Critique on Gautam Bhatia’s book “Punjabi Baroque and Other Memories of Architecture”

History of Architecture (AP313) | Term Paper | 2013

Critique on Gautam Bhatia’s book “Punjabi Baroque and Other Memories of Architecture”

Term Paper for History of Architecture (AP131)

Diksha JainRoll Number: 06416901611

Sushant School of Art and Architecture

ABSTRACT“The well to do Indian measures his success by the home he builds”

A new type of architecture has flowered in the urban residential realm of India. The type of architecture that is a result of the owner’s fantasies being converted to reality with the inputs of The Architect. However, the architect’s inputs are just limited to building the owner’s “vision” for his home. The result is an banal combination of fancy and imperative! Bhatia’s experience as a practicing architect in New Delhi has not been a pleasant one because he believes that if the client has to build his house as he wants it, he does not need an architect! And further Bhatia takes a very satirical approach to describe this flowering architecture in urban residences though out the book,

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PAPERBhatia’s book ‘Punjabi Baroque and Other Memories of Architecture’ is an anthology of his feelings towards the society, the architecture, the architect and the system. It is set in 1993 in New Delhi 16 years after Bhatis’s graduation from University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA. The book is written from his personal viewpoint; he calls it an informal diary talking about his experience with clients, contractors and contemporaries.

Bhatia is extremely cynical of urban Indian life, pointing out instances of murder, a wife being burned to death, corruption in government offices, bribing etc. He calls cricket ‘national pass time’.

“The country is like a benign cancer, a banyan tree rooting and rerooting, never dying, slowly gaining new and effective footholds in the ground. Sometimes it is difficult to live in the eternal overdose if India: its daily message of violence, the generous hospitality of its ordinary working life: the persistent symbols of piety and fanaticism”

He finds it difficult to survive amidst all the corruption and bureaucracy and almost wishes to be away from India.

Of what is Architecture and what merely a building? Bhatia says only an architect knows the answer and its best he keeps it that way. But I think there is no distinction, even the cowshed is architecture if it has Corinthian columns and a pediment. It’s a matter innovation and inheritance.

Modern is architecture, traditional is building!?

Bhatia is highly influenced by the architecture of New York. He finds Indian architecture an outcome of conformity, an outcome of set standards. This in certain cases might be true! but not just for India…

For example, the architecture of a random New York apartment building has not much to do with innovation. A building overpowered by its utilitarian needs rather than aesthetics, philosophy or innovation!

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This is a result of rapid growth of population. We need more houses as quickly as possible and so the builders build! More like mass production. This is not the fault of the architect, it’s the situation.

With this argument it almost becomes true!

“Architects will perhaps disagree, but to my mind, architecture exists only to provide meaningful occupation to architects”

Since the architect has to build only what the client desires, the client can directly go to the builder and explain to him. The architect has become a mere

mediator, as opposed to the designer of the building.

“Architecture in India is a happy and convenient compromise”

Following this argumument Bhatia presents a satirical romanticisation of the architect only reinforcing the idea that architecture only exists to provide jobs to architects. The architect is the busiest person on earth, he has to deal with clients, contractors, take care of his family, attend conferences, fulfil all social responsibilities.

Bhatia after all this comes up with a theory that all the upcoming domestic architecture in India is trying to somehow match up to the “great” architecture of the west. Tamil Tiffany, Punjabi Baroque, Bania Gothic, Brahimin medievalism, Anglo Indian Rococo and so on…The house is a display of History of Architecture-Diksha Jain,3B - critique on Punjabi Baroquepersonal taste, a reflection of the personality. The Indian society does have a mindset that what is from west has to be better which naturally reflects, so who is to blame?

Bhatia explains with an analogy, an English mistress from Devonshire living with all the sophistication of the British life…Crockery from china, cutlery from Sheffield, Chairs from the Baroque, Windows from Gothic. To her the Indian life style would be a rude shock. How then do we expect the English country house to sit in Jabalpur with

harmony!

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Figure 1 http://www.vosizneias.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/nyc-apartment-for-rent.jpg


The bunglow slowly adapting to the Indian climate though generous verandas, deep loggias, jails etc… but the bunglow with all its setbacks and huge open spaces never addressed the street. The street is the most important Public place. And in a place like India where the population densities are so high living in an imitation of the English country house seems selfish and illogical.

“After three hundred years of colonial architecture, the Italian villa was to become the symbol of free India”

Sir Joseph Heinz made European imitations for the rich and wealthy Indians. India, which at that time was hungry for new ideas. The villa not set amidst scent of olives and grapes in open rural landscape but in the urban chaos of India. This villa becoming the dream of independent Indian…

Architecture was a matter of imitation, quantity and numbers

Bhatia now takes upon modern architecture in India. Modernism was at its peak in the fifties and sixties in India. Modern architecture lacked life and warmth, it was extremely abstract and hence according to Bhatia building a house in modern style was simply stupid.

The lifelessness of modern style gave birth to what Bhatia calls Punjabi Baroque.” The bold chunky massing of the modern box got subdued with elements that set on house from the other, elements that decorated the Box: Cornices, mouldings around windows, decorative cills and door crowns. He says despite all the impositions on architecture by the changes occurring in the society, the feel of Indian life i.e. the family, the community and the neighbourhood managed to seep in. The peths in Pune, the pols in Ahemadabad, the mohallas in Delhi etc….

Following this Bhatia discovers more styles such as Bania Gothic, Early Halwai, Marwari Mannerism and Sindhi Hacienda, The styles that were Indian adaptations of the original.

The book is highly subjective with different readers having different opinions about the book and the author’s style of writing. Bhatia expresses his opinions bluntly with a very satirical and negative backdrop throughout the book. Though his concerns of India (as a nation) not responding to the context and site, and

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instead only focusing on the façade and interiors, and have forgotten its own heritage and blindly following the west- is a worry and of concern, it could have been addressed in a more subtle approach. Despite this, it’s an interesting book that one must read; it introduces us to a new style of writing and with every page you turn, you discover something new about the country, its citizens and its architecture which at some point may offend you and by the end of the book you may or may not agree with the book.

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Bibliography1. Bhatia,Gautam. Punjabi Baroque and Other Memories of Architecture: Penguin Books India, 1994. ISBN: 0-14-024075-6.

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Critique on Gautam Bhatia’s book “Punjabi Baroque and Other Memories of Architecture”

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