Even a dangerous practice?

Most commercial paints contain toxic chemicals. Even those touted as luxury paints and with ‘Green Pro Certification’ which are ‘free of added APEO and formaldehyde and low in VOC’ — by their own admission still contain some VOCs. Some paint companies have now also started a line of organic paints which they claim have no VOCs at all.

So what are VOCs? VOCs is short for Volatile Organic Compounds. These are a large group of chemicals, of which some common examples are formaldehyde, benzene, ethylene glycol, toluene, methylene chloride, tetrachloroethylene, and xylene.

Some of these names may be vaguely familiar from high school chemistry. But, though we may not recognise their names easily, we are no strangers to them — VOCs are ubiquitous in modern life.

The Persistence of Toxins

Where else will we find them, apart from paints? All around us.

Varnishes? Yes. 

Vinyl flooring? Yes. 

Adhesives, composite wood products, upholstered furniture? Cleaning products? Yes, again. 

Laminated floors that pretend to be wooden? Yes. In and behind wallpapers? In all probability, yes.

VOCs are also present in stuff we use right next to our bodies, including cosmetics and air fresheners. If you have often found it difficult to breathe in cabs with air fresheners, it isn’t just because of their strong smell. It is what lies underneath and in them: VOCs. VOCs are present in fuel oil too, which is why many of us have problems breathing at petrol stations. Exposure to these volatile compounds can cause potentially severe health effects ranging from nausea to ear, nose and throat irritation; damage to the liver, kidneys and central nervous system; cancer and respiratory diseases. Children and elderly people are especially at risk.

Once VOCs are in our homes, they stay. The highest concentrations of VOCs are found in indoor areas when they are freshly painted or newly renovated. Particularly vulnerable are those who work with materials that contain VOCs such as painters, carpenters and upholsterers. But since these volatile organic compounds keep getting released in the air over a long time — called offgassing or outgassing — anyone who inhabits these spaces and rooms is at significant risk. A study published in March 2024 done over two residences at Guangzhou City in South China, observed that building and furniture materials are significant sources of VOCs and determine their long-time indoor levels. It found that: ‘The occupational exposure at the wall painting stage was the highest, and formaldehyde is the most significant contributor to both cancer and noncancer risks.'  

VOCs are found outside our homes too — primarily due to automobiles and proximity to factories. However, VOC concentrations in indoor air may still be several times higher than outdoor air. This is generally true for residential areas which have less exposure to vehicles and factories. In fact, because of the shut-down of factories and practically no vehicular movement as well as no home renovation works during COVID in the lockdown period, TVOCs (Total VOCs) decreased significantly. In a study done at five different monitoring sites in Maharashtra, it was found that on an average this decrease was 84%. 

First Principles

Now that things are back to normal, and there is as much — and more — heavy industrial production, automobile emission, vehicular movement, construction activity and tree felling, how do we protect ourselves? While we may not have much control over the public domain, we can improve the air quality in and around our homes. There are three main ways to do this:

1. through the materials we use, 
2. through the processes we use to put together these materials, 
3. through the amount of air circulation that we can ensure. 

• The first principle is to switch to materials with less toxins. 

It is common sense that the more synthetic the materials — whether used in our buildings or in our personal-care products — the more synthesised chemicals they will have and correspondingly more adverse or toxic effects.

However, completely natural materials may not always be easily available. In that case, we can choose less synthetic or industrially processed materials wherever possible. If natural wood is not available, it is better to use plywood instead of reconstituted wood fibres. If stone flooring is not possible, it is better to use tiles instead of synthetic floors or laminates. Using natural wax polish and oil instead of chemical varnish will help to make the indoors — where often the most concentrations of toxic VOCs are found — less poisonous.

When it comes to painting our walls (which is what we use to redo our homes most frequently), we can choose traditional practices and processes such as chunam or lime-wash rather than plastic emulsion and enamel paint. Apart from VOCs, commercial paints also have very high levels of lead as revealed in studies by NGOs. Despite resultant government regulations, high levels of lead continue to be present in many commercial paints. 

• The second principle is to be aware of the processes by which these materials are applied onto walls or furniture surfaces. 

VOCs are found in many adhesives and additives too. If we fix natural materials with synthetic adhesives, or add chemical pigments to paint, there will still be toxins in the air — though obviously lesser than if both the material and the adhesive are synthetic; so choosing natural pigments and glues wherever possible is a good idea.

