In conversation with the master carpenter with experience in making everything from the smallest peg to a building in wood, the podcast explores the ideas and the philosophical underpinnings of a practice deeply engaged in the idea of making.
For years, Jeevaram Suthar has mentored a generation of craftsmen and collaborated with some of the most celebrated architecture and design firms in India to produce work of integrity as he shares his thoughts on tradition, livelihoods, learning, and the dignity of working with hands.
A conversation with Abdul Kalam Shaikh, an extraordinary electrical contractor who built his contracting practice on an understanding of what well-executed electrical and power services enable quality work on site.
With over 15 years of experience, Kalam has enriched many projects, including a few at Matter. His work is a constant reminder of the many hands that make a good building. This episode is an insight into Kalam’s practice, his ideas on electrical contracting work, and his passion for things done well.
In partnership with The Gyaan Project <www.thegyaanproject.com>, these carefully curated episodes in the coming year are an invitation to question everyday practice, reflect on the ideas, values, and processes that shape our built world.
MODERN SOUTH ASIA A Visual Archive of South Asia’s Modernist Heritage
The Modern South Asia (MSA) series is dedicated to exploring modern architecture of historic importance in South Asia through photography-based books. The series will focus on architecture from the 20th century, designed and built by regional and international architects. Each book will provide the reader with an in-depth visual exploration of the architecture through contemporary photographs, architectural drawings, and newly commissioned writing by architects, thinkers, and academics.
The MSA series is edited and photographed by Randhir Singh. The project is supported and published by Arthshila Trust.
NATIONAL COOPERATIVE DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION (NCDC) Kuldip Singh, Mahendra Raj
COLLABORATIVE INVENTION AND THE ETHIC OF FRUGALITY: National Cooperative Development Corporation
Essay by Amit Srivastava & Peter Scriver Photographs by Randhir Singh
When it was built in the southern outskirts of metropolitan Delhi in the late 1970s, the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) headquarters was one of the relatively few new buildings that stood out, or even above, the sea of low-rise residential development that was then just beginning to expand the national capital beyond its first ring of post-colonial suburbs. But this was not just a taller structure and far from a merely generic modern office block. ‘Architecture’, modern or not, was still a relatively unfamiliar concept that few of the uninitiated public understood to apply to anything less exalted than the monumental tombs and ruined historic forts and palaces that dotted Delhi’s urban hinterland, such as in the neighbouring Siri Fort area. If ‘engineering’ had any better grip on the popular imagination, it was understood to be the equally heavy but more utilitarian stuff of infrastructure and industry that was progressing and building the young Indian nation’s economic capacity. Yet there was something about this strange, almost ungainly concrete edifice that defied categorisation; it was both monumental and ingeniously light-footed at the same time. Growing up in South Delhi in the 1990s, where the NCDC offices stood opposite the gates of the housing colony in which one of the present authors lived, it was the first and most conspicuous example to which an untutored prospective student of architecture could look with both awe and fascination.
MODERN SOUTH ASIA A Visual Archive of South Asia’s Modernist Heritage
The Modern South Asia (MSA) series is dedicated to exploring modern architecture of historic importance in South Asia through photography-based books. The series will focus on architecture from the 20th century, designed and built by regional and international architects. Each book will provide the reader with an in-depth visual exploration of the architecture through contemporary photographs, architectural drawings, and newly commissioned writing by architects, thinkers, and academics.
The MSA series is edited and photographed by Randhir Singh. The project is supported and published by Arthshila Trust.
The Campus as a Garden: Doshi’s Indian Institute of Management Bangalore
Essay by Kazi Khaleed Ashraf Photographs by Randhir Singh
Speaking to a group of students at the campus in 2014, Balkrishna Doshi characterised the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (1983) as not a building. “Can you ‘see’ IIMB as a building?” he asked.[1] In saying this, Doshi was emphasising that not only is IIMB not a building, but the typical components of a building had also receded from view. “It is not visible because nature has taken over – so you see a wall here, a pillar there”. The project at IIMB sits against the predominant practices of producing spectacular or robust buildings, and ushers in the principles of what I describe as an architecture of complexity.
An editorial project by Matter in partnership with Şişecam Flat Glass, PRAXIS investigates the work and positions of diverse contemporary architecture practices in India.In this episode, Swati Janu of Delhi-based Social Design Collaborative emphasises on their idea of design and collectives as prisms to multiply opportunities to make architecture and its responsibilities accessible as a conversation to all; especially to those outside the purview of planning processes. The practice engages with an integrated approach to arrive at meaningful enquiries and possible opportunities at a more localised level, in tandem with the governance and power structures, community networks and the city. Architecture is conceived as a sort of node in the broader system. Swati, and her colleagues, Shreya Rajmane and Anushritha Sunil reflect on their processes and values that guide and conciliate technical and narrative tools to translate ‘projects’ across spatial, planning, advocacy, academia, art, writing, research and other diverse forms.
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