As the Commonwealth Games begins, the media circus making a mockery of it is about to reach a crescendo. It seems almost impossible to listen to critical voices of reason  amidst the clamor  for the most outrageous headlines. The UK and Australian press seems to be be more interested in the snakes, monkeys and stray dogs than the displaced slum dwellers and underpaid migrant laborers.  There are more articles in the Indian media outlets on the sports minister M.S.Gill  attacking the Wipro chairman Azim Premji on his candid and earnest open letter in Economic Times rather than critical soul searching on the issues raised by Mr.Premji.   Occasionally, I would come across thoughtful opinion pieces, a rare sprinking of common sense on the loss of common wealth – here are a few.

Rs.28,000 cr Games expense sounds like wrong priority (Azim Premji ; The Economic Times)

The Human Cost of the Commonwealth Games (Krishna Pokharel ; Wall Street Journal )

Whose Commonwealth (Alan Saldanha, The Korea Times)

The ‘Incompetance Raj’ strikes again (Salil Tripathi ; Wall Street Journal)

What do the Las Vegas Strip, Disneyland, and Infosys’s recently inaugurated Global Education Center (GEC-2) have in common? They all seem to have an affinity for architecture that borders on absurdity while being out of context, out of scale and out of touch with reality. At least Vegas and Disneyland derive their identity through artifice. They pretend to be someplace they are not, and yet they are perfectly at ease with the caricatures they purport.  You don’t go to Vegas or Disneyland to experience nature, enjoy high art or be intellectually stimulated. In Vegas, memorialized architectural regurgitation in meticulously scaled miniatures are perfect settings that numb the senses in preparation for the soporific jingle of slot machines and the ceaseless nervous flicker of colored lights. These are destinations to seek out imagineered fantasies and elusive jackpots  - the land of neon rainbows, fried ice cream, talking animals, plastic smiles and surgical breasts. In those placeless spaces, being disingenuous is a virtue. The objective is to have a good time in a space that is stripped of time.

But the GEC-2 is not a tourist trap; it’s meant to be a seat of learning, even though in service of a corporation.  Shouldn’t such a location reflect the spirit of learning and innovation that is supposed to define the “new” India?  Yet, when we look at the GEC-2, we find an architectural aberration that seems to have materialized when particles from the Roman Coliseum and the Rashtrapathi Bhavan fused with a garish luxury development spawned by a mega-developer in a fantastic mid-air collision. A hybridized blob of thousand McMansions–from suburban USA to those in Whitefield outside Bangalore–frozen in time and memorialized in space, in the middle of a transnational architectural orgy. Make-believe columns and inoperable windows. Conference rooms with Victorian window dressing. Styrofoam false ceiling meets the plaster of paris architraves.  The bluish green glow of flourescent tubes illuminates the empty hallways and relentless rows of concrete arches. Structural steel embraces the entablature. Almost every window ordained with a pediment putting the Greeks to shame.

But why did one of the most respected information technology firms in India, rated among the top ten innovative companies in the county, spend a fortune, only to end up making their flagship training center – Global Education Center-2 — look like a cross between a Vegas casino and a vinyl stage set for a historic television soap? Why did the company mentor Mr. Narayan Murthy, known for his modesty, succumb to architectural megalomania?  What possessed the sophisticated, jet setting company leadership to identify themselves with the Roman and Greek architectural ornamentation when the future of the technology is increasingly shifting towards the microseconds and nano particles? Why would a company that offers generous rewards to the best and the brightest scientific minds in a wide range of disciplines hire an architect whose works are typically employed as pedagogic examples of how not to practice architecture? Someone who is known for his quantity rather than quality?

In the 1967 film “The Graduate,” Mr. McGuire emphatically offers a single word of advice to Dustin Hoffman’s character, Benjamin Braddock: “Plastics.”  Perhaps the brainstorming session for defining the character and goals of the new training center began and ended with one word: “Awe.” And the building seems to have achieved the goal of unleashing shock and awe with its sheer mass and disorienting ornamentation. Whether it’s a fresh trainee from the country’s rural heartland or a returning employee from an overcrowded metropolis working on his leadership training, the ‘world’s largest training facility’ is bound to wow most of its visitors as they struggle to frame the edifice within the bounds of their point-and-shoot viewfinders. Perhaps most of them would walk way with a sense of pride for having trained in this facility. Indeed, this new age coliseum is spawning freshly minted gladiators  – the next generation of technological warriors eager to please a voracious audience of company shareholders in the capitalist ring of free market outsourcing, .

