BOOK EXTRACT Notions And Philosophy Of Space In Indian Architecture

An extract from the book ‘ Wooden Architecture of Kerela’ which explores the socio- cultural and the tectonic aspects of Kerela’s wooden architecture–

Book

Wooden Architecture of Kerala

By Miki Desai

Publisher

Mapin Publishing

Pages

279

ISBN

978- 93- 85360- 22- 0

Upon experiencing architecture and the spaces from within the buildings, it is apparent that the task of conceiving and giving the spaces a material existence has been a prime human preoccupation. ‘ Space’, however, can be understood simply as volumes of emptiness interacting with other such volumes. Its perception has a great deal to do with how it is formed and how it impacts one’s psyche and perceptional response. Although its attributes can help understand/ identify spaces better, different human beings perceive and interpret spaces differently while experiencing them. However, the experience also depends on the mental construct of the perceiver and his/ her subjectivity, which is shaped by the physical, social and environmental contexts of architecture. This results in cultural specificity of spatial perception. The idea of an alien living environment stems from the lack of such perception in the viewer’s spatial experiences. In traditional societies, material, structural and cultural attributes define the physicality of architecture while being a function of those attributes, because the local context and skills shape them. Some societies have a

philosophical or metaphysical idea or stance about space and in most cases, religion has played a role in shaping it. Hence architecture has been the medium of manifestation of such philosophies. Many religious philosophies of space have much to do with their stellar and temporal connections to human constructs.

It is difficult to translate the word ‘ space’ in most Indian languages. The eminent

Gujarati poet Rajendra Shukla, who is also a Sanskrit scholar and a linguist, has translated it as dikkāla, meaning that direction and time together connote ‘ space’; one cannot exist without the other. It is almost a phenomenological understanding. In the making of shelter, the notions and connotations of architectural spatiality become generic within a given society. This is why we find similar expressions and use of space across regions. Spatiality can be visually evaluated in the context of plan organization, individual spaces, neighbourhood and settlement. By way of the building’s orientation or the icons placed around it, its metaphysical content can be assigned. In understanding the plan organization, a mundane and utilitarian spatiality is given by the demarcated, sequenced or juxtaposed spaces as a footprint and form. As a result of this organization, the spatial qualities realized can be linear, clustered, cellular or central. Spatial elements created by the overall form and by the play of mass and voids within a building— such as a room, courtyard, bay window, veranda, roof, terrace, balcony, etc.— further define

“We can have nothing but respect for those who, in constructing temples to the immortal gods, so ordered the parts that by means of proportion and symmetry, the arrangement of both the separate parts and the whole should be harmonious.”

— Vitruvius, De architectura libri decem