The State of the Esplanade Mansion- in conversation with Vikas Dilawari

The State of the Esplanade Mansion- 
in conversation with Vikas Dilawari

The building formerly known as the Watson Esplanade Hotel and now as Esplanade Mansions is the one anomaly in the list of heritage building conservation efforts in Mumbai. While building of similar vintage around it have benefitted from professional intervention, the Esplanade Mansion has, for a variety of reasons, and for nearly half a century allowed to go to seed.

This building was anomalous even when it was built, between 1867 and 1869, based on the designs of Rowland Mason Ordish, an engineer associated with the Crystal Palace and St. Pancreas Station in London. It was a pioneering prefabricated, cast-iron framed building, well ahead of its time, with most of its components shipped directly from the Phoenix Foundry in Derby. Seeing the building come up, like a Meccano set, a traveller in 1867 remarked that the building was “something like a huge birdcage had risen like an exhalation from the earth”.

The building, with some modifications, opened as Watson’s Hotel in 1869, and held pole position on the Kala Ghoda open space. It was also the one Hotel of choice for ‘European-Only’ visitors to give custom and has been known for a variety of interesting occupants over its 150-year-old history. Mark Twain stayed here and wrote about the view from his balcony. In 1896, the Lumiere Brothers held their first screening of the ‘Cinematograph’ on its premises. Jamshedji Tata, in retaliation to being snubbed by the hoteliers, set up the Taj Palace in 1903, within sight of the hotel, both; it is said out of retaliation and spite. 

From the 1960s however, the former Hotel was subdivided and tenanted to a variety of homes and offices. Fifty years down the line, this state of affairs has led to make the Watson’s Hotel one of the most rundown buildings in plain sight in one of the most prominent positions of the city, still admired for its avant garde construction and rued for its current state. Parts of the building have been falling off in recent times.

In July 2018, a new precinct was added to the global list of heritage sites at the 42nd session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, in Manama, Bahrain. This inscription, called the ‘Victorian Gothic and Art Deco Ensembles of Mumbai’ included the Esplanade Mansion as a prominent heritage building within the precinct.

On 23rd May 2019, the Mumbai Mirror published a report of a structural audit carried out by the IIT-Bombay and submitted to MHADA. The Mirror quoted from the report thus: “The rigidity of the structure is lost. Several alterations have been made in the form of rooms and mezzanine floors, which have increased load on structure. In our view, any kind of structural repairs are neither logical nor economically viable. The repair of the building will be a dangerous job as many structural elements are not rigidly connected to each other. The repairs also cannot make the structure habitable under seismic conditions. Considering the above, it is of the opinion that it will be prudent to demolish the building.” MHADA, in turn, would submit the report to the Bombay High Court.

With the distinct possibility that the Esplanade Mansion, part of Mumbai’s indelible heritage may have it days numbered, I invited the city’s most sensitive conservation architect Vikas Dilawari for a discussion about the state of the Esplanade Mansion. This conversation is focused only on built heritage conservation, and Dilawari has been most forthcoming with his views.

DALVI:
How do you read/ interpret the structural audit made by the IIT-Bombay, and their conclusions that the Esplanade Mansion is irredeemably distressed, and beyond any possibility of being safely conserved?

DILAWARI:
IIT-Bombay is one the most reputed of institutes and I am sure their report would have gone through all aspects of the Esplanade Mansion in detail. As I have not read the report, I cannot comment on it. Also, not having surveyed the entire building and studied its context, commenting on specific issues would not be fair.  However, I can speak generically with reference to heritage properties like the Esplanade Mansion.

While it is very vital to understand what is in the report, it is equally true that the building is very significant in terms of its structural history and cultural heritage. Firstly, The Esplanade Mansion, or the Watson’s Hotel as it is popularly known, was an engineering feat of its time. That itself merits the extra efforts to try to retain it. Secondly, it is sad that despite being so exceptionally significant its heritage Grade II-A was never changed to Grade I in the proposed listing. I also wonder why extra efforts were not made by all stake holders -- users, owners, the state government and others, letting it become rundown to this state of disrepair in past decades despite having heritage legislation.

‘Safely conserved’ is a tricky phrase. What you actually mean is ‘safely habitable’. This leads us to the larger debate of skillful repairing or retrofitting to meet present codes. If the building is unsafe and you repair it, you have enhanced its life, but you haven’t yet made it earthquake resistant, which being a habitable building is what the study would perhaps have addressed. The same logic cannot be applied to uninhabited ASI protected monuments which are not earthquake resistant per se. Also, the IIT building survey report would reveal whether the structural system of the whole building has developed overall distress or are there problems locally, and whether it is possible to replace or strengthen those areas.

I think this building is a classic case study of whether conservation can be done. If so, the field of conservation in Mumbai has a very bright future. If it is pulled down, well then…
        
DALVI:
Given the number of additions and alterations made over the last century, is it possible to reverse its effects through structural conservation?

DILAWARI:
Additions and alterations have certainly taken place. The adding of dead load to the building to a very large extent would be the main concern.  The additional load of mezzanines, for example, is undesirable and should be removed. These issues need to be addressed urgently. The original wooden flooring may have, possibly, been replaced with concrete too.

The iron work in the building requires protection, and the building requires overall maintenance, but that has never been done thanks to the Rent Control Act. This Act is what inhabited heritage sites should be relieved from or modified upon. Economic considerations are vital if we want the maintenance of heritage sites to be good. Also, many of these matters are legal and go on perpetually and it is only now that the courts have intervened in the case of the Esplanade Mansion, so there is hope that some definite outcome will emerge.

Structural conservation would mean restoring the building back to its original status, which would mean removing many things which been overlaid on it for a substantial period of time. Whether the removal of these additions is acceptable to the users/owners is a question. These are very complex issues. Hopefully, if this is resolved and the building vacated then there can be some hope for finding viable alternatives.

DALVI:
Structural engineer Alpa Sheth, has, in her response piece in the Mumbai Mirror on May 27th 2019, while quoting the report said: "the cast-iron framing of the building does not lend itself to seismic resistance (which was not required when Watson Hotel was first built) and a completely new lateral load resisting system would need to be inserted into the building." Does this not lend finality to the notion that the building is beyond the capacity to be conserved?

DILAWARI:
I am not a structural expert so I would not react on that. As my area of interest is conservation, I can only argue that the very fact the Esplanade Mansion is still standing so many years after it was built is a good enough argument to repair and restore it back, at least to that state. 

Yes, additional unwanted load or intervention, if unauthorized, should be removed. Yes, if it is possible to impart seismic resistance to the structure, without altering its authenticity and significance, then one certainly should try and be happy that the health of the building after repairs is better than what it was. 

DALVI:
The Esplanade Mansion is dilapidated both from the inside and the outside. Several parts have fallen off and there are visible structural cracks. Is it safe, even responsible, to allow a conservation team inside the building to carry out structural conservation?