Why should they care about the isolated critical voices who think the building is a grotesque manifestation of misguided priorities? Why should they care if the entire structure is a basket of poorly detailed architectural kitsch?  Why should it be of any concern that the blank wall in their conference room has half a dozen dummy windows on its exterior in the service of Roman architectural aspirations?

Infosys is not alone in attempting to memorialize its growing influence through architecture. Since early twentieth century, world-class companies have sought to leave behind longstanding architectural legacies – some more successfully than others. The Chrysler building by William Van Allen in the late thirties in Manhattan is still one of the most graceful skyscrapers to adorn the Manhattan skyline. The General Motors Technical Center designed by Eero Saarinen and completed in 1955 was a modernist masterpiece that was honored by the American Institute of Architects in 1986 as the most outstanding architectural project of that era. The much acclaimed headquarter building for Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank designed by Norman Foster Associates and completed in 1985 was a technological masterpiece of that time that redefined the practice of prefabricated skyscraper design. More recently, Adobe’s headquarters in San Jose is the first office building in the US to earn LEED Platinum status in 2006. Yet, within the largest corporate training facility in the world, size seems to trump all other imperatives. The result is nothing more than a relentless laundry list of seemingly superlative numbers– 1.44 million square feet, 147 training rooms,  485 faculty rooms, 42 conference rooms… –shrink wrapped in disingenuous ornamentation.

Perhaps Infosys had its reasons the employ architectural scale in letting the world know it has arrived. But the utter lack of inventiveness and critical thought that accompanied Infosys’s realization of “the largest monolithic classical building in post Independent India” has meant that the country’s bellwether information technology giant has lost one too many opportunities: the opportunity to engage innovative architectural minds in the country and abroad, the opportunity to embrace nature and the human scale, the opportunity to bring people together in the true spirit of learning. Lost is the opportunity to create memorable architectural sequences with materiality, light and space, and the opportunity to realize a context sensitive, ecologically responsive and environmentally responsible architecture.  What a shame!

Given that it is a rarity to have works from India featured in AR, it was a treat to browse through the September 2010 issue that was entirely focused on India. But make no mistake – it only took the editorial team 20 long years to revisit the country for an entire issue.  Not  too many surprises in terms of featured architects – Bimal Patel’s IIM extension in Ahmedabad, Stephen Paumier/Spa Design,  Rajeev Kathpalia/Vastu Shilpa Foundation among others. And off course they has to be an essay on Dharavi. The most lyrical project of all is the minimalist Shiv Temple in rural Maharashtra by Mumbai based Sameep Padora.

A lot of things have changed in twenty years, and some have not. The Delhi-Ahmedabad-Mumbai triangle still retains its monopolistic stronghold in getting its work noticed in the international arena. With a big share of the Ahmedabad design diaspora settling in Bangalore, coupled with  self-made emerging talents from less glamorous architectural schools, there are certainly lot more stories waiting to be told from beyond the established architectural triangle.  Perhaps we need to wait for another twenty long years.

“The fast-growing Indian economy has resulted in a steady increase in traffic fatalities.  No one really knows what to do about it !!”

You don’t need a 1500 word article to arrive at this conclusion. Pretty much any Indian resident  or even a regular visitor can tell you that. However, one line caught my attention — newly privatized highways in Brazil have much lower rate of fatal accidents compared to other roads. Wish the reporters had more to say about how Brazil is doing better.

Link to a  bit more substantive article in BBC ( June 2008) on similar topic has a shocking revelation (no sources provided) : Traffic deaths claim more people in India than AIDS, TB and Malaria combined.

