Food for Work or Work for Food

Taxing Survival in Mumbai | Photo by Remigius de Souza

 About 60 percent people in Mumbai are slums-dwellers and squatters. 

They are displaced and marginalized mainly due to so-called development projects.

(The strike by the wholesale traders was going on a couple of months ago, when I met two friends who are highly educated professionals. One was visitor from other state. The strike was a major event then. The commodities were in short-supply. My friends are interested in ecology. Their input mainly comes from workshops, seminars, books etc. They, hoever, did not mention the strike during our talk. So I asked, “Do you know what 'Food for Work' is?” No, they didn't know. This incident made me write this post.)

Food for Work

'Food for Work': I heard this benevolent concept a few decades back. I was in contact with some NGOs working in the villages. The work involved 'Conservation of Water' in drought stricken rural areas for peasants. It was bunding the farms, deepening the silted village water tanks etc. so that the rain water is retained in the scanty rainfall regions.

The 'bunding' and ‘de-silting’ of wells and village tanks is an ancient skill, still practiced by peasants by 'Community Participation' in many parts of the country. Since the Industrialization infiltrated it is getting lost. Or is it already lost?

The Concept, 'Food for Work' originated in the West; it is anybody's guess. It, perhaps, came from some foreign Funding NGOs / Agencies.

I found something amiss in their activities. Plants — grasses, shrubs, trees — also help water conservation, besides they stop soil erosion, add mulch / fertilizer to the soil. But it was not on their agenda. This aspect was either ignored, forgotten, or was unknown to NGOs or the concerned departments.

Plants, however, were a part of another programme for ‘Reforestation’, in another package, in other regions. Perhaps they did not see that plants also conserve water… hence they did not combine it with ‘Conservation of Water’.

Work for Food

Paddy Farming in Konkan | Photo by Pooja Rani

Peasants 'Work for Food' all their life to 'produce food' for self and others. It is most unfortunate they are now 'Beneficiaries' in the times of Development. In 65 years the conditions have worsened. Incidentally the term ‘Beneficiaries’, also, is imported.

I recall a conversation from a novel by Sharat Chandra Chatarji: “First you cut the limbs of a person, and then carry him on your shoulder; that is your idea of charity”. 

None of the so-called leaders thought of taking them along on the path of inclusive development, from the beginning of Independence.

On the contrary they – the peasants – being Unorganized Sector of the Indian society, became a soft target of exploitation, in the name of development, in creating and accelerating economic disparity, in depriving social services - healthcare, literacy, appropriate education, communications… this is a long list.

Ghettos of Development

They targeted peasants’ lands for creating the “Ghettos of Development” in the rural areas; they were displaced and marginalized, without their justified Rehabilitation. It took sixty five years for India to change, not scrap, the draconian law: The Land Acquisition Act. That too is an amendment, with loopholes and ambiguities that will be revealed when it is implemented.

Unfortunately, the managers – the elite ruling minority – of the country's affairs are shining with reflected light. They, in the heat of the powers in hands, conveniently forget the majority of 900 plus million peasants are actually running (feeding) this nation.

Otherwise why the ‘Rupee’ should fall in International Market? All efforts by RBI, FM have failed, so far! Actually it has been sliding down for decades, if any of the senior citizens do remember! I don't see any other rationale for the 'fall' of the Rupee.
   
In his recent article in The New York Times, 'Why India Trails China', Amartya Sen says, 'China, which during the Mao era made advances in land reform and basic education and health care, embarked on market reforms in early 1980s; its huge success changed the shape of the world economy. India has paid inadequate attention to these lessons.'

He ends the article, 'For India to match China... It needs a better-educated and healthier labor-force at all levels of society. What it needs most is more knowledge and public discussion about the nature and the huge extent of inequality and its damaging consequences, including for economic growth.'

I do not compare India with other nations like Amartya Sen or others. India, as well as each of her regions, is unique, because of the natural and cultural biodiversity. Each region, within country or each state, is capable of solving its problems with cooperation of the people, they having deep perceptions of land-water-life. Government is merely a tool to provide facilities, not a ruler to coerce people to drive economic growth for a few.

Each Place is Unique

Once I had spent almost a decade to motivate someone in a NGO to dig pond of about 20 ft x 40 ft size, in their land in the dry-arid region. During monsoon it was full with water; it attracted water-loving wildlife. Even if it dries after a few months, it will get refilled.

In another barren land, in the same region, I had suggested to dig a large tank to take advantage of its natural slope of the land. I advised not to go deeper than 5-6 ft. as there was possibility of salinity in the subsoil. I also advised them to plant thick cuttings of banyan branches in the land! In the first monsoon (15-20 inches annual rainfall) some of them had roots and leaves sprouting. In this land the NGO had started a Vocational Training Institute.

Could this example of conservation/ restoration of Land–Water–Plants be a part of curriculum in villages, in schools, colleges, or vocational schools? It never occurred to the people who were running the NGO.

Each place is unique. Here, in the realms of Nature, regimentation and compartmentalization as in the civilized societies doesn't work. It needs unique corrective measures in harmony with Nature.

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© Remigius de Souza. All Rights Reserved.

The White Man's Burden

The White Man’s Burden

Rudyard Kipling by Remigius de Souza

My information about Rudyard Kipling was limited only to:

1. He was born in the campus of Sir J. J. School of Art, Mumbai, where I was studying architecture;
2. He was a British poet.

I was doing my first year in architecture when I made this portrait. I copied a picture in pencil on handmade paper, taken from some book or magazine. That was years ago. I wanted to sell it. Thankfully it didn’t work.

Later I read a couple of his poems, but couldn’t stick any more. Decades later I saw an animated cartoon series, “Mogali”, or Jungle Book, on TV, once in a while. I was more interested in graphics, not the story.

The story is disappointing because the animals were made to talk and behave like humans; that’s an insult to animals. It was neither a work of imagination nor for the love of animals. Even to abuse any person by a name of any animal is an insult to that animal.

Kipling was an imperialist, that’s known. But whatever I learnt from the textbooks in school that projected Britain is a democratic country, which I could never believe.

Britain and its government and the people may be anything else, which is their right, but to call them democratic is preposterous. Certainly there may be few persons who believed in democracy and lived in democratic spirit and values, but that cannot be generalized.

Any country or society may be a superpower, which doesn’t mean it is superior to any other country or society or people.

