New Book on "Attributing Design Identity', Identifying Design Attributes"

 The implication of being ‘Indian’ and an exploration of what is meant by ‘Design’, are both fundamental to the context in which we work and learn, and therefore to our growth as individuals and as designers. The four related essays in this book, using the sari as a metaphor, discuss Indian design, in the context of the larger meanings of ‘design’ and ‘Indian’. Through an understanding of national, regional and individual identity, the ideas in these essays hope to generate a dialogue that can conceivably benefit the practice and patronage of design.

The foreword to the book is by Dr Sudhir Lall, Officiating Head of the Kalakosa Division, and Project Director of the Vedic Heritage Portal and the Bharat Vidya Prayojana, IGNCA. It provides a succinct yet comprehensive overview to the background of the Indian quest for a creative and responsible life.

The book is composed as a hardback volume of a size of 210 x 148 mm. It contains 248 pages of text and illustrations on Matt Art Paper. We are doing a limited run of print-on-demand copies. The book is priced at Rs. 2100.

For pre-booked orders, we are offering the book @ Rs. 1750 per copy (plus courier charges in case the book needs to be couriered); and for orders of two or more copies @1550 per copy (plus courier charges in case the book needs to be couriered). For those in the NCR, the book may be picked up from either Safdarjung Development Area in Delhi or from Sector 29 in Noida. For sample pages and details on how to pay, please see:

https://ambiknowledgeresources.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/forthcoming-attributing-design-identities-identifying-design-attributes/ 

For further information, please send an email to ambi.knowledge@gmail.com or anisha.shekharmukherji@gmail.com

Revisiting the Red Fort: Looking again at the Lal Qila

Online Talk Recorded for the India International Centre, New Delhi  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoyFZf7j21Q&feature=youtu.be 

Attributing Design

Podcast: On Design, Reading and Writing - and the Connections between them

A wonderful afternoon of conversation initiated by Sonya Dutta Choudhury with Anisha Shekhar Mukherji, Snehanshu Mukherjee, Professor Narendra Dengle, Subhadip Choudhury, Anubha Kakroo, Partho Dutta, and lots of other fellow readers, writers and designers:

To listen in, click below!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jnWBB10uMKcIx9B5-qUdRbUPMQyZ8htm/view?usp=drive_web

On Becoming A Reader

Anisha Shekhar Mukherji & Snehanshu Mukherjee, Architect-Author-Readers chat to Sonya Dutta Choudhury on how they became readers, the best books to gift & their favourite books on design

SDC : What helped you as a child, become a reader ?

ASM : I think the fact that we moved so often – practically every year. There was no continuity of neighbours, neighbourhoods or even cities. The only continuity was the presence of at least some books in the Army libraries. But if I were to cite a single incident that made me become a reader, it was a fat bundle of books jointly given to me as a 6th birthday present by all the officers of my father’s battalion. I don’t know where they managed to get these books since we were far away from any town, and there were only fields and orange orchards around for miles. But it was an eclectic and fascinating mix, and I was hooked as soon as I went through them!

SM : I was gifted books. And I bought books from the many bookshops that existed in Connaught Place. And of course, borrowed books every afternoon from the British Council Library, above which was our home!

SDC : How do you choose which books to read ?
ASM : Well, earlier, it was whatever I could get, and the fatter the better! Now, it is probably the reverse. I am very choosy about what I read now, wary of volume, sceptical of ‘the top-of-the pops’, and I look for economy in writing. The Book Shop in Jor Bagh is one of our favourite places for browsing and picking up unusual books. Of course, we also decide what to read based on conversations with friends and book-lovers, including the owners and staff of The Book-shop.

SM : I survey what’s available and read bits to figure out if they’re worth buying.

SDC : Has a book ever brought you closer to another person, or come between you ?

ASM : Sometimes books cause heated discussions. Rajiv Malhotra’s Being Different is one such.

SM : Hundred Years of Solitude, which spawned many discussions.

SDC : What is the best book you received as a gift ?

ASM : Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, I think. Also Tey’s Brat Farrar.

SM : Ha Ja ba ra la by Sukumar Ray gifted by Samir Majumdar from Bohuruppee, a famous theatre group. And My Autobiography by Charles Chaplin, gifted by Tapas Sen, the lighting designer who was my father’s guru.

SDC : How have your reading tastes changed over time?

