Architecture and Place Identity

-1 Architectural Identity and the Complexities of Society

..in the changing face of chennai

Prelude

To quote the Indian architect Charles Correa:

“…..For both the crucial tasks (urban form/identity and architecture) are really two sides of the same coin. Some years ago, the architect and urbanist Jacqueline Robertson pointed out that it was relatively easy to design a house in the bazaar of Isfahan or Amsterdam , because all you had to do is design a spare part for a machine which already exists. In contrast, Robertson characterized American downtown as a bunch of spare parts, with no one having the foggiest notion of what the machine might look like.”

BACKGROUND:
In India, architecture was a huge part of the culture which presented an immense disjuncture between architecture and urban form in many of the Indian cities. The rupture of his continuum occurred at the beginning of the colonial rule. However it was not until after modernism, there emerged architects who could shape our cities. The Corbusian intervention sparked off an architectural awareness in the areas in which he built- Chandigarh, Ahmadabad and with an already active patronage and awareness in Bombay and Delhi , this completed the initial spine of contemporary architecture in India, from which architects have branched out keeping architecture thriving in the northern cities. In the south, cities like Bangalore being in the forefront of India’s globalization continues to keep date with architectural experiment. Meanwhile Pondicherry in southern India has created a magnet for architects around the world as Auroville keeps its architectural culture of innovation and experimentation alight.
The dissertation tries to project the emergence of Chennai city among the many Indian cities where construction activity is at large. The paper questions the facets of society that either respond to or overlook   what is contemporary architecture in Chennai.

Need for architecture in...