What is in a Name?

Does a name denote the object or does the name denote an idea that expresses itself into an object?

The first stand indicates fixation with the object as the sole reality. Manifestation is everything or what you physically “see” indicates everything.

The second stand indicates that the object is just one expression of the idea or a concern or an issue – the object’s physical form is a result of the idea and the process of its birth. Thus the physical form conveys more than what one “sees” out there. This means that everything around us is an expression of an idea or a set of ideas – all interconnected, all nomadic in nature – but particularized in a given location. In other words, objects may be seen as avatars (particular expressions or anchors) of nomadic ideas. Ideas need to express themselves as forms/ phenomenon or manifestations. Once manifested, they are perceived in many ways – meaning of forms is not static. The forms themselves change with time. In fact, there may not be any manifestation without any meaning and even if a manifestation occurs, we are bound to induce meaning to it. In other words – space and its conversion of form is induced with meanings that we define ourselves.

These meanings change with time. For example, meanings of Nature have changed from one Time to another. Previously, we seem to have a cosmic understanding of Nature – movements of stars and planets was considered important for committing an action in the Present – nowadays, it is largely upto us (and not some Gods or constellations) that decide our actions. When meanings change, we perceive objects differently. Sometimes meanings change to the extent that the object doesn’t hold validity for us and it has to be removed or substantially altered to suit the changed meaning. Object is a container of meaning.

Psychologically what we consider ourselves to ‘be’ has shaped a perception of reality for us. Thus, thoughts have a profound connection with what reality we create and experience for ourselves. This opens up the domain of values/ ethics/ morality and why it should be considered important to follow them. I would say that moral behavior or value based thinking has the potential to think of larger Time frameworks, bind different phenomena together and thereby consider us as a part of ecosystem. Not only we move beyond the immediate object, we also see the object as an ecosystem of ideas – or connected with other phenomena. Hence, the division of ‘inside’ reality and ‘outside’ reality is blurred.

In other words, we need to move beyond the obvious. If we didn’t have eyes, does it mean the reality doesn’t exist? Does it mean that space doesn’t exist or it has no meaning at all if we can’t see anything? We can still feel space by sound, smell, touch, heat/cold and these signals in turn inform our imaginations. We create memories and memories in turn, inform the way we subsequently perceive and conceive spaces.

The single most important dimension of human existence is to create meaning (because of the nature of our thought). And with effort, probably also to transcend beyond Time itself.

Does a name denote the object or does the name denote an idea that expresses itself into an object?

The first stand indicates fixation with the object as the sole reality. Manifestation is everything or what you physically “see” indicates everything.

The second stand indicates that the object is just one expression of the idea or a concern or an issue – the object’s physical form is a result of the idea and the process of its birth. Thus the physical form conveys more than what one “sees” out there. This means that everything around us is an expression of an idea or a set of ideas – all interconnected, all nomadic in nature – but particularized in a given location. In other words, objects may be seen as avatars (particular expressions or anchors) of nomadic ideas. Ideas need to express themselves as forms/ phenomenon or manifestations. Once manifested, they are perceived in many ways – meaning of forms is not static. The forms themselves change with time. In fact, there may not be any manifestation without any meaning and even if a manifestation occurs, we are bound to induce meaning to it. In other words – space and its conversion of form is induced with meanings that we define ourselves.

These meanings change with time. For example, meanings of Nature have changed from one Time to another. Previously, we seem to have a cosmic understanding of Nature – movements of stars and planets was considered important for committing an action in the Present – nowadays, it is largely upto us (and not some Gods or constellations) that decide our actions. When meanings change, we perceive objects differently. Sometimes meanings change to the extent that the object doesn’t hold validity for us and it has to be removed or substantially altered to suit the changed meaning. Object is a container of meaning.

Psychologically what we consider ourselves to ‘be’ has shaped a perception of reality for us. Thus, thoughts have a profound connection with what reality we create and experience for ourselves. This opens up the domain of values/ ethics/ morality and why it should be considered important to follow them. I would say that moral behavior or value based thinking has the potential to think of larger Time frameworks, bind different phenomena together and thereby consider us as a part of ecosystem. Not only we move beyond the immediate object, we also see the object as an ecosystem of ideas – or connected with other phenomena. Hence, the division of ‘inside’ reality and ‘outside’ reality is blurred.

In other words, we need to move beyond the obvious. If we didn’t have eyes, does it mean the reality doesn’t exist? Does it mean that space doesn’t exist or it has no meaning at all if we can’t see anything? We can still feel space by sound, smell, touch, heat/cold and these signals in turn inform our imaginations. We create memories and memories in turn, inform the way we subsequently perceive and conceive spaces.