• The third principle is that the more air circulation there is, the less the VOCs will stay inside the room and the house. 

If indoor areas are less ventilated and more artificially cooled or insulated, the VOCs that have already come in will stay with us and in higher concentrations. However, it is important to remember that by increasing air circulation we do reduce our immediate risks but at the cost of redistributing these poisons over a larger area. The toxins will not disappear; they will simply percolate to the outside air. We can further reduce the presence of these toxins in the air by judicious tree plantation which can absorb some of these toxins — but again by transferring the adverse effects to the trees. 

The best option is to reduce toxins in the first place, by not choosing to use toxic materials.

Some Alternatives

Indeed why do we use such materials at all if they have such life threatening consequences? 

The answer is that most of us are unaware of these consequences. As the opening quote in this piece shows, paint companies have now started stocking and selling commercial paints with less VOCs but they have not discontinued the regular range of paints with VOCs — which they often price cheaper. Also, low VOC paints are not easily available. In the area of Noida where we live, after much searching we were able to find just one shop that stocks these. So, most people end up using paints with high VOCs because of:

• lack of information about their toxic effects (it is not mandatory to list paint composition in India); 
• lack of easy availability of low VOC paints; 
• and a real or perceived difference in cost between regular paints and low VOC paints. 

Even better than low-VOC paints is no-VOC paints. Recipes of traditional paints in India used perfectly safe ingredients, many of them actually still figure in our kitchens: jaggery, urad dal, harada, baheda, amla, egg whites. In fact, British administrators in colonial India such as Sir Isaac Pyke took advantage of observing such local Indian practices and made detailed notes of their ingredients, proportions and techniques in 1732 CE, with the objective of sending this information about ‘making the best mortar’ to England to replace or amend their own methods. 

The Question of Choice

Most of us are so short on time these days that the convenience of premixed commercial paints, which can be applied quickly to yield a smooth surface that is touted as being durable, is quite irresistible. But, the alternative of chuna or lime wash is also a fairly quick and cost-effective way to paint walls. 

Or if we find the texture of simple lime-wash too raw for our aesthetics, there is the option of using lime plaster or lime punning which gives stunning tactile and visual effects. In fact, the shimmering white columns and arches of the Diwan-i-Am, the Hall of Public Audience in the 17th century imperial Red Fort at Delhi, (discussed at length along with other principles of design in my book) which was actually lime plaster applied on red sandstone, was mistaken for marble by many European visitors! 

The dominance of industrial materials has led to a drastic reduction in such building crafts, and it is not easy to find skilled masons in lime. This is also one of the reasons many of us do not find it possible to use lime plasters and renders. However, thanks to the efforts of heritage and craft-organisations, directories with details of craftspeople who work in such materials, have been compiled. 

We do have to remember that lime plaster and render is a slow process. Like most good things in life, using natural materials generally takes longer than using industrially processed materials. So, if we cannot use natural materials and opt for ready-made and processed materials, please look for those with low/ no VOCs, read through their data sheets/ ingredients, and do some background research. 

Ultimately, we have to decide which we would rather have — convenience or our health and safety. 

Walls painted with chuna (lime wash) and bookshelves in commercial-board rubbed with natural wax

A Public Puzzle

 Here is a puzzle for all of us. 

Imagine a public organisation funded by tax-payers’ money. 

Part of the duties of this organisation, is to maintain records of photos and drawings of public buildings and objects. Some of these buildings and objects do not exist anymore; some which still exist are difficult or even impossible to visit or access in entirety. 

Now imagine that you wish to see these records for research or teaching, or just out of interest and curiosity. You expect — quite naturally — that your interest and research would be welcomed by the organisation and its staff. 

The organisation lets you see the photos and drawings after tortuous processes and weeks of written and verbal requests. But when you identify the particular drawings or photos that you need, they refuse to share any copies of these. 

They say they have a rule that they cannot share anything that is not previously published by them. 

But — and here’s the catch — they have published practically nothing of what they have in their keeping; nor do they plan to do so in the present or in the foreseeable future. 

This is where the puzzle comes in. 

What is the purpose of making and keeping these records? And what is the purpose of the organisation?

