Silent Spaces and Other Stories of Architecture


Book Description

An insiderýs view of public architecture ý ancient monuments and contemporary landmarks In this sequel to Punjabi Baroque and Other Memories of Architecture, Gautam Bhatia is on a reflective journey, as a tourist and architect, viewing Indiaýs architectural legacy. There has been a discernible purpose and design in all architecture down the ages, be it the quiet peace offered by ancient temples, the beauty and comfort reflected in Mughal architecture, or the expression of an imperial presence in British architecture. But public architecture today subsides into crumbling, peeling ruins even before work is completed on the buildings. As Gautam Bhatia notes in this account that is dosed liberally with his hallmark wit and sarcasm, neither utility nor aesthetics but caprice and prejudice form the guiding principles for those in power effecting architecture today.




Architecture and Silence


Book Description

This book explores the role of silence in how we design, present and experi-ence architecture. Grounded in phenomenological theory, the book builds on historical, theoretical and practical approaches to examine silence as a methodological tool of architectural research and unravel the experiential qualities of the design process. Distinct from an entirely soundless experience, silence is proposed as a material condition organically incorporated into the built and natural landscape. Kakalis argues that, either human or atmospheric, silence is a condition of waiting for a sound to be born or a new spatio-temporal event to emerge. In silence, therefore, we are attentive and attuned to the atmos-phere of a place. The book unpacks a series of stories of silence in religious topographies, urban landscapes, film and theatre productions and architec-tural education with contributed chapters and interviews with Jeff Malpas and Alberto Pérez-Gómez. Aimed at postgraduate students, scholars and researchers in architectural theory, it shows how performative and atmospheric qualities of silence can build a new understanding of architectural experience.




Constructing Identity in Contemporary Architecture


Book Description

The global spread of uniform modes of production and cultural values has been accompanied by a dissemination of stereotypes of "modern" architecture styles almost everywhere around the globe. Paradoxically, the reverse process has also emerged: In some countries, the elites feel the necessity to counterbalance the "loss of identity" and defend their own cultures against the "intruding" forces of globalization. What started as a defensive notion has developed into a more progressive attempt to re-create what has allegedly been lost. This trend is being strongly expressed in discourses about architecture in countries of the South. Who are the actors feeling compelled to "construct" new identities? How are these new identities in architecture created in various parts of the world? And, which are the ingredients borrowed from various historical and ethnic traditions and other sources? These and other questions are discussed in five case studies from different parts of the world, written by renowned scholars from Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, India and Singapore.




Clean Architecture


Book Description

Practical Software Architecture Solutions from the Legendary Robert C. Martin (“Uncle Bob”) By applying universal rules of software architecture, you can dramatically improve developer productivity throughout the life of any software system. Now, building upon the success of his best-selling books Clean Code and The Clean Coder, legendary software craftsman Robert C. Martin (“Uncle Bob”) reveals those rules and helps you apply them. Martin’s Clean Architecture doesn’t merely present options. Drawing on over a half-century of experience in software environments of every imaginable type, Martin tells you what choices to make and why they are critical to your success. As you’ve come to expect from Uncle Bob, this book is packed with direct, no-nonsense solutions for the real challenges you’ll face–the ones that will make or break your projects. Learn what software architects need to achieve–and core disciplines and practices for achieving it Master essential software design principles for addressing function, component separation, and data management See how programming paradigms impose discipline by restricting what developers can do Understand what’s critically important and what’s merely a “detail” Implement optimal, high-level structures for web, database, thick-client, console, and embedded applications Define appropriate boundaries and layers, and organize components and services See why designs and architectures go wrong, and how to prevent (or fix) these failures Clean Architecture is essential reading for every current or aspiring software architect, systems analyst, system designer, and software manager–and for every programmer who must execute someone else’s designs. Register your product for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available.




Indian Architectural Theory


Book Description

In this ground-breaking study the traditional Indian science of architecture and house-building, Vastu Vidya, is explored in terms of its secular uses, at the levels of both theory and contemporary practice. Vastu Vidya is treated as constituting a coherent and complete architectural programme, still of great relevance today. Chakrabarti draws on an impressive amount of textual material, much of it only available in Sanskrit, and presents several extremely valuable illustrations in support of the theories expounded. Each chapter deals with one architectural aspect, and chapters are divided into three sections. For each aspect, the first section explains the prescriptions of the traditional texts; the second section deals with the rather arbitrary use of that aspect by contemporary Indian architects trained in the western manner but striving to relate to Indian roots; while the last section in each chapter explores the selected use of that particular aspect by contemporary Vastu pundits, with their disregard for architectural idiom




