I I A NATIONAL CONVENTION 2013 @ Chennai - MY EXPERIENCE

Happened to be at the Indian Institute of Architects National Convention 2013 - at Chennai Convention Center. It was indeed a wonderful experience. So many architects talking, discussing and presenting on different topics ranging from Urbanity to sustainability to Architectural Education was a thought provoking experience. Barring a few, it was really inspiring to hear to most of the speakers. The Convention was inaugurated by Honorable Governor of Tamil Nadu Dr. K Rosiah who talked about certain historic buildings and their importance.

The Highlight of the whole convention was the keynote address by Prof. B. V. Doshi. He kept on rising issues which i felt were very relevant in todays scenario. The important point which he brought out in his talk was to form a web or network among the architecture fraternity and the architectural schools so that everyone gets equal benefits and no one is marginalized. This was said as a solution to lack of good teachers and practitioners in schools of architecture in some remote areas of the country, and hence equality is maintained throughout. He also raised concern on the quality of architecture produced and if the profession of architecture still holds good as a sacred profession. He also stressed that we architects should challenge ourselves for overall improvement and betterment.Writing about architecture and publishing articles about relevant subjects & issues was also stressed on, when he said that till what time will we teach our history from the books written by the foreigners. This was followed by a presentation by Ar. Bijoy Jain, who discussed on some of his projects and how in one of his projects he connected the inside and the outside. The first day ended with culturals on dances of India and a good dinner with my friends, fellow architects and many others.

The talk by B. V. Doshi

The second day started with a delay of around half an hour. This was a session on urbanity and was chaired by Dr. A.N.Sachitanandan, Dean, MEASI academy of architecture, who started the session with a short introduction on the subject. Next was a presentation by Dr. Bimal Patel from Ahmedabad. He started the presentation by saying that world over urbanization is happening and the case is same with India. Most of the cities of the developed nations, which we take as aspirations (like we say we are going to make Chennai like Singapore etc.,) have been choas at some point of time and then actions were taken to improve the situation. I think he brought out this view point to say that we may not press the panic button and still do good to our cities if we plan better. He showed some examples of his projects for some roads like C G Road in Ahmedabad and also examples of how the residual spaces (like a space below the flyover or an underpass etc.,) can be used efficiently there by enhancing the overall experience of the city. The other important projects done include the Sabarmati river front development in Ahmedabad and making a street design manual for ITDP.

Dr. A. N. Sachitanandan

The session continued with a presentation by Ar. Rajeev Kathpalia who gave the presentation on the heading, The capus as the microcosm of the city. In his presentation, after asking a number of questions like are we designing the cities for humans or vehicles, where is Indian Urbanism heading towards etc., he gave a detailed presentation of the project they designed for the Nalanda University campus and its inspirations. This was followed by presentations by Surbana (Architectural practice in Singapore) and Prof. Dickson (Columbia univ) who deals with vertical gardens.

Following the first session was a Panel discussion on urbanity. Chaired by Urban designer K T Ravindran and Moderated by Ar.Srivatsan of The Hindu, the panel consisted of practitioners from across the country including Ar. Rajendra kumar from Delhi, Mr. Mahep Thapar from Chandigarh, Ar. Partha Ranjan Das from Calcutta and Ar. Sriram Ganapathy of KSM consultants from Chennai. It was an interesting discussion with panelist bringing out the importance of planning the cities for people rather than anything else. The next session was on Contemporary practices and Sustainability, chaired by Ar. H. C. Thimmiah and presentations were given by Ar. Ashok Lal, Ar. Anupama Kundoo and Ar. Tatjana Schneider.

This was followed by a panel discussion on Impact of Education on Contemporary practices. The session was chaired by Ar. Samira Rathod with Ar. Balbir Varma, Ar. Pramod Balakrishnan, Ar. Rohan Shivkumar and Ar. Tatjana Schneider as panelists. This was one of the most interesting sessions with questions rised on the issues leading to the opening up of  number of architectural institutions in the country and which may lead to degradation of the quality of architecture produced. One of the panelist wanted the architects to take up the responsibility of making good architects if in some cases the architecture schools would have failed. The idea was sort of opposed by other panelist saying the responsibility of education and making of good architects rests with the Schools and Architects are already busy in their offices. Ar. Durganand Balsawar who was supposed to moderate the session, for some reasons just gave the closing remarks to the session from the audience side.

'Sustainability' was the theme of the next panel discussion which was about to follow. The session was chaired by Padma Shree awardee Ar. C. N. Raghavendran and eminent personalities like Ar. Jaisim, Dr. Prem C Jain, Ar. Sheila Sri Prakash, Ar. Mona Doctor Pingel forming the panel. The panelists talked on how important has it become for us to go green in the time of global warming and climate change. They stressed on the fact that there may not be water after some time and hence we as architects have to stress on to be more responsible for a good future of the humanity. The last speaker Ar. Jaisim was skeptical though and said water will be available, there is no problem in living strongly in the present and not fearing about the future. He questioned if there is such a problem then why are we discussing about sustainability in a place where there is no fresh air (air-conditioned hall) and flashy lights flashing in the eyes, to the huge applause of the audience. The session ended with some members from the audience asking relevant questions to the panelist. The day came to a end with the dinner in the lawn of the trade center campus where cultural program was also on. Again the dinner was good.