Even if the future reality doesn’t match with MGI’s projections, the growth trends and the practical challenges that lie ahead are too sobering to ignore. Firstly 2030 is not too far off. Most of you who are reading this blog now are very likely to be around during the next twenty years. By then the Indian city dweller will have plenty more company – an additional 250 million people swelling the ranks of city population from an estimated 340 million in 2010 to 590 million in 2030. Cities will account for 70% of  GDP and will provide 85% of total tax revenues that MGI claims will benefit the 200 million rural population who live in proximity to 70 of the largest cities in the country.

To realize this urbanization-on-steroids, MGI estimates India will need:

• $1.2 trillion in capital investment
• 2.5 billion square meters of roads to be paved
• 700-900 million square meters of commercial and residential space
• 7,400 kilometers of subways and transportation to be constructed

Just to put things in perspective, to realize 700-900 sq.m ( 7.5 – 9.6 billion SF) of commercial/residential space, India would need to build a city that is twice the size of Mumbai or city the size of Chicago every year for the next 20 years. How do you move around these super-sized cities ? Certainly not in dumpy Tata Nanos if you want to get to work in less than four hours from where you live. We would need a world class network of public transportation where you don’t have to cling for your life…or share a cosmopolitan sweat-fest. Enter the grade separated Metro that doesn’t have to stop when ever there is a stray cow or a chief ministers convoy or a political demonstration…where the maid and the mistress can travel in the same Chinese-made air conditioned coach . MGI estimates we would need 7,400 km of subway by 2030. The current length of Delhi metro is around 110km – in other words we would need more than 3 Delhi metros at its current length to be completed each year for the next 20 consecutive years. By all accounts the realization of Delhi Metro is an impressive piece of public sector miracle completed with a successful public-private partnership in a record 25 years from planning to implementation. Completed on schedule and even close to turning a profit, Delhi metro is a miracle of sorts in the history of Indian infrastructure planning and implementation. But then it is the nation’s capital with independent governing authority, inextricably linked to the nation’s power center, with a plenty of cash and political will. And the benefit of being headed by the incorruptible CEO/project manager extraordinaire Elattuvalapil Sreedharan  who at 77 is yet to exhibit any biological traits of cloning himself for other metro projects.

This brings another key issue highlighted by the MGI report – the need for a fiscally independent Metropolitan governance to realize large scale urban infrastructure projects. Similar to most successful cities in industrialized countries, this would be a true devolution of power towards metropolitan democracy and leadership powered by active civic participation and public oversight where cities can envision, manage and implement their own physical destinies with a fair share of their tax revenues. What does this mean in practical terms? The city mayors will call the shots and would have more power and financial resources at their disposal compared to the Chief Minister who would be dealing mostly with the big picture issues affecting the entire state. The mayors of Mumbai and Pune would have to compete with each in wooing the next corporation that would deliver thousands of new job while they make sure they don’t suck the ground water dry for its residents.  The planning departments in Chennai and Kolkata will have more trained planners and policy makers than civil service bureaucrats who had successfully memorized the geological significance of silurian and devonian periods in cracking their Union Public Service Commission examinations. The middle class would have to get off their butt and start playing a more active role in their civic duty and get used to imbibing politics that they have so long loathingly referred to as sewage

Because this study is primarily about cities the report also conveniently doesn’t talk about the other 685 million  rural population that wont be living in proximity to the cities. While the report mentions that rural areas that are currently outliers of the metropolitan regions  would stand to benefit from the urbanization, the fate of the bulk of the rural population far removed from the metropolitan influence is left unanswered. Perhaps that is not the the objective of the report. Yet, any projections and recommendations on urbanization is bound to be incomplete if it does not take in account the future of under-served rural economies that are bound to gravitate toward the pull of the cities constantly overwhelming the limits of the urban infrastructure.

Link to MGI report

It all sounds swell until you realize that GE-USA has recently signed a preliminary agreement with China for building high-speed electric locomotives where China will be licensing the latest technology for building high-speed electric engines. While GE is claimed to be the world leader in diesel locomotives, the fastest trains in the US -  the Acela Express, powered by GE engines – with a purported maximum speed of 150 mph (240 kmph), typically averages an underwhelming  80 mph (130kmph). Just to put things in perspective the high-speed trains running on electric engines that connect provincial capitals in China are operating at speeds averaging more than 200 mph (320 kph).