Dwelling in the Archive


Book Description

Dwelling in the Archives uses the writing of three 20th century Indian women to interrogate the status of the traditional archive, reading their memoirs, fictions, and histories as counter-narratives of colonial modernity. Janaki Majumdar was the daughter of the first president of the Indian National Congress. Her unpublished "Family History" (1935) stages the story of her parents' transnational marriage as a series of homes the family inhabited in Britain and India -- thereby providing a heretofore unavailable narrative of the domestic face of 19th century Indian nationalism. Cornelia Sorabji was one of the first Indian women to qualify for the bar. Her memoirs (1934 and 1936) demonstrate her determination to rescue the zenana (women's quarters) and purdahashin (secluded women) from the recesses of the orthodox home in order to counter the emancipationist claims of Gandhian nationalism. Last but not least, Attia Hosain's 1961 novel, "Sunlight on Broken Column" represents the violence and trauma of partition through the biography of a young heroine called Laila and her family home. Taken together, their writings raise questions about what counts as an archive, offering us new insights into the relationship of women to memory and history, gender to fact and fiction, and feminism to nationalism and postcolonialism.




Laurie Baker


Book Description

The Definitive Biography of Laurie Baker Laurie Baker has worked in India for over forty years and is renowned for being one of the very few architects in the world to have designed and built buildings as diverse as fishermen's huts, computer institutes, auditoriums, film studios and tourist centres. His distinctive brand of architecture, usually moulded around local building traditions (especially those of Kerela, his adopted home state in south India), is instantly identifiable and has, unsurprisingly, revolutionized traditional concepts of architecture in India. Baker's architecture is responsive, uses local materials and lays stress on low-cost design. This biograpy of Laurie Baker, like his work, is direct, simple and comprehensive; further embellished with sketches, plans, photographs and some of Baker's own writings, the book offers the professional architect view of the life, methods and thoughts of an unorthodox genius.




Becoming Indian


Book Description

Those who have never been colonized can never really know what it does to the psyche of a people. Those who have been are often not fully aware of or are unwilling to accept the degree to which they have been compromised. Till just a few decades ago, much of the world was carved into empires. By the mid twentieth century independent countries had emerged from these, but even after years of political liberation, cultural freedom has eluded formerly colonized nations like India. In this important book, Pavan Varma, best-selling author of the seminal works The Great Indian Middle Class and Being Indian, looks at the consequences of Empire on the Indian psyche. Drawing upon modern Indian history, contemporary events and personal experience, he examines how and why the legacies of colonialism persist in our everyday life, affecting our language, politics, creative expression and self-image. Over six decades after Independence, English remains the most powerful language in India, and has become a means of social and economic exclusion. Our classical arts and literature continue to be neglected, and our popular culture is mindlessly imitative of western trends. Our cities are dotted with incongruous buildings that owe nothing to indigenous traditions of architecture. For all our bravado as an emerging superpower, we remain unnaturally sensitive to both criticism and praise from the Anglo-Saxon world and hunger for its approval. And outside North Block, the headquarters of free India's Ministry of Home Affairs, a visitor can still read these lines inscribed by the colonial rulers: Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to liberty. It is a blessing which must be earned before it can be enjoyed.




The Dark Tower


Book Description

A repackaged edition of the revered author’s definitive collection of short fiction, which explores enduring spiritual and science fiction themes such as space, time, reality, fantasy, God, and the fate of humankind. From C.S. Lewis—the great British writer, scholar, lay theologian, broadcaster, Christian apologist, and author of Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Chronicles of Narnia, and many other beloved classics—comes a collection of his dazzling short fiction. This collection of futuristic fiction includes a breathtaking science fiction story written early in his career in which Cambridge intellectuals witness the breach of space-time through a chronoscope—a telescope that looks not just into another world, but into another time. As powerful, inventive, and profound as his theological and philosophical works, The Dark Tower reveals another side of Lewis’s creative mind and his longtime fascination with reality and spirituality. It is ideal reading for fans of J. R. R. Tolkien, Lewis’s longtime friend and colleague.




A Concise History of Modern Architecture in India


Book Description

In Lucid Language That Speaks To Laymen And Architects Alike, This Book Provides A History Of Twentieth Century Architecture In India. It Examines In Detail The Early Influences On Indian Architecture Both Of Movements Like The Bauhaus As Well As Prominent Individuals Like Habib Rehman, Jawaharlal Nehru, Frank Lloyd Wright And Le Corbusier.