How could any democratic society enslave or colonize or invade other people - other countries?
How could any country and its citizens go to the polar uninhabited region, put their flag there, and claim it is their land?
Such a civilization is a curse to the land and waters. Animals are better.

Perhaps, I shouldn’t refer to any country and/or its people in the place of their government – democratic, or fundamentalist, or totalitarian, or monarchy.
Better say, Indian government instead of India or Indian people. Better say Chinese government rather than China or Chinese people. Better say British government, neither Britain nor British people. That’s how I should address an issue if it refers to any government.

It is our present predicament that we are such weaklings.

Is there democracy in true sense anywhere? May be there is. I have heard about Vermont, but I don’t know anything about the place.
Certainly there is democracy: It is among the tribal – adivasi – aborigine communities, which still prevails in spite of onslaught by the civilized societies.
They are in fact the WORLD HERITAGE, which needs to be treated with care and caution.

DEMOCRACY can function only at a community level, small nations at human scale. Then we will not need any governments that exist in present forms, and we will not need cities – the symbol of centralized power.

NOTE: The White Man's Burden, poem by Kipling
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Remigius de Souza | Mumbai

© Remigius de Souza., all rights reserved.

A perpetual state of trauma

People Energy

In your society or high-class society or classless society,

of Industrial Civilisation, comprised of individuals,

as if no one is born of biological parents,

but everyone is a product of high-class-culture

of science–technology–trade–consumption,

laced with aesthetics of hedonism by your overbearing senses;

touch, hearing, taste, vision, smell, sex and terror (fear).

For you the rest of humanity just belongs to the Underclass Incognito.

And your high-class-culture (or dharma!) turns everything –

Earth, Waters, Air, Life at large… including Other Humans – into a commodity

for the consumption for your high-class-society,

and for the display extravagance of your high-class-culture.

Your high-class-culture developed (but never evolved?)

out of five thousand years of civilised society,

knows no option

either for the revival of Life,

which, of course, is not in your hands,

or you allow anyone or anything but a natural death,

but is left to live a life of an invalid,

by benevolently pumping drugs and chemicals

to leave a body —

from the Earth and Waters to Plants, Animals and Other Humans —

in a perpetual state of trauma.

Note: Sadly, fragmented split personality that I am, I address this to myself though a negligible fragment that I am of Industrial Civilisation. Originally published in blog ARCHETYPES INDIA

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© Remigius de Souza. all rights reserved.
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TERRA INCOGNITA INDICA

People Energy

Soil Unknown-Undiscovered Indian

INDICA: I deliberately use the word ‘Indica’, a biological term, instead of ‘India’. It is precisely to indicate a ‘region’ and not political boundaries that associate with the State. In the historical time political boundaries have been subjected to change, anywhere.

 

TERRA: literally ‘soil’, which I refer to ‘Land and Waters and People, and Biotic and Abiotic Nature’. The biotic and abiotic nature is intrinsic in the life, therefore also in their culture, of the people – the daughters and the sons of the soil.

 

INCOGNITA: the literal meaning is ‘unknown – unexplored – unrecognized’ alike the medieval (European) map showed the known world encircled by ‘Terra incognita’ where monsters roam.

Indeed even in the twenty-first century, the ‘soil’, in my way of comprehensive meaning, still remains ‘unknown (to the world) – unexplored (by the pundits) – unrecognized (by the so-called Authority or the State)’, whom I fondly call my ‘anonymous’ kin, from whatever glimpse I have had through my six decade journey in the Third World India and the Fourth World India.

 

Social and Cultural Sub-groups of India

INDIA has almost a continental size. Broadly there are about 50 – 60 cultural and social sub-groups (as illustrated). No. We are not referring to the castes or cults or the creeds. We are not taking of, in American lingo, of the Class or 'the classless society'. We are speaking of the ethnic and adivasi – tribal – communities (that is the cohesive collectives), not the civilized advance societies (that is the fragmented collectives in the modern times).

She indeed is a thousand-petal lotus, our national flower. There have been as many topographic and climatic regions – bio-regions – that have great hand in shaping the culture, expressed in food, clothing, shelter (or architecture!), visual and performing arts and crafts, languages an folklore… and thus as a result a superior quality of sustainable living. I call it a model for the modern world, a world heritage, now facing a wipe-out.

 

Unfortunately in the global race to make India an industrial power by the petty imitators – the ruling minority – comes at cross-purposes with the survival of the agrarian society and the diverse bio-regions. The petty imitators are out to homogenize them with monoculture of industrial civilization. The industrialization here, so far, only helps the power mongers and profiteers through their invisible tentacles.

Indeed one lifetime is not enough to see and to assimilate and to understand this phenomenon for any person or even a group of persons. Any documentation, even a fraction, would reveal great treasures of wisdom and knowledge and skills, across these diverse bio-regions, accumulated over generations of anonymous People of India. 

India is such a vast country with diversity that it is impossible to manage even the welfare of the people (for the lack of understanding) for any centralized power, even with an iron hand. This is true of any region in the world which has been proved time to time. Decentralization of powers, down to earth in practice, (power in the hands of peasants) is the only answer to this malady; M. K. Gandhi came very close to it in his concept of Panchayati Raj – power to village self-rule.

 

(10-05-2009)

Note: Map- Social and cultural sub-groups of India, after the cover page of 'Seminar', Issue 226, 1978, New Delhi.

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© Remigius de Souza., all rights reserved.
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Problem of "scale-up" in architecture education

DURING MY STINT WITH TEACHING ARCHITECTURE, I wouldn’t loose an opportunity to bring up the issue of “scale-up”, a major lacuna here in architecture education. It was no different forty years ago when I was a student. Obviously the problem of scale up continues in architecture and planning.

Once I gave a curtsy call to A’s town planning class. They were discussing on the drawings of a large housing project in Mumbai. It was for a few thousand residential units of various standard sizes, in high-rise buildings with roads, open spaces, amenities, FSI (Floor Space Index) and so on.

I thank them all for sharing, and asked, ‘Whatever may be the numbers and statistics, how do you deal with the toddlers, children, youth, working and non-working women, the aged and the unemployed?’ 
Of course, none, including A, had thought about it. I asked A, ‘What kind of poison are you giving the students?’ They were treating people as if objects.

I once asked my final years students in design studio, ‘You are working at 1:100 scales. Tell me, how much the thickness of one of the wall lines will amount to actually on site?’ Predictably they were harassed at the bizarre question and fumbled at calculations: 0.5 mm lead line 100 times.

