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Architectural Contributions of Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore

Mahatma Gandhi, was a major political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer and perfector of Satyagraha—the resistance of tyranny through mass civil disobedience, firmly founded upon ahimsa or total non-violence—which led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.

Throughout his life, Gandhi remained committed to non-violence and truth even in the most extreme situations. A student of Hindu philosophy, he lived simply, organizing an ashram that was self-sufficient in its needs. Making his own clothes—the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl woven with a charkha, he lived on a simple vegetarian diet. He used rigorous fasts, for long periods, for both self-purification and protest.

Gandhi earnestly believed that a person involved in social service should lead a simple life which he thought could lead to Brahmacharya. His simplicity began by renouncing the western lifestyle he was leading in South Africa. He called it "reducing himself to zero", which entailed giving up unnecessary expenditure, embracing a simple lifestyle and washing his own clothes.[22] On one occasion he returned the gifts bestowed to him from the natals for his diligent service to the community.

Gandhi and Architecture:

Gandhi earnestly believed that a person involved in social service should lead a simple life which he thought could lead to Brahmacharya. His simplicity began by renouncing the western lifestyle he was leading in South Africa. He called it "reducing himself to zero", which entailed giving up unnecessary expenditure, embracing a simple lifestyle and washing his own clothes. On one occasion he returned the gifts bestowed to him from the natals for his diligent service to the community.

The Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya seeks to keep alive the message of Gandhi's life and work through the following activities: collection, preservation and display of Gandhi's writings, photographs, paintings, voice-records, with as well as helping and undertaking study and research in Gandhian thought and activities and publishing the results of such study and research and allied literature for the benefit of the people; maintaining contact with the youth and student community and providing facilities to them for the study of Gandhian thought; arranging exhibitions on aspects of Gandhi's life, literature and activities; observance in a suitable manner of occasions connected with Gandhi's life.

The post-independence generation saw an increasing number of architects from South Asia migrate to Europe and the United States for advanced studies. Some of these would later return, setting up practice and often evolving highly original styles of work, combining Western rationalism and architectural theory with vernacular tradition and an appreciation of the need to preserve and reinvent South Asia’s built heritage for a postcolonial age.
In the ranks of those who have contributed substantially to architectural practice and discourse in South Asia is Charles Correa. Born in 1930 of Goan origin, Correa studied at the University of Michigan, and then the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, before establishing a practice in Bombay. Over the span of a career starting in the early 1950s to the present day, Correa has evolved a distinctive style of his own and has been a chief actor or major participant in various influential projects that shape and give definition to postcolonial South Asian architecture.

At the Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya, Ahmedabad (1958 – 63), Correa uses a network of interconnected open-to-sky spaces landscaped in different themes, to recreate the Gandhian ideal of a self-sufficient village community. The result is an elegant solution that is climatically sound and energy-efficient, uses low-cost material and finishes, and above all conveys some sense of the solemnity and dignity appropriate for an institution dedicated to Gandhi’s life and work.
Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya, Ahmedabad. Plan. Notice massing of units.
Especially remarkable here is Correa’s use of natural light in conjunction with semi-open spaces to create tonal gradations in illumination and shadows. Correa acknowledges a strong debt to Le Corbusier, and this effect of the Frenchman’s influence is clearly visible here. The museum is solemn without being overbearing, is austere without appearing to make an effort to be so.
Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya, Ahmedabad. View of courts.. Note use and blend of material and texture.
Continuing the same effort to interpret India’s vernacular architecture in a modern typology, the National Crafts Museum (1975-90) at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, provides a forum to craftspeople nationwide to showcase their art – and the process of its creation! – to visitors, both resident and alien.
National Crafts Museum, New Delhi. Plan. Note linkage of spaces.
Its spaces massed together to recreate an Indian village, the Museum incorporates extensive use of vernacular material – stone, bamboo, brick, mud, thatch – and uses craftwork as both interior and exterior ornamentation. The result is once again a very impressive series of spaces that hold together as a unit, and display a high degree of functional efficiency. Correa demonstrates here a successful transition of the vernacular to the modern, as also how traditional architectural vocabulary need not be synonymous with ‘backward’.
National Crafts Museum, New Delhi. Views with details of ornament and landscape elements.
It is in his native Goa that Correa demonstrates a flair for an elegant use of colour and contrast, combined with intelligent space planning. In the Kala Akademi, Panaji, (1973-83) a centre for the performing arts, and the Cidade de Goa (1978-82), a luxury hotel, he plays with a hierarchy of spaces and terraces to create a spectacle of sorts in itself – and at both these sites an illusion of space and spectators is created by paintings complementing the architecture. At the Kala Akademi especially, Mario Miranda creates a skilful impression of people already present in the theatre. The Cidade de Goa – ‘City of Goa’ in Portuguese – is planned as a microcosm of a traditional city – complete with pedestrian streets, open space and marketplaces.
Kala Akademi, Panaji. Interior View. The right side of this interior, including the human figures at bottom right, is actually a painting.
Cidade de Goa, Goa. External terraces and balconies