DILAWARI:
The very fact that the building is standing and was habitable till yesterday means one can survey most of its parts. There may be areas not reachable or damaged or broken which one cannot survey, but at present most areas look accessible. In addition, there seems to be some propping done in the poor areas. This indicates a survey can be done with care and precaution. What is ideal is that once the building is vacated, it should then be propped and surveyed.
 
DALVI:
What steps are possible to be taken to give this building a new/extended life? This building is a prefabricated framed structure of cast and wrought iron with infill brick walls. How will its conservation differ from that of a load bearing masonry building?

DILAWARI:
The repairs would certainly need expertise of a very well experienced structural engineer in cast iron and steel works. The building has be made vacant and a proper structural study, economic study and reuse study needs to be carried out (with professional propping of the structure). The economic and reuse studies would require the participation of the stake holders. This will help in deciding its future. 
 

The most important issue is in any structural conservation of this kind is the dead load. The first action would be to establish the good functional structural grid and then decide on the lightweight floors and removal of the unwanted load of unauthorized additions. 

The advantage of steel and timber structures is that you can locally cut out the distressed areas and replace them with new materials or strengthen them with flitching. Whether we can get this similar kind of cast iron and wrought iron sections today (which were engineering feats then) is a question. Importing these sections from the original foundry, from the Phoenix in Derby, would be prohibitively expensive. Also, one is not sure if these elements are manufactured nowadays on such scale. 

DALVI:
The Esplanade Mansion is now inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage Ensemble. What happens to its status and the status of the ensemble if the building collapses or is demolished?

DILAWARI:
Recently the Esplanade Mansion was also included in the World Heritage ensemble, but no efforts were made by the authorities to stem its decay. This is just like the case of Gilbert Hill, which is Grade II and not Grade I, so despite being listed, no adequate protections have been taken to prolong its life. We should remember that heritage listing is not the end but only the beginning.

If the building collapses or is demolished, the WHS committee will give a warning to states parties that they may remove the World Heritage Status. This happened in the case of Angkor Wat when the real estate (hotel industry) was threatening the temple or when a bridge was constructed in Hampi few years ago.

The WHS tag will be even more threatened (as the OUV- Outstanding Universal Value for which it is listed) if it gets compromised. If for example, the site is redeveloped, with a high-rise structure, with podium car parking. If state laws are not effective for the protection of such WHS sites, then a yellow and red flag will be waved in coming years.  

Also, being included in the “World’s 100 Most Endangered Monuments” by the World Monuments Fund is not something to be proud of.

DALVI:
If the building is, despite all other alternatives, demolished, what should come up in its place?

DILAWARI:

As a true conservationist I would prefer it is never demolished. 

The Esplanade Mansion was an engineering feat of 19th century. If we can, we should preserve this engineering feat through skillful repair or conserve it in a manner by which its authenticity and historicity is respected.

Vikas Dilawari is a conservation architect with more than three decades of experience exclusively in the conservation field, ranging from urban to architecture to interiors. He has double Masters in Conservation from School of Planning and Architecture (New Delhi) and from the University of York (UK). He was the Head of Department of Conservation Department at Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture (KRVIA) Mumbai from its inception in 2007 till Aug 2014. He has served as advisory roles in International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA). He has been a Trustee of Indian Heritage Cities Network (IHCN) and a former Co- Convener of INTACH Mumbai Chapter.

His practice has executed conservation projects ranging from prime landmarks to unloved buildings of Mumbai. His nationwide work includes projects ranging from historic homes, palaces, residential buildings, educational buildings (Schools and Colleges), hostels, churches, temples, dharamsalas, museums, banks, office buildings, lecture halls, fountains and hospitals. Several of them have received national and international recognition. A total of sixteen of his projects have won UNESCO ASIA PACIFIC Awards for Cultural Preservation in SE Asia. Dilawari has lectured and written extensively on the subject of conservation nationally and internationally.

Note:
We are aware that certain aspects related to the Esplanade Mansion are sub-judice. This conversation is therefore clearly academic in nature, restricting itself only to areas of built heritage conservation. While the opinions are those of the conversants, nothing here should be construed as having any bearing on the legal aspects of the case.

In Conversation with Vikas Dilawari: Contradictions and Complexities in Urban Conservation

Vikas Dilawari
Image: Piyul Mukherjee

Contradictions and Complexities in Urban Conservation:
In Conversation with Vikas Dilawari

by
Mustansir Dalvi

This blogpost marks the news that Vikas Dilawari has been endowed with his 12th UNESCO Award for the restoration of the Cama Building at Gilder Road, which has received the UNESCO Asia Pacific Award of Merit 2016. The building (A Grade III Heritage Building) is owned by the Garib Zarthostiona Rehthan Fund, who have won their third UNESCO Award.

This conversation was first published in
Tekton: A Journal of Architecture, Urban Design & Planning;
Volume 3, Issue 1, March 2016; pp. 72 - 87

Published with kind permission from Tekton.
www.tekton.mes.ac.in

All images published with kind permission from Vikas Dilawari Architects
All images copyright (c) Vikas Dilawari Architects, and may not be used without their express permission, except where specified


Mumbai has been particularly fortunate in having a well established urban conservation movement for close on twenty five years now. Right from the early nineties, several exercises in identifying buildings, precincts and making fabric assessment for conservation were carried out, and in most cases legislated. The canonical buildings that Mumbai is identified by have been attended to, and are conserved with Grade I & II Heritage listings. The cave temples of Elephanta and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus have been designated as World Heritage Sites. Most of the buildings of the Raj have been duly prioritised. So much for the good news.

Of the rest, much of which far exceeds the imperial buildings, attention to conservation, whether through legislation or actual intervention has been patchy, to say the least, and increasingly becoming more difficult to achieve. Buildings that were created by home-grown architects, urban precincts that define areas of consistent urban fabric like the Art Deco Precincts or Girangaon, the areas of the mills from the early twentieth century have all got a short shrift, not least because of the post-millennial city's obsession with the monetisation of real estate. Newer laws and newly framed Development Control rules have further diluted the early gains of the conservation movement, while the new mantra of 'redevelopment' allows for vast swathes of the city's historic past to be flattened for the insertion of new global homogeneity.

Conservationists like Vikas Dilawari fight an increasingly difficult battle to get their projects realised, to preserve buildings for posterity and memory. There are only a few conservation practices in Mumbai of quality, and Dilawari is amongst the foremost. Dilawari was very forthcoming in participating in this dialogue, unravelling the several complexities and contradictions in the practice of urban conservation, especially in Mumbai.


DALVI
Are there classical or canonical approaches to conservation? 

DILAWARI
Conservation as a field in India has been following, informally or formally, the canons of the West. This is evident in the formal approach of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in the manner by which they look after its monuments since late 19th century. Thereafter in late 1980’s, when the concept of conservation of built heritage was introduced, the thinking was once again dominated by the approaches from England, for example from the Society for Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) started by William Morris that forms the base approach to English Heritage.