WE GO BY CONVENTIONS, perhaps, without stopping once to question, even though the social, economic, political, environmental conditions keep changing, now at a faster pace. Slowly, imperceptibly, a bureaucratic attitude of "status quo" and to treat "people as objects" creeps in the students.

Students live, go in and around, and work at buildings, like all others. Do they notice how the lines on the drawings get translated at the work site? Yes, of course. There must be workshop facilities at some of the colleges. Some students document the existing buildings in drawings for the NASA (National Association of Students of Architecture) Conventions.

They draw and see pictures on flat paper, or on the screen: cinema/TV/computer, which are either stills or moving in frames by selection. They make paper/wood/plastic models at a sale to fit standard size sheets. A project may be worth a few lakhs or crores of rupees.


THE QUESTION IS, whether the project is scaled-up on their mental screen to its real size on the ground? What and how many dimensions of architecture would they notice, or assimilate, or explore during the learning period, and thereafter?

A biotechnologist illustrates the problem of “scale-up” giving examples of a lion and a flea:

‘by comparison with its length, if a flea were the size of lion, it would be able to jump a mile. However, weight increases more rapidly with increasing size than strength, so that the scale-up flea would probably be unable to move. …It should be noted that such design is appropriate to its scale, and flea-sized lion is as impractical as lion-sized flea’ (‘Principles of Biotechnology’ Ed. Alan Wiseman, Urre University Press, 1983, p 96).

This classic problem of scale-up is faced when laboratory operations are to be carried out at industrial plant to process several hundred tons of material. This may be evident when the Regional Plans look like blown-up Land Use City Plans. It may also be evident in other areas such as, government policies, projects and laws, if examined without bias.

ONCE I GAVE A QUIZ to my students in final year.
By now they were familiar with Secretariat building at Chandigarh by Corbu. I told them to go to seashore at any of the bays in Mumbai. They should sketch the bay with two land ends and place the building floating on the sea at any distance they chose. I also gave them an option to place the building against the backdrop of any chosen mountain near Mumbai. Anyone could predict the result!

On the drawing board, straight lines follow the Tee and Triangles. Now erotic curves appear in fashion, perhaps without a thought to how sight – sound – light – air work.
Whispering galleries! 
Under the Millennium Dome everything is fitted in straight lines. 
A square peg in a round hole! 
Now computers draw the lines at a command.

Now there is CAD-CAM: a fine tool for multimillion rupee projects or for mass production of thousands of prototype units/buildings for the mass of people of the mass society, like china made at ceramic factory. 
This, of course, facilitates the centralization of power and monopoly and grandiose. Otherwise about 30000 architects in the country of a billion people would have enough work anyone for more than one lifetime. 
What happens to the growth and economics of people and buildings is another matter.



IN THE PROCESS OF DESIGNING, production, and also the maintenance, of a building, how does one read a fine print produced on a drawing board or by CAD-CAM? 
We are reminded, without malice, few classic examples. 

1. Sydney Opera building languished for some time during its construction; not knowing how to make it on the site, leave aside the city coffers went dry.
2. Engineering Building (by Sterling and Govan) at Leicester University, suffered freezing internal temperature in the winter of 1960, due to the glass curtain walling failure (Bill Holdsworth, Antony Sealey, ‘Healthy Buildings’, Longman, 1993). 
3. The Pruit-Igeo flats in St. Louis, Missouri, which had won award from the American Institute of Architects only seventeen years before, were blown up in 1972 at the unanimous request of the residents, because they had proved impossible for daily living (Graham Green, ‘Philosophy of the Arts’, Routledge, 1997). 

We learn from mistakes. (Not being a celebrity I don’t quote my failures. However, one could guess they are embedded in here: the reason to write this paper.)

IS THERE A TOOL to blow a whistle time to time during the design process? 
Yes, there is a professor. 
Perhaps there may be such a software package for a learner. 
Or, a checklist! 
We, perhaps, learn from mistakes (if they are made public) rather than instructions, if it is a part of the discipline. 
How does one foresee a room or a city that gets cluttered, crowded and starts over spilling with people, goods, furniture, and garbage, in a few years time, or be dead?


EXPERIENCING ARCHITECTURE AND MEASURING ITS MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS at first hand can only be realized by ‘field-work’ at a real event. For this, one has to keep aside one’s judgement, prejudices, dogmas, status, and likes–dislikes; indeed they have no place in the public realm. More the dimensions more elegant and simple architecture is, like Kabir’s “Sakhi” – a verse form.

Starting to learn architecture at that age, however, has its own problem/s to negotiate. The curve of learning ability, which is upward from the birth as the brain is growing, sags substantially after the age of 17/18 years, and at the old age it either deteriorate or even picks up. Developing perception by “anushasan” – rigorous practice, however, could compensate the slow rate of learning, as if “Life” matters.

IT (Info Technology) and multimedia may pump up or dump as mush information as period of time allows. But validity of any information (including this paper) must be scrutinised at ground level. Besides there is need to ruminate the swallowed information. 
However looking at the present the trends, there is greater need to balance the quantity and quality, with major emphasis on quality, of the output and the reward – both in scholastic and profession areas, by popular demand.

THE ISSUE OF “SCALE-UP” BEGINS from the very inception of a thought /idea / concept that appears in our boundless inner space. Where does it come from? Does it come from within – mind – brain – conscience, or from outside – say, from some glossy magazine or an authority? But any thought / idea/ concept must be examined without believing, before it takes to a demonic scale, like Nazism, either directly or by proxy, and swallows or eats us away.
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NOTE:
I restore this article that was hacked sometime ago from other blog: ARCHETYPES INDIA.


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Remigius de Souza
Mumbai (10-05-2007)


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© Remigius de Souza. all rights reserved.
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South Asian Jazz (Review)

South Asian Jazz in Architecture (Event Review)

Event: disContinuous Threads: Memory, Freedom and Architecture in Contemporary India, Conference at National Centre for Performing Arts [NCPA], Mumbai, December 10–12, 1997

Traditional Warli House, Thane Dist. Maharashtra, India

Warli hut built by self-help and community participation; it is truly green, organic and sustainable; its technology standards are unsurpassed any civilized society until now.

What is Architecture

Architecture is Mother of All Arts(!)