The Third day started after a delay of around 45 minutes and a surprise presentation about Srirangam town which was not there in the schedule. The sessions on the third day did not go as per schedule. The first of the day was by COA president Ar. Uday Gadkari, who talked upon the work done by COA under his presidentship. He reflected upon the need to have more inspectors for the inspection of different architectural colleges to maintain the required standards of different institutions. There are around 10,00,000 doctors - 23,00,000 Lawers and only around 60,000 Architects in India and to improve the case the COA has given permission to open more architecture colleges in the country, was one of the points brought by him. He also noted that the COA is about to publish a refreed journal once every year. Ar.Ananthakrishnan of R V college Bangalore also gave a presentation. The session was followed by a wonderful session on Education.

This was an engrossing session with people like Ar. Chritopher Charles Benninger, Ar. N H Chaya, Ar. Prem Chandavarker amd Ar Akhtar Chouhan spoke. Ar. Christopher Benninger first pointed out that the mushrooming of the number of Architecture Schools is not a good sign and it is even worse when we see that most of these colleges are opened with the intention of money making rather than providing quality education as their goal. He also stressed on bringing the following changes 1. From considering architects as artists to technologists, 2. Greatmen theory to Capable Professional, 3. Romantisicm to Objective reality, 4. Fuzzy logic to system thinking, 5. Randon acts of creativity to systematic innovative thinking, 6. Text messaging on mobiles to writing papers on issue based subjects, 7. From blind leading the blind situation, 8. Rediscovering history (from Architectural history to Technological history), 9. Sick buildings to Sustainable cities, 10. Focus on education back to practice. The way in which all the above points were explained was wonderful.

Ar. Chaya, started of next with a wonderful presentation. He pointed on the required improvements on different stake holders. First of all the institutions - who have to stop thinking that the curriculum is the end point. The institutions have to be connected to the society by looking at the problems rather than thinking about some out of the world things. The good schools or the established ones should make good learning resource in the form of publications, thesis reports and working drawings. He also stressed on the same point made by Doshi on forming good networks, making it happen through faculty/student/studio exchange programs so that knowledge and resources are shared. Building sites should be considered as places of learning and the institutions should look to take students to frequent site visits was one point of note. The Teachers, he said should be respected, empowered and encouraged. Teachers should also involve themselves in practice. The students on the other hand should have the urge to learning and greater diversity of students backgrounds was appreciated. The next presentation was by Ar. Prem Chandavarkar, who started with a question by showing a photograph of four different cities having more or less same kind of architecture, with one of them Indian. The question was, is there a correlation between quality of architecture and quality of education provided. According to me his answer was a no, when he said from  the photographs that all the four cities looked at the same level of chaos and three of them were cities from developed countries where we consider the quality of education was good. The lecture which followed the seemed to be interesting, but frankly, i could not grasp it in the right sense. One of the things that was very interesting was when he re framed a question what do i do as architect to what can architecture say through me. Then Mr. Akhtar Chouhan of Rizvi school of architecture Mumbai gave a small talk and said he written a lot about his thoughts in the journal if Indian Institute of architects and people can read on it.

There was also a panel discussion Education which was chaired by Ar. Ananthkarishnan and the panel included Ar. Anirudh paul, Ar. S. Vijaykumar and Ar. Jaffer A A Khan Director MIDAS. One thing that was created a big void in my mind is when Ar. Jaffer asked if we can define architecture and architecture education properly. Though the chaiperson gave the answer for education part of it, he also conceded that it was tough to define architecture. The second last part of the convention was a OPEN HOUSE in which COA President Ar. Uday Gadkari and IIA president Ar. Prakash Deshmukh answered some interesting questions put to them by the audience. One of the important point which came out was that the COA and IIA are planning to work together for the betterment of our society, which according to me was not the case earlier.

The whole of the convention came to a end after the valedictory. The valedictory though was a bit boring and the hall was 80% empty. I joked to the person sitting near me when the person talking on the mike said that this was a small gathering, i told it was scattering rather than gathering as people were sitting in different parts of the hall in small numbers and not gathered. The convention at last came to an end when me and the four people sitting next to me found out that we were the only ones in the hall who did not climb the stage for a felicitation or anything (all the others were either the organizers or volunteers or board members).

I will cherish the three days i was at the convention and hope these topics which were discussed are addressed and improvements are brought for the betterment of the society. My hearty congratulations and a big thanks to the organizers, the Tamil Nadu Chapter of IIA for pulling out such a fantastic event.

I also apologize if there are any mistakes in the above blog. S O R R Y.

Muzakkir  G .   M .   Bijli
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Me with my friend Ar. Subash