Our country by and large does not have adequate governmental support, nor has it done enough research to advocate any alternate approaches, unlike the Japanese who boldly introduced the Nara Draft Charter on authenticity in the mid-1990’s. The Indian charter by INTACH was a small step forward but theory and practice both have to be put together, keeping our context in mind.

It is also evident that most conservation architects practising in India were mostly trained formally in UK and/ or Europe and their practice revolved around the broad philosophy of the Venice Charter and other international charters that emerges out as a response to the threats to conservation in Europe at the time.


DALVI
Have these definitions to Conservation changed over the last two decades or so? How does your practice relate to this?

DILAWARI
The approach and definitions have certainly changed in last two decades depending on several factors- whether it is a government sponsored project (as the government owns most of public heritage). If so, there is a paradigm shift to ‘beautification’ rather than real conservation. One more reason for this shift is that the soul of conservation lies in tradition and skills. Unfortunately these do not get revived in any ‘sarkari’ project, where the focus is on the contractor who can manage such projects where such beautification is profitable.

In the private arena on the other hand, it is heartening to know that so many conservation architects in different parts of the country are trying their best to establish good bench marks. Private clients are now new patrons for conservation. However, access to craftsmen, good skills, and easy availability of traditional materials are some obstacles, along with a lack of governmental or intuitional support by way of legislation.

My practice revolves around private clients, mostly. I was fortunate to get a free hand in doing my projects the way I wanted. We have tried our best to follow international charters adapted to the local context and the aim is also to revive lost skills in many of the projects. Let me explain this with an example- In the West, they follow a policy of minimum intervention and the retention of maximum original fabric to retain material authenticity, whereas for us economic viability is a major concern. In all our projects we try to revive some or the other lost crafts or skills or else we try to integrate good craftsmanship as a part of mainstream construction.


DALVI
How does conservation contribute to the quality of urban life in a city?

DILAWARI
The buildings that we conserve are the architecture of yesteryears. Since they are constructed well, with traditional wisdom, materials and skills; and as they fit well in the planned urban design or town planning scheme or have organically grown, their conservation contributes to the continued quality of life and space. It is not just the physical attributes of the architecture, townscape, roofscape, mass and scale but the quality of space, the hierarchy of spaces and the social and cultural use that also need to be attended to.

For past 7 or 8 years, we are dealing with many unloved residential buildings of the last century. We have realised that conserving them properly ensures a balance of growth. It is like natural law- the old will go and the new will replace it. In a nutshell, urban renewal helps in retaining continuity and brings gradual change. It is a mix of green and brown field development, unlike the present trend in Mumbai which is only redevelopment. Clean sweep redevelopment affects the urban quality of the city as it displaces original inhabitants, changes the class demography of the area, brings in severe load to already fragile infrastructure and completely alters the typology of built form and use of community spaces.


DALVI
Bombay, as we know it today is the product of the City Improvement Trust schemes that came up in the 1890s in the wake of the plague. The city was reorganised into recognisable precincts that still flourish today. Most of the buildings in the scheme have been in continuous use for nearly a century now. 

DILAWARI
We have come to the conclusion that many of late 19th century schemes like the City Improvement Scheme might have affected what could be heritage then (had this concept been there), but it improved the city’s quality of life and the built form. This itself is worthy of today’s heritage, despite the Rent Control Act.

Conservation of details like chajjas, cornices and balconies served a functional purpose of keeping the building protected from ill effects of rains. Similarly clusters of buildings displayed uniform patterns like arcades, building lines, mass and scale, which imparted a unique urban design value that helped maintain the city’s identity.
 

DALVI
You have been involved in the conservation  of some of Mumbai’s most loved structures- the Bhau Daji Lad Museum, the Municipal Corporation building, the stained glass of the Rajabai Tower, amongst many others. What do you bring to these buildings in your specific approach? 

DILAWARI
Let’s begin chronologically with our projects of buildings loved by all in the city:
The Rajabai Tower of the university library and its stained glass project was the first one, way back in 1998. That’s the time when conservation was in its infancy. The clients were unaware of conservation and so were contractors. It was essential to have them both educated in the field of conservation.

Since the Tower was a Gothic Revival building and the project backed by British Council Division, it was imperative to use all the skills of my post-graduation degree from York to restore it scientifically and authentically. This was the first project in the city with British experts coming to India to train Indian counterparts because of which a high bench mark was established. The trainees who had previous background in conservation were introduced to conservation philosophy and were taught the lost arts of stained glass painting and glazing, leading to their revival. The Indian experts thus trained have been busy in their own private practices restoring several other buildings.

Restoration of stained glass on the Neo-Gothic Rajabai Tower, 
Mumbai University Library
Image: Vikas Dilawari Architects

There were educational workshops open to the public wherein they could come and visit the library and see the ongoing work also created a tremendous awareness in this subject. Being stationed in the building for two years, we were delighted when a peon or a cleaner would inform us if something wrong was happening.

Restoration of the fire damaged Municipal Corporation Hall was done with INTACH Mumbai Chapter. This project set a benchmark in actual restoration as there was an extensive damage, both structural and non-structural related to soot. This was the first such project in the country concerning damage due to fire. A lot of science, in the form of petrography tests and load calculations was involved. We had to use modern materials like steel channels and plates to strengthen existing cracked stone brackets despite having stone craftsmen, as the load of the floors above did not allow bracket removal.

Detail of gilding in the Municipal Corporation Hall.
The project helped reviving the lost art of gold gilding.
Image: Vikas Dilawari Architects

This was also our first project where help was taken from traditional craftsmen, the Sompuras (temple builders) to reconstruct arches in Porbandar stone according to the architect F W Stevens’ original design, along with reviving the lost art of gold gilding. Professional conservators helped restore the decorative chandeliers and paintings that adorned the hall. Help from eminent architectural historians in the UK resulted in the right colour schemes with gilt being used. The Coats of Arms were repainted in their true colours to return old charm and glory to this splendid hall. This project resulted in convincing the decision makers of the MCGM (Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai) to accept conservation as a discipline and a full-fledged cell was established thereafter to look into other heritage structures owned by the MCGM.

The Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum project was a god-sent gift, a unique PPP project, which allowed all the freedom and flexibility one desired for an ideal restoration. It was the project where the client, the sponsor, the architect and the display designer all went on a study trip to the UK to study around twenty of their best museums. The Building was the most opulent building of its time that had fallen prey to neglect and dilapidation; restoring it was like a dream come true. The previous experience of Rajabai Tower and the Corporation Hall gave us the necessary confidence to do the same in the most economical manner using the best contractors, as also monitoring and controlling system on a day to day basis.