Proverb among Indie-architects

PEOPLE ENERGY

Key Words: Indian Westernized Architecture, Contemporary Western Architecture, Biodiversity, Culture

‘THREADS’ certainly bring to our mind Kabir the weaver and Namdeo the tailor, and others of Indian high culture. This is in contrast to the present Western and contemporary westernized Indian notion of wealth, consumption and market economy.

EMPERORS PASSED AWAY, but Kabir, Tukaram likewise other saint-poets continue to rule for centuries. However, history books made by the British-made Indian schooling, are crammed with wars, murders and murderers. Even an unassuming village traditional doctor is cautious to give away his formulas of traditional herbal medicines to guard, of course, against misuse, namely by moneymaking, desecration, exploitation… This is in contrast to western culture of ‘Intellectual Property Rights’. A question of morality!

THE ARCHITECTS who gathered for the conference came from India, Pakistan, Bangla Desh and Sri Lanka. They belong to the First World of minority. We are well aware the architecture, modern architecture, in the subcontinent is an extension, a tail end of western architecture.

IN MODERN ARCHITECTURE there is neither North nor South, nor West or East. It is a one-dimensional world where the world is flat for the architects who struggle to create two-dimensional images of three-dimensional space, unaware that they are being manipulated by the Super-strings of Corporate Powers.

The professional ladies and gentlemen here, gathering and splitting threads at the conference, were speaking alien language, and referring to Kant, Kahn… aesthetics, technology… cults and post-modern-cults, and reflecting western concepts mostly at a gross level of existence.

Some tried typically to capitalize on poverty in fashion. Language matters when one speak of regions. Language and culture are so intimately entwined; they are “almost one and the same thing” (Pagel) [1]. Yet when we dig the buried past (Harappa etc.) we try to read cultures of the bygone times from its artefacts, architecture irrespective of its being good or bad.

IN THE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT there are about fifty - sixty social and cultural sub-groups, a great warp and weft, and numerous mother tongues, many more times than the officially recognised and state-supported languages. As is said, the shades of languages change at ten miles.

As the ecologists have long known, that from the poles to the Equator the number of different species of flora and fauna increase… so also in the size of territory the species range over… both these ecological rules also apply to languages [2]. This is perfectly in harmony with rich biodiversity of land and waters of the sub-continent.

Now the folk languages, rich with traditional wisdom and knowledge accumulated over many lifetimes are on the way of extinction together with arts, crafts and indigenous architecture following the extinction of the plants, birds, animals, insects…following the extinction of indigenous food grains, replaced by hybrid culture.

“Languages began dying in droves from late 15th century onwards as the Europeans colonized the world. Some languages died because of mass killings of ethnic communities. Each time a language dies we lose something we do not even understand (Woodfield)…we loose a way of perceiving the world…a way of learning (Pagel) [3].

Only trade is global; culture and cultural expressions cannot be global. Even the currencies cannot be global. Then how could architecture be global? Architects may have to deliberately and constantly watch out how every point and line put on the paper or computer screen affects land and waters, and the people.

High on agenda of Western high culture of ‘development’ is to disintegrate and dis-empower the people and turn them into zombies – programmed robots of mono-culture of mass-type society for the greed of power and profit.

IS CREATIVITY A PREROGATIVE OF A FEW – Corbu, Kahn, Gehri…? Aesthetics for that matter is a clouded issue due to social-cultural-economic issues, geography, urbanism, high culture, mass culture, and Environment-Ecology-Energy crisis. Centuries ago Kabir – Tukaram – Chokhamela challenged the gross concept of aesthetics by giving examples of plants – sandalwood, clove, sugarcane etc.

Beauty – Truth – Bliss – Love is not the opposite of ugly – lie – pain – hate. But to speak of this area is a taboo. It is so, for simple reason that this area cannot be institutionalized. Discourses by gurus though are institutionalized.

Somewhere in the development process we have lost ‘rt’ – good – the noun was replaced by adjective. However ‘rt’ is beyond definition, though science is not. Science continues to discover the ‘Frontiers of Ignorance’ [4].

Architects of the sub-continent are still chained to, caught up in and victims of orthodox view of modern architecture. “Development of modern architecture suggests it has taken us about four thousand years to progress from pyramid to a box’ says Papworth [5]. While modern architecture seems to have lost direction and people all over the world are facing identity crisis, it displays architect’s signature, sometimes that of the corporate client, hardly of the user.

Merely adopting effects and epithets of vernacular is not enough. It was Einstein who said that you couldn’t expect to solve a problem within the mind that created it [6] (quoted by Edward Goldsmith).

Architecture today is a goldfish in a glass bowl. It is time now to let loose the goldfish into the stream. Rest will take care of itself. But that demands morality, dignity and integrity. Do architects and scientists perceive that they are tools in the hands of empires of development, which control the access to the resources? In search of architecture the major task is to humanize and democratize the community … ‘but you cannot have morality without community. Without community morality becomes humbug’ (John Papworth) [7].

THE CONCLUDING SESSION was a deflated event like afterbirth. It did not reflect the preceding part of this grand South Asian Jazz, which was coupled with occasional Shahanai – Pakhavaj of Shubhendu Kaushik.

There were no issue/s at stake at the event.

It is understood that the participants had to put their perceptions, experiences and references within the limitation of period of time, words and visuals in their presentations, discussions (and this review, too) cannot cover entire gamut of the theme of the conference.

THE MAJOR CHALLENGE today in the context of the theme is to free both, land and waters and community, which are shattered and disintegrated in the cobweb of market and its allies. Let loose the goldfish of architecture from the glass bowl into the stream of community.

Remigius de Souza
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Referances and Notes

1 Vines, Gail. ‘Death of a mother tongue’ New Scientist, Jan 6, 1996, p.25
2 ibid. p 26
3 ibid. p.27
4 Theme of the 125th anniversary issue of Nature, 3.11.1994
5 Papworth, John. ‘Shut up and Listen – A new handbook for revolutionaries’, Academic Inn, London, 1997
6 ibid. Preface
7 ibid. p.4

[Published in Janata Weekly, Mumbai, March 15, 1998, P.11-14.]

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© Remigius de Souza।, all rights reserved।
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Man And Nature (Within And Outside)

Man And Nature (Within And Outside)

ARCHITECTURE AND BIODIVERSITY IN INDIA: 

A Context to Aesthetics in Our Times

Presentation accompanied with the paper
“ARCHITECTURE AND BIODIVERSITY IN INDIA:
A Context to Aesthetics in Our Times”,

presented to PAITHRUKAM 2004: Seminar/Workshop on “Aesthetics in Indian Architecture: Past, Present and Future”, at MES College of Architecture, Trissure, Kerala.

