>
> Anand I never thought of the intricate detailing of
> ontological process for extrusion of these churches.
> Infact I boldly considered those things as it would
> have happened in certain way just to buildup my
> further arguments. Thanks for it. The catastrophic
> event of choosing 'neutral form' for extrusion of
> churches completely thrilled me. Here, direction of
> the process from Theo-centric to anthropo-centric gets
> reversed (anthropo-centric to theo-centric). I think
> selection of vedic(north Indian) artisans for
> construction of Dravidian temples was a choice out of
> critical condition in that time scale and this was the
> catastrophic event which gave rise to new set of
> vocabulary in temple constructions. Am I right?
>
Santosh, (and Uttiya, and Thomas)... i thought i was the nuiscence fellow
around here, but these discussions grow very intense even for me! And
anyway, I should speak less and code more, as the website owner.
Santosh, do you still buy the Sigfried Gidion and Peter Eisenman story about
theo- and anthropo- centric worldviews? I remember laughing outloud at
Eisenman's contentions about the Foucauldian Event in his essay. Also, not
sure as to how you'll describe the catastrophe here! I thought the evolution
of the Church was a gradual, accretive process, no? Catastrophic events, I'd
illustrate with Bhatia's sketches (let me put them all online over the week)
The Friday Mosque of St. John the Baptist of Khajuraho
http://www.architexturez.net/FILES/folio/sketches-gautam.bhatia/fan-baptist.shtml
Selection of Artisans, not sure. I looked at the South Indian temple,
settled on Madurai. I wanted to illustrate the futility of asking for a
universal taxonomy or some "similar to words, sentences and stuff" kind of
architecture, and similar stuff. Was able to show how, Hindu Architecture,
utilises the same five or six elements, the assemblies (Tirumala Nayaka's
palace, Meenakshi-Sundereshvara last three rings) will be entirely different
types even with syntactically, the same plan. The whole Yajamana system
required they work with syntactic ambiguities, multiplex symbols, scalar
variations -- it was all in the modulations rather than the element, they
are able to create semantic distancing (and a high granularity) by just
playing with the metrics and dimensions, say, by intercolumnation. So the
Vocabulary business I am skeptical about. Took the idea further, showed how
the Svargarohanprasada in Raja Bhoja will not be consistant with the
vocabulories he maps in Samrangansutradhara. Search Architexturez for
"semantic distance", you should find a text or two.
Besides, there is a whole migratory pattern to artisanal labour in South
Asia, no? the Panchals of Gujarat everyone talks about. MA Dhaki once even
argued about the mosque in the middle-east (it is in MARG magazine
somewhere), saying they bear imprints of South Asia architectures, as the
artisan travelled to the mid-east together with the timber.
Were you able to find a copy of the JSAH article on the basillica pland and
the Church in the mid-east? I'd like a few photocopies from that mag, if you
do. William Curtis' analysis of the Swiss Students Pavallion (in the same
year) also comes to mind.