A recent column
by Shanta Gokhale in the Mumbai Mirror encouraged me to write this blog about
the meanings conveyed through spaces. In her column Ms. Gokhale laments the
lack of substance in the current outcrop of tall buildings and spaces in
Mumbai. Giving the example of Kohinoor Square, she says, “A dumb tower is just
as meaningless, visually, as the towers of babel that dot the city …”.
Spaces are like people; they can be interesting as well as
boring, humble, arrogant, simple, flamboyant, reticent, gregarious …. Charles
Moore rightly put it by saying, “Place is the projection of the image of civilization
onto the environment.” And David Harvey emphasizes the importance of thinking
about cities in terms of social processes rather than just things. A Place is
merely a physical manifestation of the social processes that take place there.
We have to understand the social processes (and political, and economic, as
well) that have created (or destroyed) our cities.
In that sense, are not our cities a telling tale of the
society we are? Coming back to the personification on spaces; a person infused
with character, becomes humane, as a space infused with character, becomes a
place. Each place, within the city has a unique story to tell, and the work of
an architect and urban designer is almost like an archaeologist, to reveal
these stories through spatial organization, built forms and materials. A space
and architecture treated thus, starts conversing with the citizens. As
Churchill said, “First we shape our buildings, then our buildings shape us”, a
humane space will create a humane society!
But the catch-22 situation is, that only a humane society
(the social processes) is capable of creating a humane space, which will
nurture a humane society. So where do we start? I suggest we start from the
letter “I”.
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