Author: Remigius de Souza 14 OCT 2004

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Man  And  Nature  (Within  And  Outside)

More PowerPoint presentations from Remigius de Souza

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Note: Link to the full text of the paper ARCHITECTURE AND BIODIVERSITY IN INDIA
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© Remigius de Souza. all rights reserved.

'Tentacles' of Octopus Remi: Art in Metafiction (Self-portrait)

'Tentacles' of Octopus Remi: Art in Metafiction (Self-portrait)
Published on ARCHETYPES INDIA

Quote: "Srishti – Mother Nature – has Plenty to share; Nothing for sell; Nothing to buy. That is 'Reunion with Mother Nature' – Srishtiyoga." (SRISHTIYOGA July 7, 2011)

‘Tentacles’ | Remigius de Souza| 1987 | water colour on handmade paper

Octopus Paul the predictor one day suddenly came in limelight.

What was the cause? It predicted results of the World Cup 2010. That took the First World Nations by storm.

Twitter was crowded by traffic jam. That crowd blocked the site for few hours! Such a craze... blind faith! That too from so-called advance societies! Amazing!

A European nation was even ready to buy that animal.

'Tentacles', Remigius de Souza's self-portrait, was published on Net but none was moved. Not even his friends!

Remi generally does not look in to mirror. Because he notices 'octopus' in the mirror! What then could be his misery while wandering the streets of Mumbai metropolis?

He notices millions of people (his aborigine and peasant kinfolks) in the glass-clad multi-storied buildings mushrooming in the concrete jungle. But that never stops Mumbai!

Octopus Paul was a baby, lost to its community and natural habitat / environment. After a few months it died. Relieved!

Did anyone ask Octopus Paul the predictor before it died, "When will this modern Industrial Civilization, which has become powerful within few centuries, vanish?" We have not heard.

Oh, what do you ask! The very strength of the powerful is their weakest point. There is a mythological Indian story of Bhasmasur that repeats again and again.

In reality the mighty industrial society has gone — if not dead, decayed — with the octopus.
 
In this self-portrait, 'Tentacles', Remi notices himself swallowing Natural Environment by his tentacles spreading and reaching across regions far and wide.

Call it is his misfortune or it his fate of unwanted share, or call it a ruthless criticism on Industrial Civilization. Words, images, movies, myths, scriptures, prophets, avatars... all tools to earn (power and profit) and/or entertainment! Does it make any difference?

Remi, however, laughs at himself at his cost.  

Notes 1: As we write this post, there comes news about, Shuttle Atlantis docks with space station for last time! What a relief for the hungry masses of the world!! Better late than never!!!
2. Remi doesn’t watch cricket, hokey, football or such events as Olympics, World Cup etc. for he believes that any game must be played for leisure, and such mass events consolidate the centralized powers.
3. I have corrected some errors and edited this post. I request the subscribers to please bear with me. Thanks!  

Mumbai Metropolis on Google Map


View Larger Map
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© Remigius de Souza. all rights reserved.

Tsunami! Tsunami!!

Up a hill a stream to low lands finds its way down
through the rocks, cliffs, rough land runs down!
Nectar of earth runs down! Dark clouds pour down!
Accumulated knowledge acquired from the banks

of knowledge wants to go up, builds vaults more,
acquires more by refining, by splitting hair,
fragments wholesome life; very little trickles down.
Some water goes up by capillary attraction

in a congenial body, some evaporates to cool,
a lot percolates in lower strata in soil, in a pool,
runs down to rivers, to ocean to sustain life all.

In Tsunami it lashes ashore and cleanses land,
in cosy igloo gives loving warmth and shelter.

Knowledge has to go down to the ignorant;
and the educated who move in their grooves
of expertise ignorant of vital other areas
of their personal and the collective living.

Floods, earthquakes, Tsunami shatter lives,
Yet leave behind vital lessons: To be reborn.

The meek build from the debris. Why harp on
the limitations rather than take charge of self,
when the nature in abundance is there to help?

Leave all the external aids that corrupt.
Or the silent multitude hit back in Tsunami.

There’s a scramble among the learned to go up,
up the economic ladder, keep their knowledge
mummified in the safe custody of the specialist.

Who’s that, who memorizes scriptures by-heart,
has ever received salvation, a liberated soul?
At any point of time – place is a starting point.

When it rains we rarely ‘look’ at it and feel:
It needs some animal sense, vegetable instinct
in the unified holistic life, and some honesty.

Remigius de Souza
Mumbai (23-02-2005)
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© Remigius de Souza. all rights reserved.

A Million Incarnations Now!:

A Million Incarnations Now::
Tribute to Peoples' Uprisings everywhere

'My Enemy Within Me'  by Remigius de Souza

A night of million Incarnations NOW
in millions - faces,
eyes, limbs, yonis, phalluses, 
tongues out hungry ? 
Now a million stars show  
The Way to million Incarnations imminent 

Wake up O, Ruler!  
For this dark night  
is of a million uprising  
of anonymous multitude  
A Million Incarnations Now
A million Incarnations!  

Remigius de Souza
Mumbai | 15-9-1987
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© Remigius de Souza. all rights reserved.

Essays in early Indian architecture (Book Review)

Essays in early Indian architecture
Author: Ananda K. Coomaraswamy  
Edited by Michael W. Meister 
Publishers: Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts, New Delhi, and 
Oxford University press, Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras. 1992 
| Price: Rs 400/- pp xxviii, 151 | Illustrations: 164.

“Vastu, add the meaning, “real estate” (Meyer, “Liegenschaft”): “Vastu includes houses, fields, groves, bridges (or ghats, setu-bandha), ponds and reservoirs,” Arthasastra, III, 8”(A. K. Coomaraswamy, Indian Architectural Terms, P. 97)

THE BEGINNING OF 1993 saw two significant events in Indian architecture.
The INGCA and OUP made available five essays by Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy (1877–1947) which were earlier inaccessible to the public.
The other event was the theme chosen by the National Association of Students of Architecture (NASA), India, “Back to the Roots” for their national convention held at Bhubaneshwar, Orissa (now Odisha).


Though it may not be perceptible, very few are aware of the Indian ethos in different areas of creative life and expression. But at the end of 20th century, with the imminent fall of ‘industrial civilization’ (or ‘economic civilization’), the awakening of ethnic identity is a global phenomenon. Parallel to the environmental movement, there is a ‘Anti-celebration to Columbus Day’ all over the world, and a new awareness in different disciplines.