Restoration of Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum-
a holistic conservation effort
Image: Vikas Dilawari Architects

The BDL project was the first holistic conservation effort- from landscape to display, from its building to artefacts, all under the dynamic leadership of Mrs Tasneem Mehta, the Director of the museum.  Our challenge was to integrate state of art services in a discreet manner and adaptively reuse under-utilised spaces of the historic museum, while restoring them as authentically as possible, reviving lost craft skills in the process. The project got a UNESCO Asia-Pacific Award of Excellence in 2005 which is the highest award that any of Mumbai’s conserved buildings have received so far.


DALVI
How collaborative is the practice of conservation in India? Could you give us a broad overview of your practices once you get a project?

DILAWARI
It is collaborative now, especially as the scale is widening and city level issues are involved. Now multinational and national PMCs and infrastructural firms are entering the mainstream. Projects are awarded based on a tendering system. My firm has stayed away from this kind of collaborations. Our practice is of a modest size, and we prefer to collaborate with local MEP consultants, structural engineers and landscape designers and to work as a team like any other architectural project. My small practice has 2 to 3 young architects and a few student trainees. We have an experienced site supervisor who has worked hands-on at sites. We also bring in the inputs of quantity surveyors and structural engineers, case by case.

Interiors of the restored Reading Hall
at J.N. Petit Library, Mumbai
Image: Vikas Dilawari Architects

We normally prepare a fabric status report and share it with the clients. This is essential as clients and architects need to be on the same page- our philosophy, their brief. If and only if they agree with the findings of the report do we move to the next stage of preparing tenders. We normally choose a lead contractor and then try to get specialised conservation agencies as external agencies that can work with the lead contractor which we closely monitor. We believe in visiting the site fairly regularly and with close monitoring, we try to make each project economical.


DALVI
The Conservation movement began in Mumbai in the early 1990s, and as did your practice. The city has seen some successes in the conservation of some iconic buildings but has been woefully inadequate in terms of conserving precincts. What seems to have gone wrong?

DILAWARI
Conservation has never got the required governmental support. It emerged in Bombay as a discipline due to activism and concern of NGOs and citizen groups and hence has seen a lot of ups and downs. From being the first city to have conservation bye-laws, it is infuriating to see the same laws being tweaked. Now Grade I and II identified buildings are protected, whereas the bulk that forms the urban grain is removed from its jurisdiction. This is the result of a lack of incentives for conservation, and is unsustainable because under the Rent Control Act, market rents can’t be charged. The government also unfortunately believes that urban grain is not important and allows its redevelopment.

Popular landmarks do get governmental funding but repairs are carried out by usual bureaucratic procedures, with the lowest bidder getting the work. As a result, many of the buildings do not accrue real benefit of this spending. Moreover, the ‘beautification’ approach I described earlier dominates such repairs, where cleaning is more important as compared to actual structural repairs or strengthening.

Restored Nave, Interior of the 433 year old St. John the Baptist Church at Thane
Image: Vikas Dilawari Architects

There are also very few private owners or clients interested in quality conservation. It is thanks to a small number of really concerned and knowledgeable citizens that the conservation torch is still alive.

It is desirable that rent control be removed and skillful repairs using like-to-like materials with minimum intervention be introduced meticulously. We need to appreciate that when residential tenanted properties are conserved and repaired, they serve as affordable housing, which is missing in the city.


DALVI
What is your opinion of the new rules for redevelopment in Mumbai, especially the sections 33/7 and 33/9? You have talked about the fabric of the city. What consequences do you think Cluster Development will have on the city’s fabric?  How do you look at the new DC rules that are to be promulgated shortly?

DILAWARI
It is unfortunate that our Government thinks that “Redevelopment” is the only solution for the dilapidated tenanted buildings. Redevelopment comes with a price. It erases a close knit interwoven socio- cultural fabric which forms that particular place; replacing it with a new typology, new inhabitants who get less of public facilities like reduced open spaces. It also severely loads the already fragile century-old infrastructure, as that has not been renewed. It is really sad that the surveys reveal a decline in the population in B, C & D wards of Mumbai but we are constructing high density, upmarket, high-rise blocks which certainly don’t cater to those in need of affordable housing. This is because “redevelopment” only caters to the greed of individual developer and is not related to any larger picture of the city.

Cluster Development thus comes into play within the larger picture. Ideally, structurally sound and vibrant housing stock should be viewed like trees and can be retained while new development can happen around it, integrating it harmoniously. This is not the case here, as Cluster Development wants a clean slate. That is where the problem is. Imagine the Bhendi Bazaar area where Cluster Redevelopment is proposed; the very name of that place has a ‘Bazaar’ attached to it. But, if you see the redevelopment proposal, the bazaar factor will be erased forever, especially the famous Chor Bazaar.


DALVI
Hasn't the problem of redevelopment been the result of the government largesse of 'free housing'. In a sense this did create unreasonable aspirations in the inhabitants and has effectively killed off the work of the Repair Board that quietly worked for several decades to keep ld buildings functional?

DILAWARI
Giving free additional space as per minimum standards is a big burden and should be curbed as it affects the overall health of the city. Areas like Bhendi Bazaar are already very dense and they will become even denser affecting the quality of life which is all important.

Imagine the CP Tank area undergoing Cluster Redevelopment. It would be really disastrous as that place has such a complex interwoven socio-cultural matrix which is the actual soul of the area. The Cluster Redevelopment following sections 33/7 and 33/9 will destroy that.  For example, the Lal Baug area is known for its cultural festivals like Ganeshotsav, with pandals that come up in the open spaces of chawls or in common open spaces between buildings. With redevelopment this too will be affected.

It is really sad that no investments are being done to encourage good repairs which are more effective, easily implementable and help in retaining quality of life and benefits the city. Charging redevelopment cess is one way where money can be ploughed back directly to improve the infrastructure of that area and used as additional cess fund to repair this building stock. Why is TDR (transfer of development rights) used for redevelopment but not for building repairs is the question we should ask.

I am currently involved in restoring a fair number of residential community housing or tenanted buildings belonging to various trusts and I find that once these are restored, it is hard to believe you are still in Mumbai, as these buildings are actually neglected gems but seen together as a precinct, they are like oases in a concrete desert.    


DALVI
One of the ways your conservation practice stands out amongst others in the city is the attention you have paid to the lived-in buildings, especially domestic architecture inhabited by largely the middle class of the city? What has been your experience with dealing with a number of end-users, as opposed to a single client or patron?

DILAWARI
It is not easy to deal with several clients. Dealing with tenants as individuals is always difficult as their tastes vary largely.      

I was fortunate to get very good clients in trustees of the Sethna group of buildings, who believed in being custodians of heritage and were concerned of the difficulties of middle and poor income residents. These buildings and the spaces used by the owners had great associational value as the generation staying currently was born here and had bonded with this area and community.

