riyaz tayyibji

It was the early modernist architectural projects of independent India in which the geometry of the line, the plane and orthogonal massing expressed themselves. These seem like vectors shot out from the fractal cacophony of the bazaar into the empty space of that green-field site so intrinsic to the perception of that moment of modernity. These new buildings broken into geometric light and shadow by a harsh tropical sun heightened the compositional possibilities of the photographic image with the emptiness of their sites. 

Five decades later the exuberance of that aesthetic moment of confluence between the building and the photograph seems to have passed. No longer is there an innocence in that emptiness in which lay the latent possibilities of a nation to be built.

Five Decades later the buildings are used, worn, added to, adapted and maintained. Vegetation grows, spaces are peopled and their movement is continuous: Inhabitation. Inhabitation is the process by which a building belongs to someone other than itself. Inhabitation absorbs abstract self referentiality.

Madan Mahatta inhabits the emptiness around Jugal Kishore Chowdhury’s IIT buildings. 
This emptiness accentuates a stark geometry of light and shadow, its suspended lines with the subtle hint of a vanishing point and the possibility of a perspectival eye. For perspective to kick in we are necessarily distanced from the building and its elements, which always remain objects.

In the photographs by Randhir Singh we are much closer to the building such that much of it lies outside the image. The sky and ground interlock tightly with the building blocks in rectilinear compositions. They are more swathes of varying planar colour and texture than expansive sky or receding foreground. Through subtle abstract composition these photograph search for that germinal geometric moment in IIT Delhi’s inhabited contemporary Milieu.

The play between building geometry and the geometry of image composition as they inhabit the site of Jugal Kishore Chowdhury across half a century mark the conversation between photographers Madan Mahatta and Randhir Singh

This paper considers the little-known architectural collaborations of Mahatma Gandhi, charismatic leader of the Indian freedom movement, in light of discourses of modern architecture. Weaving in discussions of phenomenology, material, and a discipline of privacy, the essay explores aspects of Gandhi's philosophical and political thinking that propose a notion of the modern with an ethical and spiritual underpinning for 20th century architectural practice.

Ahmedabad has recently come to occupy a special position in the imagination of the government. It has been systematically projected as an example of planning and urban development for the country at large. It has been projected as a city of the future. At present however the city oscillates between these projected images, their infrastructural dreams and the realities and problems that are faced on the ground. This is a commentary on the present state of the city of Ahmedabad.

This essay is an attempt to map the cultural terrain on which Indian Architecture finds itself and the milieu in which Indian Architects practice. Using issues that are seen to be current and critical, the essay looks directly at three dialectic relationships, with their general implications to the making of the built environment in the Indian sub-continent. Inside and outside, permanent and transient and the issue of size (big and small), are seen to be in a shifting dialogical relationship rather than in fixed polar positions.  The imprints of the past and the trajectories of the present only tighten the weave and density of a culture of diversity where several civilizational modes co-exist simultaneously. In the world’s largest democracy, with the liberalisation of its Economy, with an opening up to the ‘outside’ world, there is a sudden conflict between what has always been (Environment, and Culture) and what can be, (Development). At an Individual level, ‘character’ is in tension with ‘identity’ and now the hyper-identity of ‘brand’. In this world that seemingly expands (growth) towards infinity, pulling apart both communities and institutions, the essay recognises that the imagination of the architect in India is engaged in the difficult and important  process of ‘slowing the world’, and of making the ‘far thing near’, and that this process is necessarily imbedded in the self. This process is emerging, clumsy and inarticulate but it is possible to study its registers in language and attitudes and the questions that are seen to be forming within the architectural profession.

A mouse breathes 36 times every minute. A dog about 24 times. As humans we breathe about 12 times in this duration, while for an elephant its about 6. A whale on the other hand, breathes voluntarily, to a cycle of about once every hour, if it so pleases. Time slows down for the larger creature. We now know of entities in the universe that are 1500R (Solar Radii) in diameter. To put this in perspective we have represented the diameter of VV CEPHEI by a circle of one metre. At this scale the earth would measure 0.0012mm, about the size of a bacteria nesting amongst the molecules of this paper. At this stellar scale, encompassing 10,000 light years and more, time as you can imagine would be very, very slow. What inhale and what exhale would be the measure of this time? Inhale and the universe contracts, exhale and the universe expands. The universe some say is presently expanding, others say it is the exhale of Brahma. Imagine that you are immortal and so are those around you. Imagine living forever. You walk the sky like the gods once did. You reside in the heavens but descend to the earth to live amongst men: envious of their mortality. Life is a mirage of shimmering circumstance waiting for the solidity of a promised infinity. And you are dying for some consequence in a world that is all of your 'will'. You wish you could relax, and resign yourself to your fate. You have none. We have always wondered at the stars. We have always possessed a stellar imagination. We have mapped the sun and the planets on to the gnostic lines of what we call plans. Some might call this map a Mandala, others a sun path. Architecture registers this dimension with a Centred Geometry, an Axis Mundi and Ritual. " With these the gods have been the fugitive guests of architecture ". We now know more about our universe, and with greater precision, than at any other point in history. And yet, there has never been less of its imagination imbued in the making of our concrete world.

The architecture of Ahmedabad ranges from the ancient to the very modern, from the Mughals to the last works of the contemporary Indian architects, including Le Corbusier and L. Kahn buildings. Actually is one of the capitals of Modern design and has a prominent university campus, and the Mahatma Gandhi’s Sabarmati Ashram next to the river.

