so I’m an architect and I run a practice
with my wife in Bangalore and for the
past few months we’ve been working on a
house in Bangalore and we thought maybe
you know we’ve been have reached a sweet
spot it’s a beautiful plan it looks out
onto the lake that’s close by it’s got
beautiful places inside for intimate
refuge and then our clients visited
Switzerland
but contrary to what you may think what
they came back with was another
fundamental question for us so Manish
asked me are we designing an Indian home
so of course in in these jingoistic
times that’s quite a loaded question ah
what is Indian and are we going to make
an Indian home is there one way but it
is it led me to think about architecture
and and what may be missing because
whenever we get introduced to people as
architects normally what we get in
response is Oh what happened to
architecture we had such amazing
buildings all around us you know like
this amazing building in male Cote and
then of course we get buildings like
that
that’s IT people in Bangalore 2000 some
of the buildings also try to kill us but
that’s the building in in London that
reflected the light onto cars and burnt
them so architecture can be quite
powerful so what happened to
architecture this is a question so in
the next whatever I have 16 minutes I’m
going to solve that little for you or at
least try to so a lot of my sort of
brief talk is going to be based on
fellows mus great book eyes of the skin
and I think a lot of our problems stem
from the fact that our culture sort of
revolves around the eye that everything
that we’ve sort of started to do and
appreciate in value comes from an
appreciation of the I thought of looking
at things just visually sort of
evaluating them and and and estimating
them on that basis the dominance of the
eye and the suppression of the other
senses tends to put us into detachment
isolation and exteriority modernist
design at large has housed the intellect
and the eye but has left the body and
the other senses
as well as our memories imagination and
dreams homeless so here’s a kind of
seminal image this is Rene Magritte
this is 1929 so what do you believe
do you believe the statement at the
bottom it says this is not a pipe or do
you look at the image and say hey that’s
a pipe but neither of those things are
true because you can’t take either the
image or the word and put some tobacco
in there and light it and off away you
need the real engagement of all of those
senses of touch of inhaling putting
stuff in so the eye deceives you and
that’s why the the painting is called
the treachery of images because we’re
constantly being fooled by what the eye
sees and believes to be true when every
other sense may be needed to engage
really with your environment and in
India we have no shortage of that I mean
we’re surrounded with this kind of over
stimuli there’s a great sort of example
you know any street I mean you could
shoot pictures in Trivandrum anywhere
but we’re surrounded with this and yet
we continue to do buildings like what I
showed you in in Bangalore this kind of
glass and steel isolated enclosed
control environments when we’re
surrounded with environments that are
rich for the senses just looking at that
photograph you immediately know what it
sounds like there what it smells like
what it feels like to be on that Street
and the I sort of is giving you a
license to imagine all of those things
that you’re so familiar with art has
done that for years
ages art captures in that sort of flat
environment all of the qualities of
temperature of comfort look at the
painting of Matisse’s painting the image
on the left you see that threshold with
the light on it and you know that that’s
the hot Mediterranean Sun coming and
just beyond the threshold is is the
beautiful shade and comfort you’re
getting all the breeze from the sea the
painting is telling you about the
environment and that’s true for Klimt as
well look at that painting with with the
trees you can almost hear your feet
crunching the leaves as you walk towards
the ocean on the other side you can feel
the breeze you can smell the sea
great architecture does that too it
gives you an environment in which to
appreciate all of those other things
apart from the eyes in addition to the
eyes the previous image was the I am
Bangalow building by Doshi
that’s falling water one of the seminal
works one of the seminal houses where
everything from from that stone that is
there but this is the perfect spot from
which to now cure that waterfall in an
embrace that environment and a lot of
the materials coming from that place to
enrich your experience of where you are
located in that particular environment
and zum Thor the great Swiss architect
using special shuttering within the
church that then evokes the sense of the
forest and the light of being under that
canopy great architecture sort of is
bringing you that memory of a place that
is it’s just not you know a sealed
air-conditioned box so that’s the first
aspect of it this idea of a
multi-sensory architecture where
everything is sort of profoundly
heightened the second thing is a
negation of this sort of supremacy of
the eye and a celebration of the shadow
when we’re in a sort of in a state of
deep meditation or we’re enjoying some
great music or we’re in the embrace of
our loved one automatically our eyes are
closed and we’re sort of rejecting all
of that distraction to really engage and
absorb that experience great art does
that it tells you about those shadows
what’s happening in the shadows the
first image the Rogers painting of Jesus
and doubting Thomas was coming to check
he’s not trusting his eye but he’s