ASM : Earlier it was almost entirely fiction, and a lot of poetry too. Now it is an almost equal amount of non-fiction. Lot of reading by Indian authors, generally in translation but some in Bangla too, especially children’s literature and poetry. And some in Sanskrit now, such as the Mayamatam – slow going when compared to my reading speed in English! But it’s quite fascinating to read in different languages, because they are like windows to different worlds. I’m reading a lot of stuff on Indian Philosophy, which is something that has happened over the last few years. But some reading habits haven’t changed – so crime fiction and humour are genres I fall back on all the time.

SM : From fiction to non-fiction.

SDC : What book do you most often give as a gift ?
ASM : We give children’s books often, Chotte chacha ab aapke shahr mein is a favourite and so is Mathematwist, Mathematics tales from around the world.

SM : Murder mysteries are generally a safe bet, so I often gift these.

SDC : What are the books on your bed side right now?

ASM : Kalidasa, The Loom of Time – Chandra Rajan’s translation; Nicholas Blake’s Thou Shell of Death; Murder in the Crooked House by Soji Shimada; An English translation of Patumma’s Goat by Vaikom Muhammad Basheer; Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice; Dharampal’s Collected Works on Civil Disobedience in Indian Tradition; Dharma by Chaturvedi Badrinath; Bruno Dagen’s translation of Mayamatam, and Monkey See, Monkey Do by Venita Coelho.

SM : Stephen Leacock on Kindle, and Pluriverse edited by Ashish Kothari

SDC : Lastly what are your favourite books on design?
ASM : The Appearance of the Form by John Habraken; A K Coomaraswamy’s The Indian Craftsman, Mayamatam, S Balaram’s Thinking Design, KG Subramanyan The Magic of Making, Malcolm Millais’s Exploring the Myths of Modern Architecture. And of course, Goscinny and Uderzo’s Obelix and Co, which is an unusual and engaging take on the motivations of mainstream modern design.

SM : Palladio’s Children by John Habraken.

To hear the discussion, click here:
Voice Recording of Juhu Book Club Discussion

Pradeep Sachdeva

Pradeep Sachdeva

Katakam and Sachdeva, which then became Pradeep Sachdeva Design Associates, in Khirkee Village Extension, was virtually my first office. And Pradeep Sachdeva the first person whom I looked up to as a boss. I worked there for about a year and a half, which was unusual since I went through offices at such a frenetic pace when I graduated, that the joke amongst my batch-mates was “which office is she in this week?"

But then Pradeep’s office was unusual.

It was a vibrant experimental space, interspersed with whimsical courtyards and peppered with bright colours and people—and Pradeep himself as whimsical, interesting and thought-provoking as the setting he had created. There was no stuffy hierarchy about him. Though a stickler for work, he always gave us a lot of space to figure out how we wanted to work. Ideas and opinions flowed as freely through the studio as did mosquitoes and butterflies wandering in through the open windows. He had strong opinions but that did not ever stop him from inviting suggestions from those around him—even if you were a trainee or newly minted architect.

I learnt many things from watching him work, and working with him. And it was all such fun that it did not seem like work most of the time. Pradeep did several things at the same time and with great elan and good humour. He invariably had a big smile to greet us with, despite managing so many things. His office also had a furniture showroom and a workshop down the village street. We were encouraged to go there, try out the anthropometrics of the furniture already made, get models made of building or furniture details we were working on, talk to the carpenters and learn from them. All this filled in the gaps in the largely theoretical architectural education I had received in college.

The need to actually experience every aspect of design rather than just make drawings, was the reason for my flitting in and out of offices before I arrived at Khirkee. And that is also perhaps the reason that even after I left Pradeep’s office, I still hold on to a wooden scale model of a column designed for one of the first buildings I worked on there. A reminder of how important it is to spend time on, and enjoy, the design process.

Pradeep’s method of teaching you how to design in the real world was to throw you at the deep end, and let you swim. He would send us to meet consultants, clients and contractors. I remember being surprised when I was asked many years later to speak to a group of visiting European architects about my experience in working as a woman-architect in India. Perhaps because gender was so incidental in the working environment created in Pradeep’s office, I have thought of myself as an architect, never really as a woman architect. Pradeep was concerned and caring about all his staff, but he did not believe in any special concessions just because you were female, which is an intensely liberating attitude.