The single most important dimension of human existence is to create meaning (because of the nature of our thought). And with effort, probably also to transcend beyond Time itself.

Satyagraha of Architecture

One is sometimes fed up regarding the insistence of the Western world or the critics to decode everything and probably connect everything under one umbrella or roof or one format. The way things are going forward for Developed Nations on perspectives on urban planning or infrastructural development and its intimate relationship with Artificial Intelligence, it’s a grim road ahead if anyone is remotely trying to imitate their approach.

There is a serious danger in trying to manage all infrastructural performance through AI. This fascination for a supersized central control of all things that can be programmed and coordinated to perfection is disturbing. In short, it just ignores the complex dimension of human mind to design, improvise, adapt, change or evolve into an organic quality. A human mind needs to express all dimensions of existence and the sheer amount of diversity on our planet in terms of architecture (that responds to local culture or shared way of life, climate, technology and skills) is a living proof of that. As humans, we have different belief systems, we have values, and we remain dependent on many other things to create architecture – no matter what technology makes us believe on the contrary. The diversity is also expressed in our relationship to self, other and Nature – thus taking the form of unique/ local expressions of built habitat. Attitudes to geography, history, philosophy are different and they shape the architecture of that place.

If this is so, then many world views live simultaneously on the same planet. This is but natural. There is no need to forcefully connect all such views and try to understand all of their problems and solutions by employing one narrow, dominant lens of development. Leave them as they are and one need not be concerned about “improving” their status to a Developed Image.

Architecture at different places speaks unknown languages, expresses unknown patterns of conception or imagination and therein lies a potential to learn from such systems. Such architecture, defies the conventional image of development silently without the need to express itself on a social platform. It thus exists silently and does its job – Satyagraha. We will be enriched by discovering the world “as it is”. No need to hastily change and propose one solution for all.

Memory and Pace of Life

It is quite wrong to endorse the fact that people should always live “only for the moment” – as is popularly advertised by the West – which seems to result in over consumption of resources and we ending up becoming consumers to all sorts of experiences and if I stretch things more, then we become tourists to our own thoughts!

What do I mean when I say ‘tourists to our own thoughts’?

For this, we need to look closely to what should thought compose of ideally, and how it generates a quality of memory, that generally results in a feeling of empathy or a connect with the environment? This kind of thought can be generated in any environment and in any part of the world by any society. The nature of a kind of thought that I am referring to, is found in history of mankind and current primitive and vernacular cultures. The origin of thought is influenced by geography (place/ climate/ materials/ resources for existence). Geography has dictated ways of staying together, dependence on Nature, forming responses towards architecture, art, culture, food and clothing. The thought required to respond to all concerns of existence and its dependence on environment. The concerns were common to all, and these, through history have formed a way of doing things, that we call ‘culture’. An important component of such cultures is ‘traditional wisdom’ (which I am referring to as collective memory) which deals with our nature of existence, our role in the environment, our value systems for sustenance of life and our appropriate responses to the future. Important point here is to note that thought had a strong element of acknowledging interdependence on systems of ecology. ‘I’ am not just ‘me’ alone, but the entire environment. Naturally, to come to this state of understanding means that enormous time seems to have been spent by generations to come to this realization of interconnectedness – it is not a one day job! Architecturally, it means a ‘diffused’ or ambiguous or blurred architecture of flexibility, porosity, multiuse, multifunctional and communal.

We contrast this nature of thought with a contemporary urban situation of too fast a rate of change in everything we think or do. The newness of everything, because of the rate of change forces us to delink connections with every other kind of phenomenon around us. We don’t know the relationship of the phenomenon with us anymore and neither is it felt necessary to relate! We are compelled to consider only the “moment” of existence and the only thing that is possible to do in a moment is to consume! Thus, we have become mere spectators and consumers of experiences. Experiences are fleeting, fragmented and therefore unconnected. We don’t know the past (and justify by saying that It is irrelevant) and we don’t care for the Future (saying that the Present is the only reality). We end up consuming resources, being extremely arrogant, indifferent to the environment and we remain too engrossed in ourselves and remain disconnected with everyone else. The disconnection goes to the point that we don’t seem to know our selves either! What a grim picture have we created for ourselves! In extreme case, the architecture of space may go from being highly exclusive, privatized, to schizophrenically dictated by wild imaginations. So how is this shaping our memory? We can’t seem to make any sense of the world we are inhabiting.

Hence, to make sense, ‘memory’ plays a pivotal role. By memory, we mean a given value, we mean our relationship with the overall environment, we mean our collective wisdoms and we mean the relation of past-present-future.

We need to critically see our own thoughts and actions and what they induce in our consciousness.