‘Learning From Jaisalmer’ and Professor Vinod Gupta in Talking Architecture 15

(Image Courtesy IIC)

Photo Credits: Vinod Gupta

‘Learning From Jaisalmer’ by Professor Vinod Gupta

Discussant: Professor Snehanshu Mukherjee 

28 March 2025

The data presented and analysed by Professor Gupta in his talk on Jaisalmer (based on his PhD study from IIT Delhi finished in 1984) explained how the architecture and planning of Jaisalmer respond to the constraints and contexts of its situation and location in the desert region— primarily from the point of view of thermal comfort but also from other, less tangible markers of comfort. It additionally busted certain ‘myths’ of urban development, and gave clear directions about how we can deal with the issues plaguing our cities — if we have the will to do so.

One of the key points (for me) that Professor Gupta underlined was that comfort is a state of mind, and it cannot be reduced to just thermal comfort. He related an anecdote about his student group in Jaisalmer working contentedly and energetically till they were informed what the temperature was — and then they suddenly started feeling listless and uncomfortable! Comfort is thus also related to whole-hearted engagement with what we are doing; to beauty, conviviality, the sense of being in tune with the rhythms of the natural world. In other words, an entire experience. 

From the point of view of thermal performance, Professor Gupta explained Jaisalmer’s architecture and planning in terms of :

1. Orientation: the siting and location of Jaisalmer fort, town, main streets 
2. Form: typology of dwellings
3. Scale: heights of buildings/ number of floors 
4. Material of construction: of walls, roofs 
5. Detail: chattris, chajjas, water-spouts, decoration.

The research methodology followed in his study was to survey representative samples of the commonly used typologies and dwelling forms in and immediately around the city of Jaisalmer. These were identified to be of four main types. Three of these were inside the city:

• the smallest/most basic version of a small single room with its courtyard and verandah; 
• a larger variation of this dwelling type with more rooms, more than one court and verandah; 
• the most elaborate version of this dwelling type with multiple courts, rooms, verandahs and with double/multiple storeys.

The fourth type was outside the city: the village dwelling (bunga). 

The data collected for all these types of dwellings, consisted of:

• measurement of dimensions of the dwelling, 
• measurement of temperatures and humidity during the day and night inside the dwelling (different rooms and courtyards), 
• measurement of temperatures and humidity levels during the day and night outside/adjacent to the dwelling; 
• water systems at the settlement and dwelling level. 

Temperature measurements were compared with the meteorological department’s temperatures, which are as a rule taken in the open area surrounding the city. In summer these ranged from 25 to 40 degrees centigrade, and in winters from 5 to 25 degrees centigrade.

According to the research findings:

1. The temperatures in the city of Jaisalmer were less than the meteorological department’s temperatures measured in the surrounding open area. 
2. Temperatures inside the dwellings and adjacent/immediately outside them were not very different and were mostly in sync — unlike houses today where the time lag is between 4 to 5 hours, so that peak heat inside our houses in our cities is felt 4 to 5 hours after the hottest temperature outside. This is why evenings and nights are very hot and unbearable today, and there is no respite from the heat even when the sun has gone down.
3. Temperatures in Jaisalmer even during the day were not too high. This was because of design elements such as: building orientation, width and location of streets; heights of buildings adjoining/flanking these streets; and the shade cast on the streets/on the buildings due to their placement and volume. 
4. There were planned provisions for air circulation at street, dwelling and city level through connected courtyards, ventilation-shafts and jalis, which helped to reduce temperatures.
5. The intricate jali-work and carving in traditional architecture of Jaisalmer was found to be not just decorative but to yield multiple benefits. It increased shadows on wall surfaces; reduced direct heat intake; allowed air passage and ventilation.
6. Thus, the two major principles followed in the architecture of Jaisalmer was to decrease heat-gain (by limiting exposure of buildings and streets to direct sunshine and by diffusing the sunlight, and thus reducing absorption/ radiation), and to facilitate heat-loss through evaporation, ventilation and increased reflection. Despite the fact that there was not too much greenery or shrubs in Jaisalmer, thermal comfort was achieved in an urban situation by adjusting and fine-tuning the density, detail, punctuation and placement of the urban mass. 