touching Jesus to check is this really
him is this really the wound but look at
the way it’s painted it’s almost black
at the back the Romans are are chasing
these guys right it’s it’s got this
conspiratorial sort of sense about it
and all of these things happening in the
shadows and the other image again Jesus
calling out to Matthew was a tax
collector come with me but look how
curvature plays with the light Jesus is
standing in the shadow pointing to
Matthew who’s in the light and telling
him come that’s not the way come here
you know so this game of light and
shadow creating an a sort of really
visceral sense of meaning and great
architecture this is also in Finland
in this beautiful town hall where from
from the courtyard where you have a lot
of light you slowly progress to
subsequently darker and darker places
till you finally end up in a very dark
chamber house where now it’s no longer
the performance a chamber house where
probably Trump won’t do very well but a
chamber house where you really really
need dialogue and conversation great
Indian architecture and this is the
awkward 2 min in sikandra this was a
profoundly moving experience for me this
is the gateway to Sikandar where aqua is
buried it’s just 30 minutes out of Agra
and it’s a huge humongous gateway
embellished with all of the riches you
walk in this is the building where you
know the upper is is buried the
mausoleum and you’re entering through
that gate with all of those you know
fine jewels and and emeralds and you
know really the gateway of heaven but
the moment you pass through those doors
you’re in a chamber almost devoid of any
sensory stimuli it’s a blank white wall
there’s no light and at that point as
you cross that threshold it’s a
profoundly moving experience like as if
you’ve crossed into a portal into a
place where it is a metaphysical
condition where you’re in engagement
with Akbar in communion with him in that
room and it is really sort of moving and
you know we used to take students to
second row to see this and you can sense
that sort of profound moving experience
you you guys have felt it when you go to
great buildings old buildings
unfortunately architecture does that
doesn’t do that anymore
so that’s about shadows the next point
is about the frame and architecture has
for long become the result of the great
photograph you know all of us look at
architecture and the great photograph
and we think that that’s the photograph
and of course we have someone to blame
this is Albert II and Albert is frame
and what he did was he in the
Renaissance he sort of made the idea of
the frame and to capture reality and
perspective through that frame we’ve all
done this as students transferring the
cross the the grid onto onto a sheet of
paper and getting a sense of whatever’s
within that frame flattening it out for
whatever it is but artists have riled
against this for years
Turner’s painting hardly being kept
within that frame sort of
taking out of the frame of Monet’s great
painting of the water lilies where the
depth of that painting is uncertain that
you can see layer upon layer of stuff
and it seems like that frame cannot hold
or or is again a portal that takes you
elsewhere and sometimes art also
subverts the notion of the viewer and
the viewed in one muñoz’s great work
where he fills the room with with
identical images of laughing people when
you enter that room you feel like an
interloper as if you’re under
surveillance as if you’re being viewed
as if you’re the piece of art and
everybody is looking at you and and sort
of it’s you know laughing and at watch
and and even in the way that they’ve
been placed there they’re sort of
submerged as if you’re on a pedestal
being viewed as an object as you pass
through this space and Gormley in London
just outside the Hayworth gallery
placing these figures on buildings
everywhere as if notionally supervising
or surveilling this environment
subverting the notion of the frame this
is a great artist from my soul Alvis of
Balasubrahmanyam and he made this thing
out of ordinal you know ordinal right
the air freshener and so that that art
slowly sort of disappears it becomes a
way / so what he says is that the art
still exists in the room except instead
of the eyes you’re breathing it in it’s
fantastic right it’s sort of
disappearing this notion of what is the
engagement of the viewer and the and the
viewed and great architecture again does
that it gives you a sense of something
that so what what is it about the frame
in architecture I think the essential
thing about architecture is the question
of time and this is the Rhian G temple
in Japan where that wall at the back is
600 years old and is aging very very
slowly whereas the gravel that is in
front of it around these rocks is raked
every day and so as you’re sitting there
meditating on this gravel because you
can’t really focus on anything you get a
sense of that real perspective between
what is is really old and what is just
done now and this we see in India all
over the place in all temples you go
they do the rangoli every day in front
of it that’s a notion of temporality
right you understand the notion of
something that’s really old and
something that’s happening every day and
this desire of change is
destroyed in the architecture kondeh
does it beautifully this is Louie Kahn
in California where he makes a concrete
frame and in fills it with the material
which is disintegrating at a much faster
rate than the concrete and so you almost
feel like the ruin that the frame of
structure will stay there for a long
time but the infill will change and and
sort of allow different things to come
in as as it grows and ages this is I am
