post colonial architecture abd bangalore
DESCRIPTION
A framework for a discussion on Architecture and Postcolonialism in BangaloreTRANSCRIPT
BANGALORE
A place is a location with perceptible characteristics. A place has a sense of belonging, and an area does not become a place until the individual human has had some kind of interaction with it. By interacting with a space, the human becomes a part of it, henceforth making it a place. Space and place are co-dependent. The colonialist takes a space or a place and redefines it to assert civilisational or nationalistic superiority . The post-colonialist does the same, hoping to reverse identities to imagined origin or forge a newer hybrid identity – sometimes called global or international. Space has temporal insinuations and place has physical insinuations. Yi-Fu Tuan
The settler s town is a strongly built town, all made of stone and steel. The town belonging to the colonized people, or at least the native town, the Negro village, the medina, the reservation, is a place of ill fame. It is a world without spaciousness, men live on top of each other. The native town is a crouching village, a town on its knees, a town wallowing in the mire. (Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth 1961: 37–39)
The planning and urban design policies of the British followed certain principles – (a) their perceptions of the nature of the Indian city, (b)
the fear of further revolts along the lines of the Mutiny of 1 5 , c (aussmann s plan for Paris which had become so popular in Europe and which advocated cutting through and demolishing old city centres to make space for
new construction and boulevards, and (d) planning techniques already in use for Britain s industrial cities.
In the main the effort was to physically and socially separate the
Europeans from the indigenous populace – the so-called White and Black towns of Madras being an example. This being done an effort,
though sometimes belated, was also made to enforce sanitary and
developmental guidelines on the old towns, though these had little
effect as in the main they failed to take into account traditional ways of
community life.
In addition to major
urban design schemes,
it was the civil lines and
the cantonments which
remain today a major
evidence of 19th
century British
presence, and which in
turn have influenced
much middle-class
housing development in
modern India. This
stems from their
perception as the
colonies of the elite.
The cantonments and civil lines both were generally laid out as grid iron planned
communities with central thoroughfares the famous Mall Roads , with tree-lined streets,
regularly divided building plots and bungalows as the main housing type. Churches and
cemeteries, clubs, race and golf courses, and other trappings of an easy civil life followed.
Avenue Rd circa 1860
The busy street it is now.
Bangalore Cantonment had, for example, a population of 100,000 by the early 20th century and consisted of public offices, churches, parks, shops and schools. It was an entity distinct from the old city – traffic between the two had to stop at a toll-gate and pay entry tax. The Cantonment thus developed into a European town in India, whose main house type was the bungalow.
The typical residential bungalow for the wealthy, for example, was set back from the road by a walled compound. The amount of land enclosed was a symbol of status. For a senior officer a ratio of 15:1, garden to built form, was appropriate, while for a beginning rank it could even be 1:1. In this sense the British showed a hierarchical system no less developed than the complex caste system which they
ascribed to India. The Gothic revival in England brought about a corresponding change in bungalow design – spawning buildings with pitched roofs and richly carpentered details including such features as the monkey tops of Bangalore. The Classical bungalow with its Doric, and later, Tuscan orders became a symbol not only of an European heritage but also of the military and political might of Britain.
R-Madura Coats
house
R-Interior of the
Mascarenhas
house
L- State Bank of
India Estate
built 1940 for
the Resident.
Details:
Balustrade
Tuscan columns
Madras Terrace
Ionic columns
The social and/or psychological ways in which one group excludes or marginalizes another group. By declaring someone "Other," persons tend to stress what makes them dissimilar from or opposite of another, and this carries over into the way they represent others, especially through stereotypical ARCHITECTURE. A housing row in a Shivajinagar Street. Note the
ambivalence.
While Madras and
Hyderabad architecture
opted to go the Indo-
Saracenic way in
architecture, adopting the
Mussalman , Bangalore scrupulously adhered to the
European Classical style.
Sometimes the Gothic was
indulged in – iron crested
towers, turrets on the wing,
steep gables and monkey
tops.
The Bangalore Palace is a
unique edifice, akin to the
French chateaus of
Kapurthala. The Maharaja
wanted a Tudor castle, and
this palace is modelled on
Windsor castle with its
battlemented parapets and
fortified towers. The building has a breath-taking presence – a bizarre vision of a
past era of Britain transported 1000s of miles away to the City of
Four Towers. Meticulously executed.
Attara Kacheri or the old 18 public offices. Construction began 1864, finished in 1868. Stone and brick painted red, in the Graeco-Roman style. Axially in line with the Vidhana Soudha. (R) note the fluted columns with Corinthian capitals and elaborately moulded entablatures. What better way to world the natives than to impose the colonial s laws and systems upon them in a building that harks back to the imperial Graeco-Roman past of Western civilisation.
Vidhana Soudha is the only building conceived and
executed as an intended Indian composition. Based
on Dravidian architectural principles and elements.
The Russian delegation story. Hanumanthaiah took
them around. “(ave you no architecture of your own,
they asked? These are all European buildings. That is
how Vidhana Soudha was born. Is it Oriental?
Examples
of the
European-
Classical
form
spread
across
many
buildings.
The Christians brought a sense of Western culture and cosmopolitanism to a town/city that has also known the influence of native caste-driven Hinduism (all the maths have deep roots here) and Islam. Knowing English enabled them to access knowledge and global opportunities. It also allowed a sense of sophistication through access to Western classical music, art, theatre, cinema and other aesthetic pleasures that were more contemporary than ancient.
Interior
of
Windsor
Manor
hotel.
Brooke-
fields.
Diamond
district
Telecom
Bldg
EGK Bldg
In cities, such as Brazilia, Chandigarh, or Islamabad, modernist architecture has been combined with nationalist rhetoric to create new images for the nation. From the late twentieth century, constructing the world s highest building, as in Malaysia s Kuala Lumpur or Taiwan s capital, Taipei, has become an essentially competitive strategy for postcolonial nations to put themselves on the map and make claims on others definitions of modernity. In all these strategies, the aim is to convey to the city s inhabitants a new sense of national citizenship, a new collective consciousness. In Bangalore, the IT firms and the realty developers seek to define this new momentum . Realtors seek to transform space into place through high-rise buldings like the Mantri Pinncle or exclusive gated Townships and Office Complexes.
As world space is simultaneously global, postcolonial, and colonial (among other categories), postcolonial histories of migration not only distinguish the population, politics, and culture of one postcolonial (or postimperial) city from another but also from other world or global cities , such as Frankfurt, Chicago, or
Zurich. For example, of the roughly one-third of population of New York that is foreign born, over half are from the Caribbean and Central America, with significant proportions from Europe, South America, and South and Southeast Asia. Charles Correa
Infosys