We learnt to take so many things in our stride because of this, whether it was negotiating our way back to office on deserted roads from site-visits to farmhouses on the fringe of the city, in a time when auto-rickshaws were only occasional. Or conferring and communicating with all sorts of clients. Or being made to hold our own in discussions with the sculptors, fashion-designers, craft-enthusiasts and myriad other professionals who were constantly in and out of the office. In the year and a half I was there, I was encouraged to develop, detail, and over-see the construction of three buildings from scratch to finish. 

There is nothing as heady as participating in every aspect of the creation of a building from conception to construction, and being given the opportunity to visualise it in its parts and its entirety. I, and others before and after me, were fortunate to be able to do this at Pradeep’s office, because he was so generous in delegating responsibilities, and seeing the potential of everyone he interacted with. And because he himself spanned so many levels of design with ease. 

His office was a great place to be in, and in a sense open house—as was his house. If we happened to be held up working late, he would insist that I come to his home and eat dinner with his family, rather than go back and cook in my PG room. And Sunita, his lovely wife, without batting an eyelid, would concoct the most delicious dishes while I played with their children. Curious and lively, Pradeep had the ability to invest even a little project with possibilities. And to take on even the largest projects with confidence. 

He brimmed with energy and plans, as diverse as the many books that enlivened the office. In shifting out from Khirkee to Ayanagar, he took up an even bigger palate to paint his ideas on. When I last met him, by a fortunate chance at the India International Centre one sunny afternoon this January, his smile was as wide and welcoming as it always was. Pradeep has such a positive presence, that even though I have been told he is no more, I cannot think of him as not being there.

The Question of Identity: The Lakshana of Being Indian

'Needless to say, the question of a contemporary Indian identity in design is a difficult one. The context of Indian identity itself is deeply debated. Identity in any case, is complex, partially glimpsed and often in flux. It is influenced by familial, local, community, regional and national affiliations—which may not always be in perfect sympathy. Today, when most people and governments in the world wish to become like the industrialised countries of Europe and America, national identities are increasingly getting standardised to fit the image of a global consumer.

The omnipresent ‘market’, through large industries and commercial entities such as multi-national corporations, shapes our choices both as consumers and designers, as well as our identities. It re-makes boundaries—witness the cleaving of the U.S.S.R. and much of Europe through the force of capital and capitalism in the recent past. Colonialism, its most aggressive form, has done the same thing in the distant and not-so-distant past.'

This question, among other related questions about the role of identity in design, is explored in my forthcoming book. A longer extract may be found on this link.

https://ambiknowledgeresources.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/forthcoming-attributing-design-identities-identifying-design-attributes/

Another Book on the Red Fort

The Red Fort is an iconic and complex piece of construction that has undergone both natural and forced transformations. It has been the subject of inquiry and research by many writers, and contains layers of information that can be discussed at multiple levels, with much that we need to appreciate, understand and apply in our present times. Debasish Das’s Red Fort, Remembering the Magnificent Mughals (BecomeShakespeare.com 2019) is a presentation of his journey in travelling within the spaces of the Fort and trying to comprehend them.

Das also writes a blog through which he has been sharing his explorations of the city of Delhi and its past. The book is a continuation of his exploration and is a personal interpretation guided by interactions with popular writers and scholars and heritage walkers. The book ties in various figures who have peopled Delhi’s historic and physical landscape, beginning from Babur. It is organised in a  sequence that moves from the city to the Fort, and is divided into short chapters, some as brief as two pages. These move between a variety of themes, dipping into aspects of the Fort’s architecture as well as ‘Perfumes and Oils’, ’Games and Pastimes’ and ‘Hooqah, Wine and Opium’, among others.

There's much to commend in the book. It is written with sympathy and feeling. The fact that the chapters are short and organised into themes covering popular events, anecdotes and figures, will help those who are new to the Fort and are looking for a quick overview. The author's focus, as he writes in the introduction, is on the stories behind the Fort; and his objective is to bring these alive, which he manages to do even with limited images.

Inevitably, the information in the book is influenced by the more popular narratives, reinforcing some conventional notions about the Fort. More specialised interpretations leading from rigorous primary analysis, which may not have perhaps been easy to access, do not form part of the source-base. Nonetheless, it is an extremely encouraging sign when history is no longer confined just to the domain of the professional. Histories are shared, and all of us need to dialogue with what our histories have left us with - and in the process dialogue with each other. Place-histories are a tangible way of conducting such a dialogue to connect us with the past and present of the places we inhabit. That more and more people are sincerely trying to be a part of their place-histories bodes well for our future.