Lecture Courses

Form Of Theory in Classical Hindu Architecture + Processes in Indian Architectural History since the 1800s

These courses are a part of the History & Theory Academics/TVB-SHS devleoped by AB-A for TVB School of Habitat Studies in New Delhi. The two courses presented here were offered at the end. Both ran for thirty six lectures, spanning two semesters, and the primary goal was to develop intuitions in a certain way. [ 1 ]

The author recognises a number of shortcomings with these courses, written in '94. They are burdened by the then impinging questions, the ideas they contain have since been simplified and made transmissible, the course structures are simply not elegant enough. They were born of an anger bordering on frustration as one observed one's surroundings. And the developments of that time: India was being 'liberalised', the media hype over the new market economies [called 'free' markets] almost nauseating; and then there was this "nationalism" of a single-minded, fundamenalist kind.

The method chosen was an already exploited one: to construct a dynamic couple. To construct a 'theory' course based on the principles of consistency: tracing to origin ideas still used by the work people. Ideas that could be expressed in the common tongue. Pointing at that which has almost always remained the same: principles of Organisation, Power, Knowledge, techniques of Representation in their consistency. And one constructed a history course based on the same principles, but focussing on the discontinuities, the ruptures, the shifts.

The two courses are presented here for review. They are to be extensively revised.

Form Of Theory in Classical Hindu Architecture

To focus on an 'origin' of ways in which architectural thinking organised. To derive some understanding about the plane of references, to treat it as an expression of the State, and to inspect ways in which it emerges from the State, the way it finds its expressions, its elements.

1. the function and field of architectural practice, the subject[s] of its representations, it’s tasks; it’s abilities in describing the actual, or participating in the actual.
2. the object of study in architecture, the corporeal, the building, and the way it engages with the Brain to produce, what one may term provisionally; architectural meaning.
3. the possibilities of proposing or speculating encoded within the Architect’s methods. The Historical Authenticity of these methods, in other words, the Logic by which one can make Sense as an architect.
4. Transferring a model of analysis more suited to the study of classical Indian architecture: identification of systems of spatial organisation, architectural organisation and skills to recognise the significance of architectural actions on the student's part.

Processes in Indian Architectural History since the 1800s

This is a history of Representation of Architecture in the enterprise of making buildings and cities. It charts the Function and field of the architectural within the ORGANISATIONS of institutions and technologies that combine to produce cities. It studies the codes that constitute these organisations, and the transformation of those codes.

This course took the year of India’s accession to the Empire—the event of colonisation, 1857, as the Year Zero. It is written as an analysis of power-relations centred around the Act of Building. A history of the Organisation[s] resulting in the Act of Building, this is not a compact listing and 'talk' about influential buildings and architects. "This is a history of expectations and desires vested into the architectural. . . ., this is a history of the methods of architectural production. . . "