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Jagan Shah documents select works of 20 architects to examine how they represent contemporary Indian architecture, combining aesthetics with utility THE present volume presents an affirmative answer to its originating question: Is there a ‘contemporary Indian architecture’ that could claim some distinction in the busy world of styles and identities that clamour daily for our attention, that would warrant a place in the tomes of history that line our bookshelves? The book documents select works of 20 architects, most of whom are in their second decade of professional practice (only the beginning of the average architect’s career) and have remained off the radar of world architecture, except for the few intermittent blips that are registered when someone happens to flip through an Indian architecture magazine. The contents are by no means definitive; rather, they present a snapshot of works that stand out from the panoply of contemporary architecture, suggesting new directions and reinforcing continuities that will inform the development of Indian architecture through the coming decades of the twenty-first century. The shortlist was fairly short to start with. Forty architects were invited to submit three personal favourites from their work and to suggest other architect who would merit inclusion. Finding the select 20 did indeed become a search for exceptions within exceptions. Relative to the overall size of the construction industry, there are shockingly few buildings in the country that are designed and supervised by a talented and skilled architectural practice and produced through due process. This situation is changing, but it seems fitting that ‘the contemporary’ should remain in conflict with the dominant order, for it is in this challenging conflict that we discern the sources of inspiration for the creative professional. We may all fancy the idea of walking out on the street one day and finding every building to be of enduring value, the Indian city transformed into a total work of art, but if such totalitarian visions were ever to come true, historians and critics would be forced to become spin doctors and purveyors of propaganda, and contemporary architects would be clones of a single master architect! It is fair to wonder if the contemporary in the title of this book refers to the proliferating multitude of drab utilitarian structures clad in glass and aluminimum sheeting or the mediocre masquerades of world architecture, whose distinguishing feature is that they are prima donnas in a sea of ugliness. While it is of its time, there seems little in this architecture that could be described as Indian and connoisseurs might suggest that most of the specimens we see on our streets don’t even qualify as architecture. Rather, ‘contemporary architecture’ seems to be distinguished only by the garish fantasies of consumer capitalism ousting the decaying functionalism of the socialist city; endless novelties with frills, features, accents devised to serve little more purpose than to maximise development, to evade compliance with regulations, to hide a flaw or satisfy whims. How, then, are the contents of this book different? If the 51 architectural works documented in this book — 21 residences and 10 institutional, seven commercial, four housing, three recreation, three hospitality, two urban design, and one industrial—could speak for themselves, what would they say? Given that by use and by substance they are embedded in the vital matrix of civilisation, all buildings reflect the places and times in which they are produced. We cherish the remains of ancient civilisations because they reveal how refined was the culture and profound the understanding of nature in times that did not enjoy the technologies and utilities of the present.
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