Nascent Nationalism and Indian Architecture
From the middle of the 19th century, nationalistic currents in India began to be more and more pronounced. These were the result of English education making itself felt amongst the wealthier class of Indian on the one hand, and the efforts of indigenous reformers on the other, who felt that Indian traditional culture and customs were in danger of being wiped out by European culture. The first lot would go on to espouse increasing modernity and appropriation of the industrial, financial and governmental institutions of the West as a way for India to catch up with the developed world, while the second category would militate for a return to traditional values and culture systems as the path for India to recover her lost glory. These streams have been variously classed as the Modernist movement and the Swadeshi/Revivalist movement, but it is also equally certain that these labels have been applied with the advantage of hindsight, and that at the time there were no clear-cut differences between various people working for or towards a pan-Indian nationalism, but rather different points of view as to how to best achieve the target of greater self-sufficiency, autonomous decision-making and safeguarding and preserving what remained of Indian traditional skills and customs. As with all beginnings, here too a philosophy of nationalism had to be worked out before it found an echo in art and architecture. In Bengal, the Tagore brothers (Rabindranath, Abanindranath and Gaganendranath) were the chief founders of what would be later called the Bengal school of artistic thought. Strongly revivalist in character, the school would be known later for housing and giving patronage for artists from all over India, with an emphasis on folk themes, the rejection of European techniques and a search for a pan-Asian art form. These ideals would find an echo in the architecture of Shantiniketan, Rabindranath Tagore’s school of art and culture begun in 1901, providing education from the pre-school to a graduate level. Shantiniketan’s development would be closely identified with that of the nationalist movement, especially the so-called ‘swadeshi’ branch. It was inevitable, then, that the architecture of Shantiniketan would search to find appropriate inspiration and symbology in India’s past. The school buildings have eclectic origins, ranging from Buddhist gateways and columns to Mughal and Rajput style window openings, even though the floor plan designs themselves remain far more functional.
Gandhi was another nationalist whose ideas of life, nationalism and India’s future course are so well known that it would be futile to discuss them at length here. These ideals of simplicity, equality, austerity and non-violence found ample reflection in the architecture of the many ashrams which he established or patronized, both in South Africa and in India. The Sabarmati Ashram at Ahmedabad is a very representative example. Here, the buildings emulate those in a simple village, with mud and brick construction, low thatched roofs and sometimes even straw mats for doors and windows. Open spaces between the huts and buildings continue the metaphor of village life, as did Gandhi’s insistence on self-sufficiency and dignity of labor.
A curious movement would be started by Sris Chandra Chatterjee in the 1930s, curious because it was called the Modern Indian Architectural Movement but referred in the main to a pastiche of traditional symbology and elements stuck on the facades of fairly functional structures. In this sense it made for easy identification and was popular with indigenous clients because it contained visibly identifiable symbols from the past. In 1940, Chatterjee was one of the patrons of the ‘All India League of Indian Architecture’, which had strong ideological roots in the architectural styles of Shantiniketan and Sabarmati Ashram. The stated intent of the League was the search for a specifically ‘Indian’ Architecture and among its aims were to write textbooks and manuals to further hone the skills of people who already had a background in construction or the arts (for example architects, engineers and painters).
Chatterjee’s most famous work is the Lakshmi-Narayan Temple at Delhi, near Connaught Place, a colossal place of worship funded by the Birlas in 1938. Apart from this, he also built the Arya Dharma Sangha Dharamsala at Sarnath in 1935, as well as a project for the Deshbandhu memorial to the Princess of Agartala.

A few urban planning projects were also inspired by these schools of thought. The plan of the Benares Hindu University (BHU) campus was supposedly based on Vedic principles, and so were many of the prominent buildings within it.

It is clear now that the nationalist movement found a clear echo in art and architecture of the period. Architects attempted to search the past for appropriate symbology which could effectively be used in the present as a reflection of popular sentiment, a sentiment which was turning decisively against the British and eventually against all things ‘white’ and ‘foreign’. It is not clear how much they achieved architecturally, for much of the world from the period, even avowedly ‘revivalist’, is merely a cloaking of modern-age requirements and plans by a pastiche of elements chosen, if not randomly, then at least eclectically. However, what can be said with certainty is that the architecture of the time was an accurate reflection of society – a society seeking for self-definition and turning to one source of inspiration after another to find it.

After the end sem, im left with a feeling that another sem had passed seemingly out of my own hands with me ever getting the feeling of the hold of it... my learning through this sem are marginal atleast architecturally.

Its not so that im so interested to learn something or like that .. its just that i wanted to involve... though i did it in some cases... nevertheless...

i start to realise there's lot to be done and lot to be understood. i have a responsibility to handle and im sure im gonna be acting god in doing it..

sayonara....

its been quite sometime since i had written something down on my blog... i believe i will just get better of using the blog. i just added google map to my blog. its quite easy and interesting.

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cheers

I always wanted my first blog to be something very interesting.. so i sat down quite some time to compile what i wanted to write.. i thought about many compelling areas which deserve a place in my blog.. the first one may be about the importance of blogs in today's all connected world...Instantly im against it just for one reason that im not the new one to propose anything new since every one already realised its value...

minutes later, i thought i can write something really out of box.. that which exists only in my imagination.. may be like a software that captures dreams... again i realised its not of some thing on which i can write episodes...

Weirdest i can write may be about movies in which the hero kills 40-50 villians in brief encounter which leaves us in a kind of dramatic trauma trying to judge ourselves for our decision to be a spectating victim for such an act. so i decided not to let movies spill over my blog...

well, till now, many thoughts flashed and went by leaving no substantial matter to put in my blog, i thought i need a break for some iced tea with a dishful of American choupsey...

I am really hopeful that i would find the right thing to post in my blog... till then good bye...