These findings refute standard notions of thermal comfort in urban dense areas, and standard methods and conceptions of city-and dwelling-form current today. The urban heat island effect that we experience in our cities at present, as enumerated by Professor Gupta, is primarily due to two reasons: automobiles and air-conditioners. Apart from the heat generated by automobiles and air-conditioners, in the case of individual dwellings there is a huge increase in radiant heat intake - as brought out in the discussions following the presentation - primarily caused by the materials and methods of construction: such as thin walls and roof slabs of industrially processed brick and concrete, large expanses of glass windows, etc. 

As opposed to the modernist notion of bare,’clean’, unadorned walls that we have adopted as the progressive way to build, the function of decoration in providing both places of beauty and reduced heat intake, is amply clear in the havelis of Jaisalmer. This aspect is very significant; it provides yet another instance of a lakshana or distinguishing characteristic of the tradition of Indian design where the functional, structural and the decorative aspects are integrated seamlessly in any artefact or piece of architecture. I have written about this at length in my blogposts (https://anishashekhar.blogspot.com/2013/06/national-and-regional-identity-in.html) as well as in the book on Attributing Design Identity; Identifying Design Attributes (https://ambiknowledgeresources.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/forthcoming-attributing-design-identities-identifying-design-attributes/)

Professor Gupta also dwelt at length on the role of courtyards. Courtyards give light/sun/air to individual homes; at the same time, their effectiveness in cooling at an urban level is due to the continuous wind-flow and movement possible because the multiple courtyards in the dwellings and in the city work in tandem. Their benefits span six broad categories: granting light, ventilation, social space, varying levels of privacy, spillover area from built rooms, connections to circadian rhythms.

This is a feature of other traditional cities of the subcontinent. The proliferation of courtyards can be seen as a group of perforations in the urban mass; singly they would not be able to achieve the wind movement, evaporative cooling or level of thermal comfort that they do as a connected series of perforations. This is visible in urban large complexes such as the Red Fort too; the provision of multiple courtyards and verandahs in the original design of the Fort does not just work at the level of providing social space, maximising efficiency, and granting flexibility of functions. It also works to ensure ventilation and comfort throughout the Fort — working like a lattice at a plan level, what I call the ‘jali effect’. 

As I write in a blogpost ‘The City as a Place of Learning and Healing’ describing the design of Shahjahanabad and the Red Fort: (https://anishashekhar.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-city-as-place-of-learning-and.html) 

‘Like an Escher painting, as you zoom in and out of the city and Fort, different variations and scales of this interlinked pattern reveal themselves, simultaneously simple and complex. Tried and tested in the Indian subcontinent from Harappan times, this pattern was composed of sequences of walled courtyards-verandahs-halls-pavilions: a fluid building typology with some of its finest examples visible within the Fort, as analysed and described at length in The Red Fort of Shahjahanabad. 

Professor Gupta’s point about the perception of the experience of comfort — and therefore, the formulation of architecture to foster such an experience — is, I believe, an intrinsic part of the Indian world-view. In ‘The Concept of Beauty in Indian Tradition’, Rajendra Chettiarthodi’s notes that: ‘[w]hile western aestheticians equated beauty with symmetry and similar mathematical properties, Indian thinkers did not try to locate it in such clearly defined objective factors. Their concept of beauty had always some reference to the experience generated by the beautiful’. 

I found it extremely interesting that the principles of the architecture of Jaisalmer, as revealed in the talk, seemed to reinforce some observations made in a paper I presented on the theme on ‘Beauty in Architecture -- and Design’ at the Kurula Varkey Design Forum 2023 at CEPT, Ahmedabad. I’ll quote briefly from it:

‘Thus, the concept of beauty in the Indian tradition centres on experience. What sort of experience? That which grants us a sense of knowledge and blissful discovery. In architecture, such experience ought to be determined by function. Fundamentally, there is no contradiction between pragmatic needs and aesthetic concerns of creating space. Architecture needs to do both. It did so in the main, before the artificial split between function and beauty, which is the outcome of compartmentalising life into separate categories of work vs leisure, quantity vs quality, mundane vs spiritual. If we consider function in its complete sense: social, technical, ecological; and empathetic and satisfying all the senses, we would automatically provide for aesthetic qualities of light, texture, proportion, detail and spatial comfort.’

Unfortunately, habitable space is now designed as sealed containers in a thoughtless imitation of western ideas, without any provision for correct orientation and ventilation at the dwelling and city level. Wide tarred roads and extensive stretches of concrete /hard infra-structure absorb and radiate back heat during the day and night, adding to a ‘man-made’ increase in temperatures, and decreasing the ability of built-mass to quickly lose heat through evaporative cooling. 

