INDIA IMPRINT
Studio, Workshop, Field trip, Lecture series, Film Series at the Chair for Architectural and Urban Design at the TU Berlin
Is designing in the Indian subcontinent different from designing in the Maghreb, Missisippi or the Transvaal? Is building in Bangalore different from building in Milan, Atlanta or Johannesburg?
India is only at the beginning of a development process of gigantic dimensions, visible all over the country. In fact urban India can be seen as a huge construction site: a drive through its cities reveals a construction frenzy of big highways, brand new shopping malls, high-class leisure resorts, sterile IT Parks, green, and eclectic New Towns and gated-communities. It is here were development collides with local culture and centuries old ways of organization. To us architects it evokes the question of how much innovation we can expect to implant and how much of that has to consider local contexts and the ability of its users to built, inhabit and maintain the structures we design. Successful projects, far from following typical architectural and urban projects of global standards, have to develop out of an engagement with the city they are placed in and the way its citizens use it. Based on this knowledge they become able to implement innovations to the urban character of the city.
