I have often wondered what it is that makes the immortal, the eternal.
I've looked at great architecture and great art and wondered about the fabric that’s common to it all.
I sense strands that run through all of them...or at least I think i do
From the Amber fort that shocked me through the sheer range of its scale: from a towering majestic monumentality to light humane functional living spaces - From its sheer opulence to its disarming simplicity - from the silence and light at IIM-A: those volumes in brick silently guarding the eternal spirit of human institutions - From Corbusier’s few deft planes of concrete that trap space time and light in disarmingly simple and brilliant ways in the Millowners building - From the transformation of a simple yet vital function of accessing water to a celebration of light and movement in the adalaj step well, to the amazing spirit/concepts of modernism that I sense in the historic padmanabhapuram palace.
I've felt all these as almost universal in their spirit, they belong in the same realm of inspired creation.
From function undoubtedly they sprang, nevertheless ultimately they transcended it and became a celebration of life.
And what is life other than the celebration of living.
And what is architecture, other than the celebration of the human being.
A play of our sense of scale, vision, movement, balance, behavior – our sense of what is right and wrong in public , of right and left, up and down…….
If God made man in his Image, we make architecture in our image. Yes even the coldest, monumental, worst ones are facets of our own self.
Space and time(movement) , Light and Shadow, Mass and Void, Planarity and volume I believe are the universal language of Architecture – a language with different dialects, one used with different patterns and permutations yet the same basic language, the same grand old spirit of Architecture running through all of them.
It is quite disarmingly simple, that it seems almost obvious yet I believe that ultimately shrouded under all the theory architecture comes to down to this. I can find no other way of explaining why something as diverse as a subtle yet exquisite timber palace in South India to an outrageous Gehry building appeals to me in the same intensity of spirit. That is why a small space that is created in some corner of the world, appeals to the entirety of the world.
And that is why I can’t digest when narrow classifications are made of modern and post modern, western and oriental, ad hoc and “designed”. I believe one sows the seeds of the eternal in that very moment when concieves these combinations of space, volume and mass submitting to that universal spirit/force of architecture. There is no style, there is only the intensity of your will to create and if you have truly understood what you are creating, and convinced by its will to be- I believe you are on your way to creating something eternal – even if its not for the entire humanity - for yourself….a moment you have etched in your psyche….a moment that you know was lived creating something worthwhile.