again in Bangalore and when it was first
built this is from the 70s this
photograph and you see the sort of sense
oral quality of that space even without
the landscape the quality of texture of
the stone the quality of the light but
today when you go there the buildings
are almost completely obfuscated by this
landscape which is completely over
ground grown and thickly forested inside
so this idea of change being a part of
the notion of architecture and of course
there are sub versions of that as well
this is social housing in Chile and what
the architect very cleverly did is that
they didn’t have enough money and if
they had to build house to push them out
outside the city and the idea was that
you would build half a house and people
when they got money would fill in the
next half and so this architecture
becomes something that is completely DIY
do-it-yourself but it allows for that
sort of you know completely informal
kind of construction there’s also the
idea of time in terms of the ruin and
architects have been trying to recreate
the conditions of ruin ignoring the
notions of window frames and sanitary
fittings and lighting and air
conditioning so you start seeing only
the structure and only the light that
then is held within that structure they
look at that by just suppressing the
window frames that look out onto the
Mediterranean Utzon makes a building
that is just about structure and light
and so it’s pure in that in that sense
and the last part of it is meaning and
in meaning you have of course in the Taj
the garden of Weeden replicated and all
of those floral motifs were also very
precious material in in Virgin Mary the
ultramarine very expensive pigment in
those days the more ultramarine you saw
in paintings the more expensive the
painting was and so the association with
cost but also the Virgin is always in
blue if you notice and then the last one
was
Charles Correa spoke about the deeper
structure of things where when we go to
a step to El or a tank immediately we’re
connecting to it on a primordial level
level as if we remember the history of
man digging for water that somehow the
architectures is evoking those memories
that have sort of come through all of
our generations down to us so memory is
a very important part of meaning this is
Magritte again talking about the horse
and the and the clock but labeling them
as the door in the wind because he was
arguing that when we view art we are
actually bringing to the art our own
memories of those associations of the
horse in that beautiful barn where the
door was so lovely that I would open and
go and visit the horse so it’s an
associative memory of this icon to that
thing and art you know in the old days
used to be in a particular location but
now of course the art the stations the
cross or religious art now finds its
place in in sort of profane environments
but of course we’ve taken it to a whole
other level where art can be on on
anything you can imagine and
architecture to has got that kind of
base baseless this is 1916 setback
regulations making a building of a
particular kind and of course we do our
own crap not knowing anything about what
what it means in terms of the history of
architecture
this is Alto in Finland and Alto of
course Finland is very very cold so he’s
building this wall in Finland in his
summer house remembering his time in
Italy on the beach and so he brings in
all of that Italian brick he clads the
building with that brick and then he
puts a little window which is there
there with a lintel and he puts in blue
tile and he says that’s the
Mediterranean for me and so this idea of
memory and meaning interlinked and all
of us bringing to bear in our work this
notion of memory and of course meaning
is also geographical this is that
location where the two buildings are
it’s at the end of the Euro Muir River
and the Bay of Biscay just about just
near the Atlantic Ocean but look at that
isn’t that doesn’t that look like the
river brought in all of that detrás
right across Europe came to this point
and as the waters receded it emerged and
Jools emerged and this gold emerged and
those striations horizontally marking
the flood levels as it fell down and
this beautiful object that was then the
result of the river flowing out into the
ocean and for the last project this
beautiful building that Moneo did in in
Spain where up ahead it is the church on
the right is the palace and what Moneo
does so just to talk about this facade
these are– tables and in the retable
czar all the angels and the and the
great patrons looking down onto the
plaza Moneo does a building which Hazrat
Abel’s as well except this is a public
building and there are people now
accessing those balconies and they
become the deities looking out onto the
plaza so common people in a in a public
building occupying the place so it’s a
subversion of the idea of power and and
and hegemony over public environment so
it’s sort of a political statement as a
building so just a quick recap an
architecture of the senses in praise of
shadows beyond the frame and meaning
instead of creating mere objects of
visual seduction architecture reliefs
mediates and projects meanings the
ultimate meaning of any building is
beyond architecture it directs our
consciousness back to the world and
towards our own sense of self and being
significant architecture makes us
experience ourselves as complete
embodied and spiritual beings in fact
this is the great function of all
meaningful art but the question of
Indian s I think we need to think of it
more fundamentally about being human
first about understanding the human
condition and expressing that in our
work
thank you [Applause]