AVAILABLE FROM JUNE 2017 > Browse the book
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Title: Ahmedabad Architectural Travel Guide
Author: Riyaz Tayyibji
Subject: Architecture - Travel
Pages: 232
Size: 126 x 184mm
Characteristics: Paperback
Language: English
ISBN: 978-84-942342-3-1
PRICE: 25€ / 28$ / 21£

This paper is an attempt to examine one of the strands of Indian modernity that does not subscribe to the industrial presupposition as the basis of its discourse. Rather this is a modernity situated in a paradigm that is "agricultural" with far reaching, implications both culturally and environmentally.
The Paper is comparative, building up contrasts between concepts that underlie a modernity that is "Industrial" and one that is "agricultural". It explores their respective attitudes and modes of "reduction". The first, "Minimizing" and its aesthetic equivalent, Minimalism is located in the industrial and particularly in the processes of mass production. The second, "frugality" is its equivalent in an agricultural paradigm, and is rooted in relationships and concepts whose aesthetic and therefore architectural potentials have ncft been adequately elaborated. This paper aims to study the architectural implications of "Frugality" with its emphasis on the rural-agricultural rather than the urban- industrial, bodily relationship to space rather than visual and mental constructions of space, and an intimacy with the material, the tactile, and a world that is
"Full". Historically speaking this paper explores the aesthetic and architectural implications of a "Gandhian" Modernity as being distinct from the ubiquitous modernity that is our "Nehruvian" legacy.
Architecturally the paper develops, in contrast to the idea of "transparency", that ubiquitous spatial need of all modern and minimal architecture, the idea of "Porosity", an attitude of material continuity that does not distinguish between differing forms of matter. Whereas the first requires a spatial continuity, the latter is based on a continuity of material. Through the description and analysis of Gandhiji's residence, Hruday Kunj at his Ashram on the Sabarmati in Ahmedabad, this paper elaborates on the experiences of such architecture.
e basis of its discourse. Rather this is a modernity situated in a paradigm that is "agricultural" with far reaching,, implications both culturally and environmentally.
The Paper is comparative, building up contrasts between concepts that underlie a modernity that is "Industrial" and one that is "agricultural". It explores their respective attitudes and modes of "reduction". The first, "Minimizing" and its aesthetic equivalent, Minimalism is located in the industrial and particularly in the processes of mass production. The second, "frugality" is its equivalent in an agricultural paradigm, and is rooted in relationships and concepts whose aesthetic and therefore architectural potentials have ncft been adequately elaborated. This paper aims to study the architectural implications of "Frugality" with its emphasis on the rural-agricultural rather than the urban- industrial, bodily relationship to space rather than visual and mental constructions of space, and an intimacy with the material, the tactile, and a world that is
"Full". Historically speaking this paper explores the aesthetic and architectural implications of a "Gandhian" Modernity as being distinct from the ubiquitous modernity that is our "Nehruvian" legacy.
Architecturally the paper develops, in contrast to the idea of "transparency", that ubiquitous spatial need of all modern and minimal architecture, the idea of "Porosity", an attitude of material continuity that does not distinguish between differing forms of matter. Whereas the first requires a spatial continuity, the latter is based on a continuity of material. Through the description and analysis of Gandhiji's residence, Hruday Kunj at his Ashram on the Sabarmati in Ahmedabad, this paper elaborates on the experiences of such architecture.

The Conceptual apparatus that has been used to design and understand  cities through their morphology often remain inadequate in the case of the cities of the sub-continent. This study aims to look closely at the inhabitation of these urban spaces, that is often a far more powerful determinant of our urban experiences than the underlying formal urban structure. Looking at the Cloth market, Dhalgharwad and other residential areas in the walled medieval city of Ahmedabad, this study develops a framework to understand the urbanity of the 'participator'. In this urbanity  conceptual order, with its emphasis on distinction and clarity is always at play with a lived need, and order of continuity.

Stepwells of Ahmedabad: A Conversation of Water and Heritage, is an exhibition initiative discussing the ancient water structures found across the city of Ahmedabad and its surrounds. The exhibition documented 16 stepwells across the city using architectural drawings, photographs and sketches. This Photo Essay is an overview of the issues raised in the exhibition including those of geography, settlement pattern, gender, heritage, the inhabitation of traditional buildings and an attitude to conservation pertinent to the indian subcontinent.

The book documents, with architectural drawings the places and buildings of significance in the life of M.K. Gandhi: those he built, inhabited and was incarcerated in.

The book includes 131 drawings, including detailed architectural documentation of the houses of Gandhi’s youth, his Ashrams, and the other institutional and residential spaces that were the backdrop to important moments in his life.

Eleven primary sites are published here in detail while a remaining sixteen each have a representative drawing.

Includes three essays by the editors:
• The Built World of M.K. Gandhi, Riyaz Tayyibji
• Gandhi’s Experiments in Dwelling, Neelkanth Chhaya
• Home for a Mendicant, Tridip Suhrud

The architectural drawings and essays are composed in a 225 x 225mm format consisting of 175 pages printed on 100GSM Sunshine Super Print Paper.

This publication is a result of the Gandhi Heritage Sites Mission architectural documentation project initiated by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India.