That’s a long way from the 19th century when the Chinese sweat, muscle and tears were shipped to California to help build the western railroads to the 21st century licensing offer from the land where you cant really ‘google’ the meaning for intellectual property.  A fitting completion of the Karmic circle drawn with indelible capitalist ink.

Perhaps somebody should remind the Indian railway minister Ms. Mamta Banerjee that the distance between New Delhi and Beijing is only around 2400 miles compared to 7,300 miles between the Indian capital and GE corporate headquarters in Fairfield, CT.  In abstraction, that would be 12 days to Beijing powered by Chinese electric engine compared to 90 days to Connecticut in a GE locomotive.

Surely we all know who the winners are going to be in this multi billion dollar deal between GE and Indian Railways ; after all GE could use a small share of those handsome profits to seek oriental wisdom on magnetic levitation.

New York Times article on China bringing high-speed rail expertise to US

Economic Times article on GE and Indian Railways

Tuesday April 26, 2050.

As Chennai gets ready to roast in 50 degree celsius (122F)   during the weeks of “Agni Nakshatram,”  in the month of May, its citizens will pay their final tributes to what was once called the Marina beach. Thanks to rising sea levels, Chennai will now relinquish her last remaining strip of public open space – the Marina beach – to the non-negotiable terms of nature. The people’s place would exist no more, leaving the congested elevated freeway standing alone with their 60′ high supporting pylons sunk deep onto the erstwhile Kamaraj Salai. On the night of April 25th the freeway will be  closed to accommodate thousands of Chennai’ites who would jostle for a ringside view to see the high tide from Bay of Bengal gobble up the last remaining public open space in the city for good. For those who cannot make it to the seaside expressway the event would be streamed live into their living rooms and communication equipments by every major television channel.

Between 2040 and 2050 the Tamil Nadu government put up a brave face trying to save the last remains of the beach next to Kamaraj Salai with corrosion-resistant concrete tetrapods manufactured with technological know-how from China. But the untimely low pressure depression from the Bay of Bengal during the heat of summer would finally wash away what has always been the signature open space for Chennai for more than one hundred and fifty years.

Given the relocation challenges the Tamil Nadu government had to face in the last ten years, the loss of the last twenty feet of beach land almost seemed like a non-issue. Unlike the Tsunami that hit the shores of Chennai on Dec 27, 2004  the government didn’t have to be bothered by the fisherfolks this time. For in the place of fishermen’s village now exists a floating luxury eco-resort constructed on pneumatic  foundations designed to  rise with sea levels and to survive cyclonic wind speeds. Besides, why would you need a fishermens village when you can order a fresh vacuum sealed pack of genetically modified and locally farmed Alaskan salmon from your neighborhood Walmart?  Walmart may be fighting another round of class action charges in the United States, but their business in India is doing better than ever. With their headquarters moved from Bentonville, Arkansas to Naypyidaw, Myanmar, they are a virtual retail monopoly in entire Asia.

The biggest political challenge the government would face in the recent years with the rising sea levels would be the relocation of the final resting places of four ex-chief chief ministers of Tami Nadu  – the tacky memorial tombs that populated the entire northern end of the beach.  The samadhis of M.Karunanidhi and his son M.K.Stalin were the first of the four memorials to be transported to higher grounds promptly followed by those of M.G.Ramachandran and C.N.Annadurai. Briefly the government considered the proposal for floating memorials put forth by the engineering conglomerate that owned the floating eco-resort, but the timing of general elections would favor a more controversial yet traditional approach to the relocation of the final remains. Earth was preferred to water. There is a lot more money to made from salt water these days and giving away prime waterfront real estate for free to dead heads-of-state did not amount to a smart strategy to fund future elections. In the name of culture and tradition, the Tamil political flock may still prefer the five yard long cotton ‘Veshti” in place of western style trousers but sartorial sentimentality doesn’t come in the way of cold logic required for political machinations. With the high profile memorials  transplanted to higher round, they now need to attend to official business. There is a bidding war brewing between Reliance Industries and AquaChina to grab the  memorial lands for the next generation desalination plants that would join the existing marine-industrial corridor that would extend all the way  from Eranavurkuppan in Ennore to the north to Pondicherry in the South. And bidding wars are a good thing for party and personal coffers.