Sethna group of buildings, Tardeo, Mumbai

Image: Vikas Dilawari Architects

These were ordinary buildings, fairly dilapidated with nothing significant in its external appearance. However, as we proceeded further, we realised that these buildings are actually beautiful in their simplicity. The past interventions had stripped the buildings of its details and once we restored them, we realised that other owners wanted the same treatment for their buildings. We found that skillful and economical repairs, using good modern material replacements (like RCC slabs in place of jack arches), we could prolong the life of the building. So a pilot exercise on one building helped us restore seven buildings in this complex.

View of restored Cama Building
at Gilder Lane, Mumbai Central
Image: Vikas Dilawari Architects

The next complex we did was Lal Chimney. Here, we realised that these were ornate structures and required a lot of wood work which, when restored, brought back the old time charm. This made us believe that many of old Mumbai’s unloved buildings are actually precious gems. We are now dealing with a large ensemble of 23 buildings in Gilder Lane. Here, we are now restoring a few buildings, and at the same time, redesigning new buildings in scale and harmony with the existing by using salvaged materials and catering to the new needs of the community like introducing a geriatric ward for the caring of the aged.

Corridor of restored Cama Building
at Gilder Lane, Mumbai Central
Image: Vikas Dilawari Architects

DALVI
You have talked of making your practice of conserving public monuments transparent-that is- open to the view of the general public, even as the work goes on. Could you elaborate on the values (and pitfalls) of this process?

DILAWARI
In the UK, any project that receives government funding has to be educational in nature which means that a model or a film explaining what was done or the actual work that is happening is showcased in a regulated manner to the citizen. We did that for stained glass work while working on the Rajabai Tower. This not only generates a lot of interest but brings a great amount of awareness at all cross-sections of the society. I believe this will also ensure high standards as it is open for scrutiny by all citizens. The only pitfall is that cynics and vested interests will always criticise and this can be demoralising.


DALVI
As an educationist, what were your learnings in terms of the propagation of conservation among architects? Why do the precepts of conservation not permeate through general architectural practice, as sustainability and barrier-free design has now begun to do?

DILAWARI

I have now been teaching and practising for the past 25 years in various capacities, initially as a visiting lecturer teaching conservation as an elective subject and then as a head of department. The propagation of Conservation has taught me to make architects aware of the built environment they have inherited by understanding the layers- first, the historical, followed by the social and cultural patterns prevalent at that time that shaped the environment, and then finally, understanding the construction technology and materials that built it. This task is possible by site surveys and through text books. Mapping these layers shows how interestingly our cities are made and why they work.

St John the Baptist Church at Thane, exterior after restoration
Image: Vikas Dilawari Architects

After the mapping, the next stage is to understand the defects and its causes whether in an urban area or in a building. It is here you analyse how wrong policies can result in the deterioration of built environment. This is the complex part, as time available and the maturity level of the student (due to the lack of practical experience) generates good mapping but not ideal working solutions. I strongly believe that practical knowledge should be coupled with theory while imparting education, as it happens in medical colleges housed within hospital complexes.

If one looks back to our academic syllabus, measured drawing was an integral part of the training but this is now ignored by many. Reintroduction of such subjects will give an opportunity to students to get firsthand experience of a monument that will educate them in materials and construction technology. I have also noticed that our sensitivity bar needs to be raised. If conservation is introduced at the under graduate level, then it helps in controlling of egos as we learn to respect the original creation.

In the five years of architectural education, the focus is on creation however, the preservation of built environment should also be included. Mainstreaming is possible when there is a need or demand in the society, backed by appropriate government policies, which presently are lacking. Once conservation becomes viable professionally to sustain a practice, I guess it will become more permeable.  

VIKAS DILAWARI
Vikas Dilawari is a conservation architect with more than two and half decades of experience exclusively in the conservation field, ranging from urban to architecture to interiors. He obtained his double Masters in Conservation from School of Planning and Architecture (New Delhi) and from the University of York (UK).

He was the Head of Department of Conservation Department at Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture (KRVIA) Mumbai from its inception in 2007 till Aug 2014. He has served as advisory roles in International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA). He is a Trustee of Indian Heritage Cities Network (IHCN) and Co- Convener of INTACH Mumbai Chapter.

His practice has executed conservation projects ranging from prime landmarks to unloved buildings of Mumbai. His nationwide work includes projects ranging from historic homes, palaces, residential buildings, educational buildings (Schools and Colleges), hostels, churches, temples, dharamsalas, museums, banks, office buildings, lecture halls, fountains and hospitals. Several of them have received national and international recognition. A total of twelve of his projects have won UNESCO ASIA PACIFIC Awards for Cultural Preservation in SE Asia.

Architect Dilawari has lectured and written extensively on the subject of conservation nationally and internationally.

‘Historicize and Problematize’

The inaugural conference of ‘The State of Architecture’ exhibition (currently on at the NGMA, Mumbai, curated by Rahul Mehrotra, Ranjit Hoskote and Kaiwan Mehta) called ‘The State of the Profession’ achieved the objective set out by Kaiwan Mehta in his opening remarks: ‘Historicize and Problematize’. In doing so several affirmative readings were possible about the state of architecture in India today. The conference covered the profession, practice, education, criticism and institutions. Here are some larger impressions that remained with me:

The profession of architecture, if seen as a collective set of ideals, is difficult to pin down. At one level this is the consequence of the diversity of practice that is now increasingly prevalent. Yet at another, this difficulty may be attributed to the lack of ‘communities of judgment’, to use an evocative phrase by Pratap Bhanu Mehta, who gave the conference’s keynote address, among architects in the country. Looking towards ‘institutional’ definitions does not seem to help, as institutions too, in a sense are ensconced in silos of their own making. 

The choices made by several architects who spoke at the conference present (rather than represent) the ‘problematization’ of the profession and the fuzzy presence of the professional. This conference brought together such professionals whose practices are essentially reflexive, rather than located in the self-confident comfort zone of the mainstream. For what it is worth, this too can be attributed to the impotence of regulatory mechanisms or the community’s own unwillingness to introspect as a collective. Questions were raised, but it will be some time before definite readings are possible.

The practice of architecture in India, since the millennium, seems to have grown richer by moving outside of the mainstream. It is not the diversity of practices that are the most revelatory (although that is important) but the diversity within individual practice. The embracing of multiple disciplines, media, collaborations and muses have resulted in a variety of ‘messy practices’, reflecting the ‘punctuated chaos’ (to quote Bill Gates) that we find ourselves in currently. This can only be a good thing. The feedback loop between thinking and doing gushes like a cataract in some practices. In many cases, these practices cater to the same patrons as that of the mainstream, indicating a more enlightened patronage and a greater sense of collegiality and synthesis. 