Even in Jaisalmer so many years ago, as Professor Snehanshu Mukherjee recollected in the discussion following Professor Gupta’s presentation, when he along with the other students accompanying Professor Gupta on the field-study stayed at the ‘modern’ RTDC Tourist Hostel, it was so unbearably hot that all of them dragged out their mattresses every night and slept over the roof of the portico, rather than inside their rooms! The fact that such unsuitable architecture was made in Jaisalmer despite the evidence of the exemplary traditional architecture all around, is a testimony to the extent of brain-washing perpetuated in the name of being progressive and modern.

Professor Gupta's study and analysis of Jaisalmer is as relevant today as it was forty years ago. Perhaps even more so, given the extreme challenges of climate change that face us today, exacerbated by our architectural and urban responses which cause such acute discomfort and danger that reverses the very notion and meaning of shelter. We must realise that if the planning and architecture of cities can cause such unsustainable and severe implications on health, society and environment, the solutions must also lie in tackling it at these levels. In other words, at the interlinked macro and micro scales; at overall planning and regulations as also architectural forms, materials and detail.

By learning from Jaislamer, we can extract the principles at macro and micro scales, for tackling the unsustainable and miserable conditions we have created in our cities today. And instead generate places of comfort and beauty for all our citizens, while sharing our learnings with the people of Jaisalmer. This was clearly brought out in the discussions following the talk, with Professor Snehanshu Mukherjee and members of the distinguished audience that included the architects Professor Ujan Ghosh, Professor Basavi Dasgupta, Professor Kawas Kapadia, Peeyush Sekhsaria, Rohit Gulati and many others from different professions as well.

The first principle is that of correct orientation of buildings to reduce heat gain: something we were taught in college, but regrettably do not practice. The other principle that we are not taught sufficiently in college, is correct orientation of the town itself, including its main streets as well as its main buildings. Thus, as Professor Gupta noted, the Jaislamer Fort performs a protective function for the town, not just in terms of security but also in terms of climate, by protecting the rest of the town from hot dusty winds. This is an important principle to learn from and incorporate when we build monumental buildings and large institutional complexes in our cities and towns. Such planning would certainly reduce to some extent the necessity of artificially cooling our buildings through air-conditioners — which themselves add to heat-emission.

The second principle is the importance of sufficient open spaces of the correct scale and dimensions. Very large open spaces exacerbate climate problems apart from leading to social problems. In Jaislamer, it is the frequency, placement and size of the courtyards that helps to create overall air movement, while providing shared spaces for outdoor living that reduce the amount of built-up area and lead to healthier, convivial ways of living.

The third principle is to reduce the autocracy of the automobile — at an urban level as well as at an individual dwelling. By locating neighbourhood services that are walkable; by planning and providing for pedestrians; by encouraging non-heat emitting transport such as cycles and cycle-rickshaws; and by ensuring sufficient environment friendly public-transport. North Calcutta is a good example of this. It was devised with shaded internal walking and rickshaw routes that went past house fronts and public parks in the residential areas. These routes tied up with wider public roads and market-streets where trams, buses and taxis were easily available. While greatly reducing the need for automobile transport, this design promoted healthy and pleasant ways to navigate the neighbourhood and also caused less urban heating.

The fourth principle is to be mindful of the materials we use in construction, as well as the way in which we use these materials. Industrial materials are convenient and easily available but they are not the miracle materials they are touted to be. Natural and local materials when used with skill and knowledge, can prove long-lasting and more appropriate for our climate. It is the responsibility of the building profession, of which architects are a vital component, to disseminate information about how to do so.

And finally, the fifth principle is to understand the value, place and function of decoration. We need to analyse the validity of the anti-decoration modernist aesthetic which advocates bare, unadorned surfaces. Decoration has many aspects, from rendering beauty to expressing identity to communicating the characteristics of materials — and as we saw in Jaisalmer — to also reducing heat absorption.

Link to the recording of the talk:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mMbP1i6OH_rdMepdBZJbb5tPgTF_-BU5/view?usp=sharing

Link to all the sessions of Talking Architecture:

https://anishashekhar.blogspot.com/p/talking-architecture-at-iic.html