The essays by Coomaraswamy reappear when people of India (not the statisticians) are groping for salvation in an ever-increasing chaos. The much sought-after development aping the west has only worsened the living conditions of the people of mainstream India. While this book may pamper the inflated Indian ego, it may be life-saving plank to multitudes in 20th century modernity called consumer civilization.


The common theme of the essays is to present a picture of secular, domestic, urban, rural architecture of India 2000 years ago, the remains of which do not exist because of impermanent nature of materials used. The book is about how the common man’s architecture, a hut of a villager that became a source – a form-giver – and developed into a unique architectural style, complex structural system and highly developed building vocation – into a tradition that materialised in thousands of and continued during the late medieval period under royal patronage (Chapter IV. Huts and related temple types, P 103).


For instance, “Tree-cult”, tree worship which was adopted by the Buddhists in “Bodhi-gharas” was an animistic practice of the people before Aryans came (Chapter II. BODHI-GHARAS, P 19).

Though Coomaraswamy does not mention so, the “Tree-cult” still exists in India in different forms, for example, “Tulasi-vrindavan”, holy Basil (Ocimum sanctum L.) on a platform or in a pot, is a common feature of the Indian household. The plant is known for its medicinal values and is also an organic insecticide. “Brahman” – a banyan tree with a built platform, is a common feature of villages in Konkan region – a well known monsoon forest region on the West Coast of India. “Devarai”, sacred grove, is a “protected forest” by the people for the Indian villagers and forest dwellers, by unwritten law of ancient tradition, though not recognised by the development projects, or by the British-made “Forest Acts” that still continue in modern India.

Why Tree-cult? Coomaraswamy has not posed this question here. Did some visionary scientists or wise men of the aborigine communities initiate tree-worship as a measure of environmental protection?

A. K. Coomaraswamy opens up the first essay on “Cities and city-gates, etc.” with a statement, “…cities are despised and there are no ceremonies for urban life”(P.3). He quotes “It is impossible for one to obtain salvation, who lives in a town covered with dust” (Baudhayana Dharma Sutra, II, 3, 6, 33).

Elsewhere he says, “…but the village is still typical centre of Aryan life” (History of Indian and Indonesian Art, p 15) referring to Maurya period. Indian society has remained agrarian even under the wave of industrialization.

Among several features of city, Coomaraswamy describes city-gates: toranas and gopuras, which were used for protection and security or for honorific and ornamental purposes. In contemporary times, Mr Shankar N. Kanade, architect, has used city-gates in “Jala Vayu Vihar” township at Bangalore (now Bengaluru), enhanced by adding elevated water storage tank. In present day context, more than being ornamental it gives identity to a place in urban chaos; it is a symbol of celebration, besides utility.


Indian Architectural Terms (P. 71 – 99) is a critical essay on two books written by Prof. P. K. Acharya, “Indian Architecture According to the Manasara-silpasatra” and “A Dictionary of Hindu Architecture”. It is a combative but constructive criticism. This essay helps to learn ‘how to criticise and how to take it, and gives access to ‘meanings’ of the terms.

Take the term much in currency these days, Vastu, for example: “Vastu, add the meaning, “real estate” (Meyer, “Liegenschaft”): “Vastu includes houses, fields, groves, bridges (or ghats, setu-bandha), ponds and reservoirs,” Arthasastra, III, 8” (P. 97).

He has presented over 100 sculptured relief works in photographs and drawings – some of them restored in exquisite drawings by him, as visual evidence, from monuments built in or carved out of rocks centuries ago. The author referred to textual evidences from Sanskrit, Prakrit and Pali law books, epics and Kavya literature. These reliefs were executed by sculptors, guilds of master craftsmen who documented epics of Indian civilization on stone surface. It is worth noting that the sacred texts were handed over by mnemonic method, though writing was known, for reasons of accuracy, which is still being observed. In the relief sculptures there is no scope for errors or adulteration or manipulations.

The population of India around 1st A.D. was perhaps 30 million or so, with growth rate of probably less than 0.01 percent per annum. As the feudal power over people increased, which is now growing to a global scale through its invisible tentacles, the epic writer in stone is now visibly disintegrated.

What happened to the guilds as the population grew? For instance, the communities of stone-cutters called “Wadar” and “Beldar” living in the slums of cities and towns not far from the famous monuments of Karla, Bhaja, Elephanta, Kanheri etc. and several forts in Maharashtra. Are these the descendants of the guilds of the ancient times? Just as the Brahmin descendants of the sages – Vashishta, Agasti, Vyas, Bhrugu, Vaishampayana etc. whose pedigree has been maintained by the high caste?


What Michael W Meister probably missed in the conversation with Joseph Rykwert is to give 20th century parallel in modern architecture to A K Coomaraswamy’s thesis of “primordial hut as a form-giver” to historical Indian Architecture (Afterword: Adam’s house and hermits’ hut: A conversation, P. 125) . In the twentieth century modern (western) world architecture there are only “master form-givers”, whose works go down as second hand and third hand imitations to the masses: Indeed a true expression of economics of Industrial Civilization that give the fruits of its development and progress, prosperity and powers to the society by the “trickle down formula”. This formula is also applied to the education system to support industrial civilization.

In today’s context, awareness of environment, ecology and energy which are being destroyed at unprecedented rate, Coomaraswamy’s work of timeless quality is all the more relevant, a ground prepared for ‘further work’.

It is a book for all: scholars and architects, planners and politicians, pundits and leaders alike: a collector’s copy. It may also help a new vocabulary – a new form of expression to emerge – a departure from twentieth century architecture and other disciplines (born and developed in the West); a restoration of dignity of labour; a change in planning parameters; a right to manage their own affairs to the local communities. What John Papworth calls, “Democracy after all does not mean government for the people; it means government by the people. We hope, in Coomaraswamy’s words, “…mark a final victory of the conquered over the conquerors” (History of Indian and Indonesian Art, P. 5).

(NOTE: This is an edited version of book review, published in INDIAN ARCHITECT & BUILDER, Mumbai, May 1993, P. 85-86)

Image: Portrait of Ananda Coomaraswamy by Arnold Ronnebeck, 1929. This bust represents Coomaraswamy at about the same he was working on "Early Indian Architecture" and other wor
ks in transition (P. 103).