On the other hand some practices, co-create with end users, bringing themselves in direct contact with the communities they design for, even searching out communities not catered to by architects so far. Several practices reach out to the marginalized- slum inhabitants, those living in tribal or rural areas located far away from transport streams. These architects subsume their expressions into those of their constituents, and even encourage the users to express themselves in the built form. There is an embedded-ness of the crafts-person in the design process. This does hark back to the pre-modernist practices in the country before technology got valorized at the expense of the indigenous crafts tradition.

The state of architectural education is particularly problematic. It should have been an article of faith that schools of architecture were the laboratories that informed architectural practice. This does not seem to be happening. Education is overwhelmed by numbers. One of the unique features of this exhibition is the location of architecture within the larger eco-system of education, criticism, location and institutions. What emerges is that from 2015 onward, more than 25,000 students will graduate from the 450 odd architecture schools in the country. This is a number greater than the number of practicing architects in the country. This begs the question- who are the teachers, and what is the nature of learning in these many schools? How may quality or innovation or farsightedness be possible in this proliferation? 

Curricula too, are largely prescriptive, where under the rubric of a single university, may cater to the lowest common denominator. The roles of both students and teachers of architecture have to be re-examined in the light of fast and easily available information. The top down didactic and ‘expert’ supervisory approaches seem to have lost their relevance. The teacher has to be reimagined as an ongoing learner and co-create with the student. There are few stand-alone schools in this country who may chart their own course. A clear call was made in the conference for a syllabus that was more flexible and less prescriptive, less of a cookie-cutter, one size fits all templates. Here, the diversity of practices can provide role models, and be muse to architectural education rather than the other way around.

The role of institutions that oversee the profession was perhaps the most problematic. The governing institutions mandated to look after the interest of architects and to regulate practices and provide codes of conduct under which practices could flourish seemed to present a monocular gaze, more at ease with the mainstream sense of the profession. Laboring under self-perpetuating myths of their own presence, they presented a stance of protectionism and definition. The current positions of institutions comes across as largely reactionary- expressing fears of encroachment by ‘others’- by engineers, by ‘non-architects’ of various stripes, by foreign firms, by project managers. In the affirmative universe of collaboration and multi-disciplinarity they seem to write themselves out by focusing too much on who should be an architect and who should not. 

While it was readily accepted in the conference that architects as a whole in the county influence a relatively small amount of actual building, the vast majority of building still happens outside the pale of institutional memberships. The institutions themselves did not seem to accommodate this reality in a worldview largely oriented towards building memberships and corpuses.

In both the exhibition and the conference, the state of criticism in the country was historicized perhaps for the first time . Architectural writing and critical self-examination is only now emerging, and its influence is far from clear. More books on Indian architecture are being written, but not enough on contemporary concerns and challenges. Like reflexive practices, we need more of reflexive criticism whether in books or journals. Journals such as that of the Indian Institute of Architects have excellent archival value, particularly from its early decades, but do not provide critical writing. Other magazines that have emerged since the turn of the century largely valorize and commemorate the boutique practices and showcase architects in their very limited roles as lifestyle designers. 

There is also a dearth of academic writing on architecture because of the absence of peer-reviewed journals on architecture. In the last couple of years some journals have been established but their value shall only be seen in their sustainability.

If one had to rank the various states of architecture in India based on the deliberations and the initial viewing of the exhibition, the practices in constant dialogue with themselves and their larger environment are the most encouraging. The profession is being redefined by these practices and has a potential to influence education and criticism. There have to have a larger presence on the cultural consciousness of the country for lasting value, much beyond the confines of this conference. Architectural journalism still has to take off to meet these practices half-way and become the critical carriers of potential.  Architectural education has to resume its role as producer of ideas and alternatives that can be fructified in practice. The institutions that govern architecture need deep self-examination as to their present and future relevance.

One issue undiscussed in most part was the location of the Indian architect in a stage larger than the local. Perhaps the valedictory conference that focuses on architecture in South Asia will pick up the gauntlet.

The Agency of Architecture: In Conversation with Rahul Mehrotra

Rahul Mehrotra and Friend

credit: RMA Architects

This conversation was first published in 

Tekton: A Journal of Architecture, Urban Design & Planning; 

Volume 1, Issue 1, September 2014; pp. 106 - 119

Published with kind permission from Tekton.
www.tekton.mes.ac.in

All images published with kind permission from Rahul Mehrotra and RMA.

www.RMAarchitects.com


The Agency of Architecture:

In Conversation with Rahul Mehrotra

by

Mustansir Dalvi

It is inevitable that any interview with Rahul Mehrotra is going to be multi-disciplinary in nature. In his person and in his practice Mehrotra straddles several spheres with ease- architecture, planning, urbanism, history, conservation, research, social concerns, socio-urban activism, writing and pedagogy, all this with a critical eye on the present. He has been an initiator of the architectural conservation movement in Mumbai that set an example for the rest of India and (with Sharada Dwivedi) the primary narrator of the history of Mumbai. In his work, Mehrotra explores beyond the obvious, ‘beyond binaries’, as he puts it, making each project a transformative one for the users and the immediate physical context. He has been teaching full-time for the past decade and his practice and research come together and are forwarded by his pedagogical interests. This conversation covers many of his interests and becomes a dialogue of ideas and possibilities.

DALVI

In your architectural projects at RMA, you have frequently gone beyond the conventional limits of site, even immediate context. You have tried to incorporate the intangible, addressed socio-cultural immediacies, and sought new significance, whether in projects like Hathigaon in Jaipur, the more globalized offices for corporate houses or even single-family dwellings.

MEHROTRA

For me understanding the ‘context of the context’ is the starting point. I think the physical excavations of a site are the more obvious parameters to extricate – climate, geology, materials availability, local craft and building practices etc. The more challenging, but perhaps far more nourishing excavation is making the relationships between this obvious set of excavations from the site with the more intangible, the deeper histories, implicit cultures, the broader contemporary flows etc.

Kala Ghoda Art District

Constructing new significance for historic public spaces - the evolving Kala Ghoda art district.

credit: RMA Architects

DALVI

Could you tell describe the processes that allow you to, as you say 'localize the global and globalize the local'? How do these impact design?

MEHROTRA

This establishing of the ‘context of the context’ allows one to go beyond simplistic binaries and, sort of, invert categories in an exciting way. For me the questions of significance, identity etc. are not found categories – these have to be constructed and the only way one can do that as a designer is to situate the site and its reading within the larger, ever evolving context. In this same way the global and local as a binary is not productive and the challenge then is how we invert them, because by localizing the global you get these flows to be more invested in the local. Inversely, the local as a caricature of itself is less useful in comparison to when the local resonates globally or is at least networked globally. Thus for me the exercise of writing, research and teaching in that sense are completely part of the practice as they become the forum for this kind of excavation and research which becomes the basis for practice.

SPARC Public Toilet Prototype

A prototype for public toilets in Mumbai slums - project for SPARC and SDI.

credit: RMA Architects

DALVI

Can you elaborate on the idea of ‘inverting categories’?