with my wife in Bangalore and for the
past few months we’ve been working on a
house in Bangalore and we thought maybe
you know we’ve been have reached a sweet
spot it’s a beautiful plan it looks out
onto the lake that’s close by it’s got
beautiful places inside for intimate
refuge and then our clients visited
Switzerland
but contrary to what you may think what
they came back with was another
fundamental question for us so Manish
asked me are we designing an Indian home
so of course in in these jingoistic
times that’s quite a loaded question ah
what is Indian and are we going to make
an Indian home is there one way but it
is it led me to think about architecture
and and what may be missing because
whenever we get introduced to people as
architects normally what we get in
response is Oh what happened to
architecture we had such amazing
buildings all around us you know like
this amazing building in male Cote and
then of course we get buildings like
that
that’s IT people in Bangalore 2000 some
of the buildings also try to kill us but
that’s the building in in London that
reflected the light onto cars and burnt
them so architecture can be quite
powerful so what happened to
architecture this is a question so in
the next whatever I have 16 minutes I’m
going to solve that little for you or at
least try to so a lot of my sort of
brief talk is going to be based on
fellows mus great book eyes of the skin
and I think a lot of our problems stem
from the fact that our culture sort of
revolves around the eye that everything
that we’ve sort of started to do and
appreciate in value comes from an
appreciation of the I thought of looking
at things just visually sort of
evaluating them and and and estimating
them on that basis the dominance of the
eye and the suppression of the other
senses tends to put us into detachment
isolation and exteriority modernist
design at large has housed the intellect
and the eye but has left the body and
the other senses
as well as our memories imagination and
dreams homeless so here’s a kind of
seminal image this is Rene Magritte
this is 1929 so what do you believe
do you believe the statement at the
bottom it says this is not a pipe or do
you look at the image and say hey that’s
a pipe but neither of those things are
true because you can’t take either the
image or the word and put some tobacco
in there and light it and off away you
need the real engagement of all of those
senses of touch of inhaling putting
stuff in so the eye deceives you and
that’s why the the painting is called
the treachery of images because we’re
constantly being fooled by what the eye
sees and believes to be true when every
other sense may be needed to engage
really with your environment and in
India we have no shortage of that I mean
we’re surrounded with this kind of over
stimuli there’s a great sort of example
you know any street I mean you could
shoot pictures in Trivandrum anywhere
but we’re surrounded with this and yet
we continue to do buildings like what I
showed you in in Bangalore this kind of
glass and steel isolated enclosed
control environments when we’re
surrounded with environments that are
rich for the senses just looking at that
photograph you immediately know what it
sounds like there what it smells like
what it feels like to be on that Street
and the I sort of is giving you a
license to imagine all of those things
that you’re so familiar with art has
done that for years
ages art captures in that sort of flat
environment all of the qualities of
temperature of comfort look at the
painting of Matisse’s painting the image
on the left you see that threshold with
the light on it and you know that that’s
the hot Mediterranean Sun coming and
just beyond the threshold is is the
beautiful shade and comfort you’re
getting all the breeze from the sea the
painting is telling you about the
environment and that’s true for Klimt as
well look at that painting with with the
trees you can almost hear your feet
crunching the leaves as you walk towards
the ocean on the other side you can feel
the breeze you can smell the sea
great architecture does that too it
gives you an environment in which to
appreciate all of those other things
apart from the eyes in addition to the
eyes the previous image was the I am
Bangalow building by Doshi
that’s falling water one of the seminal
works one of the seminal houses where
everything from from that stone that is
there but this is the perfect spot from
which to now cure that waterfall in an
embrace that environment and a lot of
the materials coming from that place to
enrich your experience of where you are
located in that particular environment
and zum Thor the great Swiss architect
using special shuttering within the
church that then evokes the sense of the
forest and the light of being under that
canopy great architecture sort of is
bringing you that memory of a place that
is it’s just not you know a sealed
air-conditioned box so that’s the first
aspect of it this idea of a
multi-sensory architecture where
everything is sort of profoundly
heightened the second thing is a
negation of this sort of supremacy of
the eye and a celebration of the shadow
when we’re in a sort of in a state of
deep meditation or we’re enjoying some
great music or we’re in the embrace of
our loved one automatically our eyes are
closed and we’re sort of rejecting all
of that distraction to really engage and
absorb that experience great art does
that it tells you about those shadows
what’s happening in the shadows the
first image the Rogers painting of Jesus
and doubting Thomas was coming to check
he’s not trusting his eye but he’s
touching Jesus to check is this really
him is this really the wound but look at
