Tag Archives: Dialogues

Frame Conclave, Lectures, Modern Heritage

The Architecture of Golconde

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Pankaj Vir Gupta

A Recorded Lecture from FRAME Conclave 2019: Modern Heritage

In this lecture, Pankaj Vir Gupta discusses the conception of Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry. Gupta delves into the architectural history of this structure, highlighting its pioneering use of concrete in India. He recounts his personal experiences at Golconde, sharing vivid details about the architecture and its unique features.

Edited Transcript

It is a particular privilege to be presenting a project with which we started our practice in 2003 and in the office archives, this is project 001 (referring to image 01). So, this morning to wake everyone up, I think it is important to understand why we are here to talk about this building and I will try and make it as energizing for you as possible.

My name is Pankaj Vir Gupta, and with my partner, Christine Mueller, I run a practice in New Delhi called Vir-Mueller Architects. I am also a professor of architecture at the University of Virginia, where I run what is called the Yamuna River Project, a multi-disciplinary research project, looking at ecology and urbanity in the megacities of the world. But to go back to how we started our practice, I was leading a study abroad program with some students from the University of Texas and we happened to be visiting Pondicherry, to look at the urban fabric of the city (referring to image 02), and we came across this extraordinary building (referring to image 02) and it was a surprise to me personally, because in several years of architectural education and research, I had never come across this building in any writing or any publication, at least not in the curricular work that we had been exposed to in our education.

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PRAXIS Initiative

PRAXIS 25 | SOCIAL DESIGN COLLABORATIVE

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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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Dialogues, On Photography, Visual Culture

Niveditaa Gupta: On Architecture Photography

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In conversation with Niveditaa Gupta, we discuss the various narratives that drive a contemporary photograph, along with the values and potential of architecture photography in India.

The following text is the edited transcript from the conversation with Niveditaa Gupta, conducted on December 13th, 2021

CHAPTER 01: ORIGINS [00:25]

Part I – The Theory of Photography [00:39]

I never anticipated that I would get into photography. I was not interested in photography as an amateur passion that you pick up while you are in architecture or design school, because we had a lot of photography exercises, but I never felt that I could use the camera to photograph things which I might be architecturally interested in. As part of my dissertation, I wrote a paper on architecture photography. In the fourth year of architecture school, everybody had to write a research paper, and so I went through the archives of architecture photography all over the world, to study just how the evolution of photography happened over the years.

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PRAXIS Initiative

PRAXIS 23 | Put Your Hands Together

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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, Areen Attari of Put Your Hands Together introduces the idea of owning ‘bio-architects’ as the appropriate preface to the work they are pursuing. He cites collaborative influences, former partners, friends, and colleagues, underscored by their shared interests as a means of exploring and drawing attention to an architecture that finds a tacit relationship with natural materials. Through the discussion, Areen portrays the multi-modal approach of documentation, and teaching engagements to embrace the kind of imaginative play and intimacy that is essential to this practice and developing its details and systems. He believes he wants to create spaces that heal, spaces that make one slow down, and feel at peace with themselves.

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Praxis

Praxis 22 | Varna Shashidhar Landscape Architecture

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An editorial project by Matter in partnership with Şişecam Flat Glass, PRAXIS investigates the work and positions of diverse contemporary architecture practices in India. This episode features a discussion with Varna Shashidhar of Bengaluru-based Varna Shashidhar Landscape Architecture [VSLA]. The practice of VSLA develops from a contextual ethos of approaching and representing landscape from an integrated and multidisciplinary perspective. Through projects and research that traverse scales, their work centres around “beauty in the ordinary”. Varna elaborates on envisioning designs that develop over time and terrains and working in harmony with endemic ecosystems that form an underlay to their process. To advance collaborative cultural production, she also speaks of founding Design United to enable dialogues and a palpable sense of collectivity.

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