MEHROTRA

At the urban level, an example of this inverting of categories to blur binaries is the case of the Kala Ghoda Art district. Situated within a historic district this zone was never an art district. If one had approached the problem using the narrative of the culture that created this environment – such as the canons that determine conservation practise in the UK – we would have frozen this space in time – probably written up its significance and been rather dogmatic about what we should allow there or not. However, when the custodians of an environment are another culture – we have to find other ways of engaging with this process – especially in the post colonial situation of Mumbai. 

By constructing a new significance of the Kala Ghoda are as an Art District allowed the historic and contemporary to blur. The symbolic and ideological significance of the space was drained in a sense to allow the occupation of new use– ones that ultimate drove the process of conservation. In this condition the responsibilities that rest on the architect are even greater as they have to walk the thin line between constructing a new significance and keeping the illusion of the historic built form intact!

Another example is the Slum Dwellers international (SDI) where its very local experience through its international networks resonates globally in terms of lessons, approaches and attitudes emanating out of something that is such a specific condition - life in a Mumbai slum! One could have fetishized and caricatured the local as it is seen as specific, but the moment it is ‘globalized’, in this case through a network, its resonance amplifies in productive ways.

DALVI

The millennium is now almost a decade and a half old now. Do you see trends/tropes in Indian architecture that will have a long-term impact on design, beyond quotidian practice?

MEHROTRA

The kind of architecture we are seeing perpetuated by an infusion of footloose capital is resulting a hardening of the disparities that exist in our society. The built form manifestations of these inequities actually create deadly polarities. Perhaps these inequities have always existed but were less evident in the past. Sometimes the just the illusion of equity is perhaps more productive in the long run in terms of how different parts of society slip into each other’s domains in space. But when architecture begins to play a role in dissuading and perhaps even preventing that blur, that transgression– I think we are setting ourselves up for a highly polarized society.

It is a condition where architecture becomes the instrument to create forms of exclusiveness. In this condition, as architects we have to be mindful of how we create expressions of form and spatial arrangements that don’t get co-opted in a process that is exclusionary. If we have to maintain our relevance to society as practitioners we have no choice but to press architecture to the service of society in more rigorous ways. I think questions of inequity and the role of architecture: place making and dealing with orchestrations of the built environment more generally will have to once again become the focus of both the teaching and practice of architecture.

DALVI

Are you optimistic about our architectural futures, or has 'impatient capital' overtaken us completely?

MEHROTRA

The architecture of Impatient Capital is brittle – its fault lines are already becoming evident – its obvious detachment from place and its unsustainable consumption or resources. Surely as human being we are more intelligent that to be seduced by this paradigm.

I think the greatest role architecture can play in the coming decades in India is to resist strategically the remaking of our cities and built environments in a singular image (like China has done). Instead I think architecture will and should remind us in our daily lives about the richness in India of the pluralistic society we live in.

DALVI

We seem to have opted for this singularity ourselves, as in this current election. Overwhelmingly, or so it seems, those aspiring impatiently for capital, or those impatiently wishing to  express themselves through their capital have elected a government that will attempt to re-jig Indian plurality into a single image.

MEHROTRA

Thank you for this– an incredibly important as well as complicated question!

Whether we have opted for a singularity or not only time will tell. In our system even a majority like this in terms of seats in parliament does not indicate a popular vote of more that 35 or 40%. But yes, it does indicate a singularity of power and its deployment. How this power will be manifest in the built environment we can only speculate about for now. Clearly the rhetoric of the elections has caught the imagination of the vast portion of the country – where aspirations of stability and an increased role of the state in delivering services is clearly what created such a majority for the new government. I think this is more pointedly driven by middle class aspirations for more stable and predictable services – all the way from education and healthcare to mobility and employment.

Thus as a response to this, I believe in this case, with a BJP majority, it will be the deployment of centralized forms of infrastructure- which will support the creation of these crucial services that people aspire for in their daily lives. Completion of ongoing highway projects, perhaps railways and other modes of communications, hospitals, Universities etc. It will be the Chinese model of centralized power structures and the infrastructure that supports that kind of operation.

The effects of this will be two fold. Firstly, the destruction of many existing urban fabrics and also the natural landscape. This will perhaps make cities efficient in terms of mobility and basic infrastructure like water and sanitation but will create many social disruptions. The second will be through the new networks that will open up the vast hinterlands of our many urban centres in the form of small towns growing rapidly and new towns which will be fuelled by the rampant liberation of capita deployment through real estate development in the these fragile locations. This sort of development model can be transformational for a majority of the country’s population but has some obvious disruptive tendencies – the trade-offs and the contestations that involve these trade-offs is what will characterize our politics in this coming decade.

DALVI

Do you think architecture has a role of resistance in this current dispensation? How should it function?

MEHROTRA

Naturally, the question for us is- what is the role of architecture in resisting or facilitating this process? It is here that the role of education becomes critical. Erasing the plurality of our landscape can be resisted at many levels – local and national. So more than ever before we are going to need the profession to simultaneous play many roles: of practitioners, of well organized large scale practitioners, of activists, of community organizers, of inter-disciplinary facilitators, etc. Pluralism can only be reinforced through architecture by encouraging multiple modes of the practices of architecture through a spectrum of scales across the nation. The several hundreds of small town across in India, for example, don't have architects even living and working there– if at all we have any influence currently on these places, it is through professionals in our megacities – this will have to change if architecture has to have any agency as an instrument to resist the rampant remaking of our cities in one image.

DALVI

You have lived, researched and practiced out of Mumbai for several decades now. You continue to be Mumbai's foremost architectural and urban chronicler. In our complex and complicated present, is it possible to effectively preserve its urban integrity, and to function as a cultural custodian of our city?

MEHROTRA

It is. I think the challenge is to not worry about the parts of the city but focus on how one facilitates connections between the parts – makes the adjacencies of disparities and of plurality to cohesively coexist. It is this in between spaces of connections that will lie the most fecund possibilities and potential.

These spaces also become the site of the construction of new cultures and this where the role of architecture and that of the construction of new cultures, new significances in our society and finally identity is formed.

The spaces that I am alluding to more particularly in Mumbai are the post-industrial landscapes, the public spaces that we are reclaiming and safeguarding (all the way from the green spaces in the city and waterfronts to the spaces around our railway stations and public institutions) and more importantly in the interstitial spaces that approximately half our populations resides.

Hathi gian- Elephants and keepers

Image from Hathigaon - Project for Elephants their Keepers. View showing a mahout arriving home to his family after a day of work with the elephant.

credit: Rahul Mehrotra

DALVI

Where is the place and relevance of memory in the post-industrial city?

