March 08, 2014
The Architects Retreat , was held at the Yacht’s Club, in Mumbai on 22nd February 2014.
The people who were invited and attended were, Meghal Arya , from Ahmedabad who is a senior faculty at CEPT University, and a partner at Arya Associates, Vijay Arya an architect who has engaged with large-scale public work, Kiran Kapadia from Mumbai who runs a large design firm in Mumbai and has to his credit extremely large commercial and housing developments in the country, Rajeev Kathpalia of Vastu Shilp Foundation who has recently had a dream run, winning some of the most significant competitions in the country, Ashish Bhalla an Architect and a Urban Designer, who heads Vrindian , an India focused real estate and infrastructure fund, Suparna Bhalla , who leads a small but extremely lively design firm in Delhi, Rupali Gupte a core faculty at KRVIA and an independent researcher, Sudipto Gosh, a partner at S. Gosh and Associates, Naresh V. Narasimhan, who other than leading a extremely large design firm in Bangalore, also has done immense work in the public fora in his city, Aneerudha Paul , the quiet and inspirational Director of KRVIA, Sanjay Prakash, a original thinker who dons many hats, ranging from technology, urban planning, sustainability to name a few, Samira Rathod, the organizer , editor of SPADE and head of a small intense design firm, Soumitro Gosh, from Bangalore who heads a firm with much critical acclaim, the energetic Mahesh Radhakrishnan from Chennai, Rohan Shivkumar a senior faculty at KRVIA, and Bijoy Ramachandran who runs a small highly successful firm from Bangalore.
It was a group of 16 diverse and intense thinkers.
Sonal Sundararajan, from KRVIA was the was the annotator.
Held in a tight board room of the old heritage building , the day , starting from 9.00 AM till 7.00 PM, saw almost 20 crisp presentations on issues of practice and academics. They ranged from thoughts on structuring practice, technology, patronage, pedagogy etc. These were discussed and debated in some depth.
Despite this being a highly diverse group , what held them together was the honesty of purpose, critical minds, an absence of unwanted egos, undeniable achievement in their areas, the desire to be the change and not manipulate it or usurp processes for individual gain. Integrity and ethics were the key guiding spirits.
The day also was attended by three of India’s foremost design media heads- all of them equally committed, and ethical; Anish Bajaj of Home Review, Ruturaj Parikh of IAB, and Kaiwan Mehta of Domus.
The thoughts it brought up reverberate in many conversations even today, and at least all there thought of it as a important and a definitive meeting , that helped navigate the world of design better.
By end May there will be a monograph and a film that will communicate and record this day. Those interested in booking a copy do please connect with us.
In the days preceeding this event ,I was in Mumbai for a talk at 361Degrees, and many colleagues seemed upset that this sounded like an exclusive affair;where many people were left out.
This was not the purpose at all.
In fact it is and was meant to be a very very inclusive process, and we are committed to that idea- just that to make it participatory and controlled, it had to be a tight group in a small room.
Perhaps the many mails and phone calls preceding the event soliciting opinions will bear our intent out.
The monograph and the film will hopefully validate this thought furher , and will be, we hope truly, of value to the larger community of designers in India.
But on another note, much like 12 on 12 helped us all to think of ways of connecting with each other better, I do strongly believe that this format is an excellent one to discuss serious issues and lead to strong directions. I at least would urge folks , to think of organizing this often in their regions, and hopefully keep collating thoughts continuously and crisply. If any one needs details on the format do write in.
We do need to think , and we do need to communicate and we do need to act- any real assessment of the state of design and design education in the country cannot deny that we need to regroup and re-imagine a better way forward.
Aniket Bhagwat