the way it’s painted it’s almost black
at the back the Romans are are chasing
these guys right it’s it’s got this
conspiratorial sort of sense about it
and all of these things happening in the
shadows and the other image again Jesus
calling out to Matthew was a tax
collector come with me but look how
curvature plays with the light Jesus is
standing in the shadow pointing to
Matthew who’s in the light and telling
him come that’s not the way come here
you know so this game of light and
shadow creating an a sort of really
visceral sense of meaning and great
architecture this is also in Finland
in this beautiful town hall where from
from the courtyard where you have a lot
of light you slowly progress to
subsequently darker and darker places
till you finally end up in a very dark
chamber house where now it’s no longer
the performance a chamber house where
probably Trump won’t do very well but a
chamber house where you really really
need dialogue and conversation great
Indian architecture and this is the
awkward 2 min in sikandra this was a
profoundly moving experience for me this
is the gateway to Sikandar where aqua is
buried it’s just 30 minutes out of Agra
and it’s a huge humongous gateway
embellished with all of the riches you
walk in this is the building where you
know the upper is is buried the
mausoleum and you’re entering through
that gate with all of those you know
fine jewels and and emeralds and you
know really the gateway of heaven but
the moment you pass through those doors
you’re in a chamber almost devoid of any
sensory stimuli it’s a blank white wall
there’s no light and at that point as
you cross that threshold it’s a
profoundly moving experience like as if
you’ve crossed into a portal into a
place where it is a metaphysical
condition where you’re in engagement
with Akbar in communion with him in that
room and it is really sort of moving and
you know we used to take students to
second row to see this and you can sense
that sort of profound moving experience
you you guys have felt it when you go to
great buildings old buildings
unfortunately architecture does that
doesn’t do that anymore
so that’s about shadows the next point
is about the frame and architecture has
for long become the result of the great
photograph you know all of us look at
architecture and the great photograph
and we think that that’s the photograph
and of course we have someone to blame
this is Albert II and Albert is frame
and what he did was he in the
Renaissance he sort of made the idea of
the frame and to capture reality and
perspective through that frame we’ve all
done this as students transferring the
cross the the grid onto onto a sheet of
paper and getting a sense of whatever’s
within that frame flattening it out for
whatever it is but artists have riled
against this for years
Turner’s painting hardly being kept
within that frame sort of
taking out of the frame of Monet’s great
painting of the water lilies where the
depth of that painting is uncertain that
you can see layer upon layer of stuff
and it seems like that frame cannot hold
or or is again a portal that takes you
elsewhere and sometimes art also
subverts the notion of the viewer and
the viewed in one muñoz’s great work
where he fills the room with with
identical images of laughing people when
you enter that room you feel like an
interloper as if you’re under
surveillance as if you’re being viewed
as if you’re the piece of art and
everybody is looking at you and and sort
of it’s you know laughing and at watch
and and even in the way that they’ve
been placed there they’re sort of
submerged as if you’re on a pedestal
being viewed as an object as you pass
through this space and Gormley in London
just outside the Hayworth gallery
placing these figures on buildings
everywhere as if notionally supervising
or surveilling this environment
subverting the notion of the frame this
is a great artist from my soul Alvis of
Balasubrahmanyam and he made this thing
out of ordinal you know ordinal right
the air freshener and so that that art
slowly sort of disappears it becomes a
way / so what he says is that the art
still exists in the room except instead
of the eyes you’re breathing it in it’s
fantastic right it’s sort of
disappearing this notion of what is the
engagement of the viewer and the and the
viewed and great architecture again does
that it gives you a sense of something
that so what what is it about the frame
in architecture I think the essential
thing about architecture is the question
of time and this is the Rhian G temple
in Japan where that wall at the back is
600 years old and is aging very very
slowly whereas the gravel that is in
front of it around these rocks is raked
every day and so as you’re sitting there
meditating on this gravel because you
can’t really focus on anything you get a
sense of that real perspective between
what is is really old and what is just
done now and this we see in India all
over the place in all temples you go
they do the rangoli every day in front
of it that’s a notion of temporality
right you understand the notion of
something that’s really old and
something that’s happening every day and
this desire of change is
destroyed in the architecture kondeh
does it beautifully this is Louie Kahn
in California where he makes a concrete
frame and in fills it with the material
which is disintegrating at a much faster
rate than the concrete and so you almost
feel like the ruin that the frame of
structure will stay there for a long
time but the infill will change and and
sort of allow different things to come
in as as it grows and ages this is I am
again in Bangalore and when it was first