MEHROTRA

It is scattered and fractured, but it does exist. The form and space takes in this post-industrial condition in Mumbai is at two levels. One where the fracture becomes more acute – work and living gets situated in multiple locations and this is not a neat category. Memory takes on a more temporal form in this condition– not necessarily through architecture only. That’s why I believe festivals have now an amplified role in the life and identity formation process of the city of Mumbai. The second (and probably polar opposite) is the  creation of exclusive gated communities in the city, sometimes in the form of extreme imaginations that have been facilitated by the cluster development idea and at others just as vertical gated communities in the heart of poorer neighbourhoods. In both cases, it is about the occupation of interstitial space within the city, not at the perimeter.

Hathigaon- Home

Image from Hathigaon - Project for Elephants their Keepers. The intimate relationship of the elephant and mahout drives the scale and layout of each home. One of the many considerations to balance was to accommodate the elephant's requirements, while providing a safe environment for children.

credit: Rajesh Vora

DALVI

Your current research is focused on evolving a theoretical framework for designing in conditions of informal growth. In a city like Mumbai, which seems to be slipping into a 'post-planning' phase, what strategies emerge to deal with such conditions?

MEHROTRA

I believe the State cannot absolve itself the responsibility of planning. Planning in fact is intrinsically a state subject. Having said that the question is how can state reengage and at what scales? Naturally the obvious scale for the state’s involvement would need to be infrastructure and facilitating the governance structure that make possible urban form at local levels.

However the state’s imagination about what the city should be limits any effective intervention at any scale. Essentially our narratives about the city set up non-productive binaries – the rich and poor or formal and informal city etc. These force us as designers to ally with one or the other imagination. I think for design to be effective it must consciously dissolve these binaries and I believe design can play a crucial role in doing this.

Ganesh Immersion in Mumbai

Architecture is not the ‘spectacle’ of the city nor does it even comprise the single dominant image of the city. In contrast, festivals such as Ganesh Chathurthi shown here have emerged as the spectacles of the Kinetic City.

credit: Rahul Mehrotra

DALVI

Has your research given fresh directions to address issues of inclusivity, and to redress the polarization that is the consequence of the state outsourcing those processes that we traditionally associated with welfare or socialist governance?

MEHROTRA

My current research looks at this condition of dissolving or blurring these binaries and I describe the current condition of urbanism in India as the Kinetic City. This Kinetic City framework has the potential to allow a better understanding of the blurred lines of contemporary urbanism and the changing roles of people and spaces in urban society.

In most Indian cities, the increasing concentrations of global flows have exacerbated the inequalities and spatial divisions of social classes. In this context, an architecture or urbanism of equality in an increasingly inequitable economic condition requires looking deeper to find a wide range of places to acknowledge and commemorate the cultures and environments of those excluded from the spaces of global flows. These don’t necessarily lie in the formal production of architecture, but often challenge it.

Here the idea of a city is an elastic urban condition, not a grand vision, but a grand adjustment. The Kinetic City obviously cannot be seen as a design tool rather a demand that conceptions of urbanism create and facilitate environments that are versatile and flexible, robust and ambiguous enough to allow this kinetic quality of the city to flourish. Architecture and design more generally play a massive role in how this happens.

In fact we should not use the word ‘inclusive city’ – what we should ask is how through design we can make our cities less exclusive or excluding of people and especially the poor. I am hoping to capture and articulate these observations and approaches in a way that it might useful for the next generation to intervene in these spaces more effectively.

Inequalities in Mumbai

As can be seen in Mumbai, architecture and urban design can heighten inequalities that exist in society.

credit: Rahul Mehrotra

DALVI

The state seems to abhor elasticity, and, as you say, is comfortable within binaries. Will architects therefore have to go beyond their current limitations as interveners in the urban landscape, and establish new roles for themselves?

MEHROTRA

Absolutely! 

Architects will have to find new modes of engaging with influencing the built environment. Naturally this will depend on if architects are motivated to change the polarization that might occur with the state perpetuating the binaries. It will depend on how idealistic we want to be. In a boom economy architects can also get very comfortable with lots of easy projects and a general affluence which is seductive. So as a community we have to construct the correct narratives that will keep us engaged, responsible and connected to the realities that will evolve around us. I believe society invests in us to safeguard and imagine the best spatial possibilities for a society to exist and thrive in. So it is contingent, if we are concerned about our relevance, to not forget this essential role we play in society.

DALVI

Could you give us a brief history of your career as an academic? What are your main concerns in architectural pedagogy today?

MEHROTRA

I entered academics rather accidentally through a chance meeting with the Dean of the University of Michigan who offered me the opportunity to come teach for a term. I loved it! Essentially could not believe I had not done this before and I subsequently returned a couple of years later to the University of Michigan and one thing led to the other and brought me to my current position.

In retrospective my 11 years of teaching have been the most satisfying moments in my career as an architect. In some ways I am glad I went into the academy after a good 15 years of practice as this besides giving me some experience to talk from also allowed me to reflect on a body of work. And in fact this has been the single most valuable thing for me – that is reflect on my practice as I teach. As a teacher you have to make your talk walk.

But more critically, coming from India after 15 years of practice also gave me a different perspective on pedagogy. Coming from a highly pluralistic conditions where many cultures, ways of doing things and many times exist simultaneously, made me think critically about the simultaneous validity of this difference. The way this extended itself into my approach to teaching was to think about different models of engagement and practice and how one might actually build that into a curriculum. Of course this is a complicated and an ongoing project and I do hope I can share this when it’s evolved a little more.

DALVI

How do you approach the teaching of architecture and urban design in India, as opposed to teaching abroad, as in the Harvard Graduate School of Design?

MEHROTRA

In today’s world I think we see similar challenges whether it’s in India or the USA. In fact in India, you see the same conditions in extreme form and thus testing these Ideas in India would actually create better or at least more extreme conditions. I believe theory comes from action on the ground and it is in places like India, China, Latin America and Africa that the action is today.

credit: RMA Architects

RAHUL MEHROTRA

Rahul Mehrotra is a practising architect and educator. He works in Mumbai and teaches at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, where he is Professor of Urban Design and Planning, and Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design as well as a member of the steering committee of Harvard’s South Asia Initiative.

His practice, RMA Architects (www.RMAarchitects.com), founded in 1990, has executed a range of projects across India. These diverse projects have engaged many issues, multiple constituencies and varying scales, from interior design and architecture to urban design, conservation and planning. As Trustee of the Urban Design Research Institute (UDRI), and Partners for Urban Knowledge Action and Research (PUKAR) both based in Mumbai, Mehrotra continues to be actively involved as an activist in the civic and urban affairs of the city.

Mehrotra has written and lectured extensively on architecture, conservation and urban planning. He has written, co-authored and edited a vast repertoire of books on Mumbai, its urban history, its historic buildings, public spaces and planning processes.

He is a member of the Steering Committee of the Aga Khan Awards for Architecture and currently serves on the governing boards of the London School of Economics Cities Programme and the Indian Institute of Human Settlements (IIHS).