In the middle of the heightened media frenzy that revolved around the the live telecast of the anticipated high tide event, the remains of one other political personality was turning in his grave – that of Mr. Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant-Duff, the governor of Madras from 1881 to 1886, who concieved and built the promenade along the beach and christened it  ” The Madras Marina.”

Since I haven’t read the book I can’t really say anything about the work, its findings and its recommendation. However, all the articles and press releases about the book  quotes some interesting stats  that could be of interest. Since there really isn’t anything remotely related to  ‘affordable housing’ in urban India, the sound bytes from the press releases are more about who can or cannot afford housing.

There really is no hope for the lower 52% of income levels. Sorry 500 million folks ( lets say 125 million families… assuming an average household size of four) in worlds largest democracy can’t own their houses for a very, very long time – more likely, bulk of them would never own a decent shelter in their lifetime. There is a sliver of hope for middle 44% – those earning Rs.8,500 – Rs.50,000 per month  (approximately $190 – $1,110 ) but not much materializes from hope – the kind of housing that they can afford  does not meet their needs and the housing they need is usually way beyond their budget for which no banks would lend them any money.

The bottom line: Only 4% of the population qualify to purchase their homes with bank financing.

Dr.Mohan argues that unless the government provides opportunities for the middle 44% there is pretty much no hope for the bottom 52%. One of his key recommendations is to establish a third party regulatory agency – Certifying-cum-Performance Guaranteeing Company (CPG Co.) -  that can help eliminate  the ‘crisis of confidence’ between the builder, the flat buyer and the bank financier.

Streamlining the legal and financing process begins to address only part of this complicated puzzle. While the book title optimistically exhorts how we can make affordable housing possible with law and policy, any discussion on housing affordability would be incomplete without addressing the question of supply through multiple lenses of land use policy, zoning, economic development and transportation.

Related Links

- Economic Times article on Dr. Arun Mohan’s book

- Link to one more article dated Feb 2005 on similar topic by Ramesh Ramanathan  – the campaign coordinator of Janaagraha – the citizen platform for participatory democracy. This article was initially published in Financial Times.

While I was studying architecture at the National Institute of Technology, Trichy — the then Regional Engineering College– any field trip to the neighboring town of Thanjavur was guaranteed to offer two major rewards.  Good food in an inexpensive restaurant and an evening visit to the 1000 year old Brihadeeshwara Temple –the “Big Temple” — where in addition to consuming deep fried snacks for cheap, you have the luxury of being within the confines of one of the cleanest and best maintained temple complexes in country, thanks to its designation as a UNESCO world heritage site.  As students of architecture, the sheer monumentality of the temple spire would never fail to impress us while we munched away the deep fried murrukkus with tamarind rice lazing over the the manicured lawns with the sketchbooks by our side.

I visited the temple again few years ago after almost ten years and was relieved to observe that not much had changed – the randomly parked tour buses outside the temple perimeter, the aging elephant in front of the main gateway dispensing its ritual tap on your head with its moist trunk in exchange for a small fee, the well maintained lawn full of people of various ages, the busy ’prasadam’ stall selling food,  and the the fairly empty shrine within the inner sanctum void of  mad rush of devotees. And more importantly, no fresh coat of multi-colored plastic emulsion over thousand year old stone walls – UNESCO and the Archeological Survey of India must be doing at least something right.

Generous open spaces between the concentric perimeter walls, and partly enclosed pavilions  are characteristic features of Dravidian temple typologies. However, these open spaces are seldom transformed into active public spaces for various reasons. But I have this theory: the greater the power attributed to the presiding deity, the poorer the quality of open spaces located within the temple.

Even after my mundane day to day existence working  on the 25th floor at the San Francisco offices of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill,  the tallest structure in Thanjavur with a 20 story high tower was still a delight to the eyes. But after starting to make a living designing public places,  I noticed something more to the temple beyond its history and sheer monumentality. The temple complex was probably the only successful public space within the entire town or perhaps the entire district. You just didnt visit the shrine..you lingered soaking up the urbanity that was always present around the religious edifice. And it was not a coincidence the the temple seem to attract more tourists than ardent devotees. There were more camera clicks than prayer chants.More people outside the shrine than within. There were longer lines outside souvenir shops and snack stalls and there was no mad rush to soak up on your quota of  divine blessings.