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Making clay country roofing tiles: Demo

After I wrote “Clay country roofing tiles” in 1987, I suggested an NGO to conduct a demonstration-come-training programme for their housing project for the tribal in Raigad district. Their target group was Katakari and Thakar tribes.

For this demo I brought two young men, Baliram and Deva, from village Amiyar in Bharuch district in Gujarat. They belong to Bhill tribe called “Vasava Koli”. I had already known them for quite some time. Vasavas are better educated than many tribes.

Vasavas practice their skills of clay tile making at household level. Their technique resembles to one that I had seen, during my childhood, with the potters at my native village in Konkan Region, decades ago.




The illustration 1 shows the hamlet “Navi Fali” – a part of village Amiyar, where Baliram and Deva live. It is evident enough that the houses are built of organic, locally available materials – clay, bamboo and wood. The settlement is built by self-help and community participation.



Illustration 2 shows the cattle sheds, which are suitably built for the purpose.


Baliram and Deva received good facilities of accommodation, food at the mess, travel and to work at the NGO’s campus in a village.

They scouted the surrounding area with the staff of the NGO, found suitable soil, which was transported to the work shed at the campus. They produced about three thousand tiles within three weeks.



Illustration 4 shows the demonstration work in the shed provided for the prepared soil, tile making and drying the raw tiles.


Illustration 4 shows the burnt clay tiles. Persons in the picture (from left to right) are a visitor, a lady office bearer, two staff member (one in the rear), Deva and Baliram.

Observation
1. during the demo the NGO did not invite or bring the adivasis – Katakari and Thakar – either to watch it or for the training.

2. The staff (social workers) occasionally visited the demo. None of them tried their hand at making the tiles.
Knowing the urban ways, Baliram and Deva as well s myself were indifferent about it.

3. I don’t know if the NGO did ever document the whole operation – labour, logistics, and utility – price-value-cost-benefit – of the product, perhaps other than voucher for accounts purpose.
Needless to say, NGO used substandard (i.e. cheaper) Mangalore tiles for the housing.

4. NGOs, either in Gujarat or Maharashtra, are not interested in the tribal skills, knowledge, their self-reliance, and above all their self-respect. One can safely generalise this statement.


Remigius de Souza



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TRIBAL SKILLS: Clay country roofing tiles

TRIBAL SKILLS: Clay country roofing tiles


THE USE of half round country roofing burnt clay tiles with some variation goes back to centuries in several parts of India and other parts of the world. Handmade-burnt country tiles are commonly used in the rural areas of Gujarat and Maharashtra. The author’s house in Konkan (West Coast Region of India) is made of mud walls and covered with country tiles. It is like other houses, many older in age, built similarly in traditional manner. The house is built of mud walls with mud plaster, and mud floor, and roofing of country ti8les on scantling of bullies of secondary wood and split bamboo battens. This region enjoys over hundred inches (2500 mm) average annual rainfall.

In recent years, some individuals and organisations have fortunately become aware of mud building and traditional methods of construction, perhaps because of publicity to mud architecture in foreign countries: West. Most city dwellers in India are migrants from rural areas, their ties severed with rural India. Those connected with the field of construction have no knowledge of traditional ways. Yet it is positive direction in this country of a vast illiterate majority, that some urban elite is becoming aware of MUD ARCHITECTURE. And perhaps in the course of time it may become as popular as, “KHADI” is today, in spite of the fact that in the countryside, the rural population, illiterate as well as educated, poor as well as the rich, are entering into the cult of English Education and Concrete Houses. The rural population is yet to understand how some people in the city though English educated have become aware of the importance of MUD as material for housing.

Many alternatives are being suggested for roofing in low cast housing... from treated thatch to asbestos cement sheets, Mangalore tiles, G.I. sheets, aluminium sheets, precast cement concrete, asphalt sheets, cellulose waste sheets, stone slabs, brick vaults etc. I was surprised to read a remark in one of the publications of National Building Organisation [NBO], which rejected country-roofing tiles as breakable and destructive to timber substructure or supports. In rural low-cost housing undertaken by the outside agencies, the roofing in Mangalore roofing tiles is preferred. The country roofing tiles are rejected by the government and non-government agencies while building low-cost houses. Yet when the people build houses for themselves in rural areas, they continue traditional handmade-burnt clay tiles. Country clay tiles are also called ‘potter’s tiles’. In some parts of India, Kumbhars (potters’ caste) make them, as it is their family tradition.

There are two methods of making half round country tiles. One made on the potter’s wheel in cone shape, cut into halves, and baked in kiln. These are mostly crude – not in uniform shape, size and thickness. The other method is to lay a sheet on flat surface, in a form or mould, or required size, shape and thickness. The sheet then is removed and shaped by placing it on a half-rounded wooden block; dried in the shade and baked in a kiln. The potters in the Konkan region of Maharashtra State practice this method as well as the tribal communities of Gujarat State.

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PRACTICE WITH DIFFERENCE

In the tribal villages of Panchmahal, Sabarkantha, Baroda, Bharuch etc. district of Gujarat state, the method of making is same as described above. However the practice is different. Here the every household makes its own tiles for annual need for replacing broken tiles, as well for building the new houses, or for the making of additions to the old houses. It is a normal practice in the Adivasi [tribal/aborigine] families. Everyone knows the art of tile-making, just as they know the ways of growing crops, building a house, making Roti [bread], rolling Bidis [hand made cigars rolled in leaf for smoking], making cow-dung cakes, manufacturing and playing flutes, and the implements for farming.


They know which mud [clay] to select to make a good tile, without the aid of laboratory. The tiles they make are uniform in sized and colour, sound in strength, are waterproof. There is no room for the sub-standard goods here. The tiles to cover the ridge are larger, and sometimes with decorative motif.

Tile making is a household CRAFT alike the cottage industry such as KHADI sold from the emporiums for the use of elite and which is seldom used by those who produce it.

