The Hindu Date:16/07/2006
http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/mag/2006/07/16/stories/2006071600080700.htm
Magazine
URBAN SPACES
Living architecture
HARSH KABRA
Architecture is not just the index of civilisation, but also a
celebration of life, says noted architect and planner Christopher
Charles Benninger.
Benninger's focus has been on "the Middle Path in Buddhism", the balance
between humans and nature and between the built fabric and its natural
terrain.
BHUTAN may seem like a printer's error on the world map. But the tiny
Himalayan kingdom is a gargantuan feat of nature. For a geography
ranging from challenging to hopeless and a culture shaped by steep
ridges and narrow river valleys, modernity was once admissible only in
measured dosages. However, the Land of the Thunder Dragon has long since
shed its cloak of enigma and cast away its sequestered past. To witness
how, travel to the verdant Wang Chhu valley lounging amid some of the
most spectacular and stomach-lurching designs of nature. On the more
hospitable western slopes of the valley, dotted with cloud-caressed
monasteries and historic landmarks unruffled by time, a marvel of human
vision is taking shape. But unlike most things human, this one does not
intend to vie with Nature.
People power
In 2001, the mountain kingdom woke up to democracy when the King of
Bhutan announced the formation of a constitutional commission. Today,
just three years shy of its first democratic elections, Bhutan is busy
getting itself a new capital city and capitol complex. What is most
striking about them is that their design is as potent an ode to people
power as the country's departure from absolute monarchy. But with noted
architect and planner Christopher Charles Benninger as the creative
force behind them, anything else would have meant architecture for its
own sake.
"Architecture," he firmly believes, "is the experiences of the people
who live in milieus or enliven places, imbibe forms, perceive spaces and
become lost in the in-between spaces, forgotten or intended, which
impact on the emotions, sensitivities and memories of individuals."
For a nation that calibrates progress in terms of Gross National
Happiness, Benninger's focus has been on "the Middle Path in Buddhism",
the balance between humans and nature and between the built fabric and
its natural terrain. "This search of conviviality within community,
obligations and responsibilities, more than just freedom, is based in
meditation, self-discovery and being."
Benninger's design is driven by the principles of `Intelligent Urbanism'
based on balances between urban living and nature, tradition,
technology, work, house holding, play, meditation, movement and
governance. "These principles, rather a charter which the urban
community agrees to put up to any new ideas or projects, have resulted
in more than fifty percent of the urban land being reserved for
greenery, water bodies and play-areas."
Pedestrian movement
Benninger has planned the 30-square-kilometre capital as a set of "urban
villages" situated in micro-watersheds between rivulets streaming to the
main river. The outcome is an urban corridor connecting these villages
through inexpensive, low-energy public transport, meant to deter the
Frankenstein of personal automobile. The emphasis is on pedestrian
movement replete with opportunities for people to interact unhindered by
vehicles. For the inner parts, he has mooted participatory development
by way of land pooling.
The site for the proposed National Capitol Complex is a 20-minute walk
from Benninger's 10-member Thimphu office overlooking the city's sylvan
bounty. In this complex slated for completion by 2008, Benninger has
evoked vernacular systems of construction for contemporary demands of
work and living.
In 1968, Benninger, an alumnus of the Harvard Graduate School of Design
and Urban Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, first
came to India on a Fulbright scholarship. Three years later, this
disciple of Spain's Jose Luis Sert and a former member of the Delos
think-tank on modern social and urban planning returned to India as a
Ford Foundation consultant to set up the School of Urban Planning at
Ahmedabad. But this time around, he was here for good.
For Benninger, moving to India has spelt liberation from various "forms
of entrapment". Being in America and Europe, he notes, would only have
dissolved him in a mob goaded in "one, pre-defined right direction" by
media, money, fame and a smothering sense of self-importance. "America
is great because you can pretend to be what you aren't, but India is
great because you can find yourself and be what you are."
Self-imposed exile
For well over 35 years since then, this American has lived and worked in
a "self-imposed exile" in India, conceiving award-winning designs for
institutions, residential schools, hotels, corporate offices and
large-scale housing projects, preparing plans for the governments of
Bhutan, Nepal, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India, and advising
the World Bank, UNO and Asian Development Bank on development projects
in Asia and Africa.
As an architect, much like a cinematographer, Benninger programmes human
experiences of moving through the spaces he designs. Informing this
preconceived "kinetic architecture" are real people who transform these
spaces into "places", imbuing them with life and meaning.
What fascinates Benninger about Indian architecture is its vacillating
context defined by the happenings within, a far cry from "the dull,
fixed images of packaged consumer items" that pass off as architecture
in the West. He makes no secret of his dismay, and surprise, at the
Indian awe of Western "stunts parading as architecture" that he equates
with children screaming for attention. To qualify as true architecture,
a structure, he believes, must span the continuum of time. "What are
more interesting are the precursors to the events that give shape to the
form, and the impact of the forms on future events."
To Benninger, the very chaos, uncertainties and contradictions that
fetch Indian cities generous disparagement are indeed the "raw material
of creativity and free thought". "While everyone has heard of Newark or
New Jersey where there is no soul, no life and just empty shells and
lost memories, Indian cities represent the dynamism and energy that
thrive out on the periphery of the global system." This is perhaps why
he is pained to see India redefine itself based on "consumption and the
false sense of personal power it engenders".
What's next
Up next for Benninger is the prestigious commission to redesign the
campus of the Indian Institute of Management, Kolkatta, for which 15 of
the most celebrated architectural firms in India had been short-listed.
"It's an honour and a challenge to work with such erudite clients for a
value-based, intellectual centre." In envisioning "a new milieu for
learning, discovery and creativity," Benninger's accent is on an
ambience that will at once facilitate interaction, reflection,
contemplation, self-discovery and the development of personal
discipline. And in working within an existing beautiful campus teeming
with water ponds and trees and in integrating several old, uninspired
buildings into a new whole, Benninger seeks to amplify a world-class
centre of learning into a new business and cultural environment. "A
campus, whether for a capitol complex or an institute, must have its
iconic qualities articulating its values, importance and the triumph of
human soul!" Indeed, for architecture is not just the index of
civilisation, but also a celebration of life itself.
E-mail: harsh.kabra@xxxxxxxxx
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