built this is from the 70s this
photograph and you see the sort of sense
oral quality of that space even without
the landscape the quality of texture of
the stone the quality of the light but
today when you go there the buildings
are almost completely obfuscated by this
landscape which is completely over
ground grown and thickly forested inside
so this idea of change being a part of
the notion of architecture and of course
there are sub versions of that as well
this is social housing in Chile and what
the architect very cleverly did is that
they didn’t have enough money and if
they had to build house to push them out
outside the city and the idea was that
you would build half a house and people
when they got money would fill in the
next half and so this architecture
becomes something that is completely DIY
do-it-yourself but it allows for that
sort of you know completely informal
kind of construction there’s also the
idea of time in terms of the ruin and
architects have been trying to recreate
the conditions of ruin ignoring the
notions of window frames and sanitary
fittings and lighting and air
conditioning so you start seeing only
the structure and only the light that
then is held within that structure they
look at that by just suppressing the
window frames that look out onto the
Mediterranean Utzon makes a building
that is just about structure and light
and so it’s pure in that in that sense
and the last part of it is meaning and
in meaning you have of course in the Taj
the garden of Weeden replicated and all
of those floral motifs were also very
precious material in in Virgin Mary the
ultramarine very expensive pigment in
those days the more ultramarine you saw
in paintings the more expensive the
painting was and so the association with
cost but also the Virgin is always in
blue if you notice and then the last one
was
Charles Correa spoke about the deeper
structure of things where when we go to
a step to El or a tank immediately we’re
connecting to it on a primordial level
level as if we remember the history of
man digging for water that somehow the
architectures is evoking those memories
that have sort of come through all of
our generations down to us so memory is
a very important part of meaning this is
Magritte again talking about the horse
and the and the clock but labeling them
as the door in the wind because he was
arguing that when we view art we are
actually bringing to the art our own
memories of those associations of the
horse in that beautiful barn where the
door was so lovely that I would open and
go and visit the horse so it’s an
associative memory of this icon to that
thing and art you know in the old days
used to be in a particular location but
now of course the art the stations the
cross or religious art now finds its
place in in sort of profane environments
but of course we’ve taken it to a whole
other level where art can be on on
anything you can imagine and
architecture to has got that kind of
base baseless this is 1916 setback
regulations making a building of a
particular kind and of course we do our
own crap not knowing anything about what
what it means in terms of the history of
architecture
this is Alto in Finland and Alto of
course Finland is very very cold so he’s
building this wall in Finland in his
summer house remembering his time in
Italy on the beach and so he brings in
all of that Italian brick he clads the
building with that brick and then he
puts a little window which is there
there with a lintel and he puts in blue
tile and he says that’s the
Mediterranean for me and so this idea of
memory and meaning interlinked and all
of us bringing to bear in our work this
notion of memory and of course meaning
is also geographical this is that
location where the two buildings are
it’s at the end of the Euro Muir River
and the Bay of Biscay just about just
near the Atlantic Ocean but look at that
isn’t that doesn’t that look like the
river brought in all of that detrás
right across Europe came to this point
and as the waters receded it emerged and
Jools emerged and this gold emerged and
those striations horizontally marking
the flood levels as it fell down and
this beautiful object that was then the
result of the river flowing out into the
ocean and for the last project this
beautiful building that Moneo did in in
Spain where up ahead it is the church on
the right is the palace and what Moneo
does so just to talk about this facade
these are– tables and in the retable
czar all the angels and the and the
great patrons looking down onto the
plaza Moneo does a building which Hazrat
Abel’s as well except this is a public
building and there are people now
accessing those balconies and they
become the deities looking out onto the
plaza so common people in a in a public
building occupying the place so it’s a
subversion of the idea of power and and
and hegemony over public environment so
it’s sort of a political statement as a
building so just a quick recap an
architecture of the senses in praise of
shadows beyond the frame and meaning
instead of creating mere objects of
visual seduction architecture reliefs
mediates and projects meanings the
ultimate meaning of any building is
beyond architecture it directs our
consciousness back to the world and
towards our own sense of self and being
significant architecture makes us
experience ourselves as complete
embodied and spiritual beings in fact
this is the great function of all
meaningful art but the question of
Indian s I think we need to think of it
more fundamentally about being human
first about understanding the human
condition and expressing that in our
work
thank you [Applause]
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