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PROCESS

Country roofing tile is 100 percent labour intensive product. No machine or any factory product is involved in making the tile. Raw material for the tile is fine clay, taken from the fields, or riverbed. The clay is cleaned of roots, gravel etc., then wetted, tempered by legs, and allowed to season for two days. Fuel required for baking is no threat to forest, as leaves, branches, grass, rice husk, cow dung etc. are used as fuel; the P.W.D. Handbook of Bombay Presidency described the fuel as “rubbish”. Simple equipments consist: (1) a flat wooden base to make a clay sheet; (2) a form made of bamboo or wood strip (¼” x ¼” size) – for a common tile; (3) a larger form for the ridge tile; (4) half round wooden moulds – one for the common tiles and another for the ridge tiles – to shape the clay sheet. The top of base plate is sprinkled with dry ash from “chulah” – hearth – to prevent sticking. Prepared clay is spread, pressed on the base in a frame, compacted by hand and smoothened by spraying little water. The clay sheet is then removed, placed on the mould and shaped. The mould is removed and the raw tile is left for drying for a day or day and a half. The dried tiles are baked by keeping them in rows with gaps in between them, filled and covered with fuel. If the area is windy, then the kiln is formed in a shallow pit, to prevent fuel from burning out fast, resulting in the tiles being half burnt or over burnt.

COST

It takes about four working days for one person to make 1000 tiles. The operation can spread over seven days enabling a person to carry on with other activities in between the whole operation, such as collection of raw material, fuel and water, or household work or farming. The cost is Rs. 80/- to 100/- or more for 1000 tiles, depending upon labour component and cost of equipment.

The Mangalore tile is superior to country tile. It is an industrial product, prepared only where large quantity of specific clay is available to sustain the industry. In addition, the product involves high-energy consumption. The distribution takes place through transport system, which adds to the cost, besides commission of the agencies.


SUBSTRUCTURE FOR ROOFING

There is notion that country tiles require a heavier support structure as compared to Mangalore tiles. The weight of both types of roofing together with battens is equal, which is about 14lbs.per-sq. ft. area. However no well-cut wooden battens are needed to support country tiles as in Mangalore tiles. Bamboo battens are sufficient to support country tiles.

Poor people use even Carvi (Strobi Lanthes Ciliatus) or other material obtained from the brushwood. The uneven level is corrected by inserting a tile over a batten. Lying of country tiles, so also its maintenance can be done even by a twelve year old child. For Mangalore tiles require perfect alignment is essential to prevent leakage. Two man-days are required to cover 100 sq. ft. of roof area.


MAINTENANCE

It is another misguided notion that country-roofing tiles require high maintenance cost. This notion is based on a bias of the urbanites and professionals. It does not take into account the time distribution and occupation round the year of a villager, as well as rural unemployment.

Before the monsoon, people remove the tiles, clean them with brooms and replace them. This action is called ‘turning the tiles’. This operation to cover 100-sq. ft. roof area requires 1.5 person-days. It costs at Rs. 15/- per person per day with no specialised skills, industrial equipment or products. Compare this with the cost of maintenance of a leaking R.C.C. roof slab.

A bamboo sapling or root (offset) planted in the fence grows into 50/10 bamboos and continues to grow and starts giving return in about three to five years’ time. Thus, the household is not dependent on market supply of bamboo or tiles for construction, repairs or additions to the house. For preservation of bamboo from white rot, the tribal follow a simple method of keeping it in the water for three days before fixing it in the roof. In some areas bamboo are kept in salt water.


ECONOMY

Self-reliance, low-cost, conservation, employment, sustainable life-style are some of the aspects of economy in housing. While travelling through tribal areas of Gujarat the author came across several settlements where Government Agencies and Panchayats have distributed Mangalore tiles either free or at subsidised rates. This may be happening in other states also. The government may have noble intentions of giving the poor a good industrial and urban roofing material. It may not be even be a second quality or substandard rejected stuff left-over at the factories. But it is doing a great damage, to the extent of killing the household craft acquired and evolved through generations by the tribal. It is nothing short of weakening their economic independence and skills in such vital areas as roofing their own house. Such an act of charity is making the tribal dependant on factory product and also pushing them even below the poverty line.

The government may achieve popularity by this act of support to the manufacturing industry, but this has perhaps a parallel in Indian history: the death of traditional art of famous “Malmal” [the finest textile] Sarees of Dhaka.

The substructure used for the country is adaptable to take Mangalore tiles when economic situation of the rural poor improves. Self-reliance though is the first step to such improvement.

This roofing product has 100% wage component [self-help], low energy consumption and low cost. The cost works out to Rs 24/- per sq m compared to improved thatch roof, which would have cost in 1986 @ Rs 29/- to 35/- per sq. m. (Ref: BRN - 13 of August 1986 by Central Building Research Institute (CBRI), Roorkee).

Roofing with country tiles may not be adoptable all over the country. Traditional roofing materials are different according to region. The roof in Rajasthan is made of stone slabs, in some parts of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka the roof is flat, made of one meter mud slab provided with skylights and vents, whereas some parts of Karnataka granite stone slabs are used for walls and roofs. Why does the rural population go for Mangalore tiles? The villagers look up to the city as model of good living. The use of Mangalore tiles or R.C.C. roof in rural areas is partly a n urban cult that the relevance or needs or resources. At the beginning they were attracted by the glamour of the city; now it is need for employment. The new generations of potters are moving away from traditional vocations with the advent of education and migrate to urban centres for employment while the city people spend thousands to learn pottery. Unfortunately, the learned and the experts have rejected country tiles as substandard, breakable, and expensive roofing material.
Indeed, with the most welcome programme of housing for the rural poor that has come into force, the aid given should not be an instrument of marketing industrial goods for the housing product, but optimum utilisation of local resources – skills – products. It should not look down upon the rural people as an “untapped rural market”, as popular commercial jargon says, to plough back money to urban centres.

It should be possible for institutions and organisations such as C.B.R.I., N.B.O., HUDCO, CAPART, NGOs, and government agencies, engaged in research, policy making, training, finance and building to save and revive this centuries old craft, through their housing programmes in rural and semi-urban areas.

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Fig. 5. Cost analysis
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Fig. 6. Chinese roof

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Remigius de Souza
1987

Figure 1: My house in Konkan region on the West Coast of India.
Figure 2: Bhill adivasi (aborigine) house in Satpuda Ranges.
Figure 3: TYPICAL TRADITIONAL METHOD OF HALF ROUND COUNTRY TILE ROOFING
Figure 5: Cost Analysis of Half Round Country roofing Tiles
Figure 6: A CHINES METHOD OF USING COUNTRY ROOFING TILES (Source: ‘Conference on Tropical Architecture’, University College, London, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London.)

(This paper was published under the title, “Country Roofing Tiles for Low Cost Rural Housing” by DESWOS in BRIEF No.3 June 1989 Germany; SHELTER (HUDCO, New Delhi); and Moving Technology[CAPART, New Delhi)


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