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Rethinking Satyagraha
Reviving a Gandhian Ideal as a Foundation for Architectural Practice
Speakers
The word satyagraha is associated with Mohandas K Gandhi and is not a word one would tend to bracket with architectural practice. However, if one accepts that creating a humane architecture requires coming to terms with what it means to be human before one seeks to be an architect, it is an ideal that offers a powerful foundation for this quest.
The word is usually equated with the political strategy of non-violent civil resistance that Gandhi championed to gain India’s freedom from British colonialism. It has a far deeper meaning, and is a moral code for life that, in turn, informs politics and many other human endeavours. It is an ideal that finds significant resonances in the nature of human consciousness, making it accessible given we all know our consciousness from first-hand experience.
The connection to architectural practice will be drawn by examining the act of design and how it must draw connections between the professional autonomy of the architect and the primordial core of everyday life. Some implications on the nature of architectural space and the structure of architectural practice will be delineated.
A talk by Prem Chandavarkar will be followed by a discussion with Anne Feenstra and a Q&A session with the audience.
Speakers
Prem Chandavarkar
Prem Chandavarkar is the Managing Partner of CnT Architects, a legacy practice with a history dating back to being Bengaluru’s first architectural firm.
He is a former Executive Director of Srishti Manipal Institute of Art Design & Technology, is an academic advisor and guest faculty at Indian and international colleges of architecture, and has served on the board of The Architecture, Culture & Spirituality Forum, USA.
He likes to introduce himself as an architect who is easily distracted by other subjects and writes lectures, and blogs on architecture, urbanism, philosophy, education, environment, art, spirituality, and cultural studies.
Anne Feenstra
A Laureate of the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2012 (Paris), former Dean of Architecture, CEPT University, Ahmedabad, Prof. Feenstra has taught at SPA Delhi, in Kabul and Kathmandu. His pro-people, pro-ecology, material up-cycle, research-based body of work includes urban processes like DELHi2050, Mussoorie2040 and ecological sensitive rural projects in Bamyan, Wakhan, Punjab, Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Pokhara, Makwanpur, Khumbu, Taplejung, Assam and Sikkim.
