UTSOA

Course Description

India presents a remarkable, often overwhelming spectacle, revealing a cultural penchant for dichotomy and contrast, blending and assimilation. Centuries of interaction with other cultures have engendered a vast array of aesthetic practices in this diverse sub-continent. India has recorded the architectural legacy of different empires: the ruins of the Indus valley civilization, cities and temples of multiple Hindu kingdoms, citadels and astronomical observatories of the Rajputs, Islamic mosques, gardens and tombs, French and Portuguese colonial architecture, and the extensive influence of the British including the work of Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker. Post independence India has noted the modernist essays of Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn, establishing Chandigarh and Ahmedabad as centerpieces on the world stage of modern architecture. The influence of this extensive architectural repertoire is evident in the contemporary work of Indian practitioners: Charles Correa, Balkrishna Doshi, Raj Rewal and Joseph Stein.

This seminar will offer an imagined experience of contemporary India, employing a melange of film, literature, and architecture as opportunities for critique. Film screenings, reading discussions, and architectural analysis will constitute the primary mode of discourse. Students will then select a subject / episode on the evolving political, aesthetic, and social condition for individual research and in-class presentation.