Perhaps it’s a nice thing Lord Brihadeeshwara can’t promise miracles. And it gives me a source of comfort that if I do visit the Big Temple in the future, I am likely to still hear those reverberations from the temple bell, observe a  local resident meditating in quiet corner, dodge toddlers running around the lawn, and notice those architecture students with their sketchbooks enjoying their deep fried “murukkus.”

The pavilion designs for India and Pakistan for the oncoming Shanghai Expo are  multi million dollar incongruities at the expense of  respective countries’ tax payers. The theme of expo is “Better city, Better life”, a very timely theme indeed  when more than half the world’s population live in cities. To which Pakistan comes with a brilliant idea of building a replica of a 16th century fort with Pakistani flag painted on it roof and the Indian design team answers the call with a design that resembles a  burial mound for Buddhist relics from 3rd century BC – the Sanchi Stupa.

The centerpiece of the Indian pavilion is a 35m wide dome,  claimed as  the biggest structure to be made from bamboo — which isn’t too bad for an event where you are expected to show off your one-trick ponies in the name of ‘coolness factor’ and innovation….but a 9 million dollar bamboo dome ? !!  you’ve got to be kidding me ! If the whole idea of using bamboo is to demonstrate the relevance, economic incentive and usefulness of locally available natural materials, it would seem a lot more compelling to have the material express itself in the final design. But that doesn’t seem to be the case either.  If the sophomoric artist renderings are any proof of what is to be expected, I have a hard time convincing myself that the whole pastiche is made out of bamboo.

But there is more to the dome.The bamboo shell would support a micro concrete roof with a waterproofing membrane (plastic !) with herbs grown on top of it and irrigated by recycled water from toilets (brought to you by gravity defying pumps – what a reversal of rain water harvesting). The herbs will be interwoven with a set of ornamental copper plates and solar photovoltaic cells. They are also throwing in some wind turbines. According to the Mr.D.R. Naidu, vice president of the design firm JWT,  , the dome will be used as a 360-degree screen to tell different stories about life in cities through the ages. The entire pavilion is beginning to look more like an over zealous middle school science project on a Republic day float. If simplicity and conceptual elegance has anything to do with sustainability the project would probably get a D-. Perhaps the design was inspired by a wholesome Bollywood fare with equal opportunities for sentimentality, nostalgia, romance, comedy, music, dance and fantasy.

Thankfully there is Pakistan’s pavilion that makes the bamboo dome look a lot less ridiculous.  It looks like a convincing movie set from a era when Jinnah and Nehru shared the same brand of cigarette. Perhaps we should also think of this as a green building since the Pakistani designers have come up with a brilliant idea of painting the 2000 sq.meters of roof with the image of Pakistani flag and that’s a lot of green. I guess I have to give credit where credit is due. Given a choice between a boxy replica of a  fort and a bamboo dome that represent a religion that is based on non-violence, I would gladly take the dome.

The  pavilions from India and Pakistan are going to have a lot of company when it comes to sustainable exhibitionism at a premium price. France is building a gigantic french garden surrounded by water at the cost of 40million Euros (all made from recycled materials of course!),  Canadians want to show of living plants and rain water harvesting for 44 million dollars. The Swiss are going for the home run with biodegradable walls made from soy fiber and the entire pavilion power by solar panels at a tidy sum of 19 million dollars.

There is no dearth for talented designers in India.  Given the lack of any information on how JWT design was chosen, I am going to assume it was not through an open competition. A well publicized open competition with decent jury may or may not have yielded  a better design, but at the very least it would have presented a forum for an open debate allowing for alternative visions from a narrow but significant pool of talented young designers in the country. Too bad we now have to settle for a bad Bollywood movie soaked in ethnocentric nostalgia and sentimentality.

The irony is that it might even be a big hit in China.

More Links:

- Self congratulatory article from “The Hindu”

- Press release: Pakistan Pavilion

- Expo Website: India Pavilion