We are the children of our landscape; it dictates behaviour and even thought in the measure to which we are responsive to it.
Lawrence Durrell in “JUSTINE”
What response do those vitrified tiles generate?
What response does that interior design generate?
Do they even generate anything? Anything worthwhile?
Just look at this bungalow! I often pass by this house on my walks, mostly in the evenings.
How beautifully charmingly it ages! An interestingly done facade with natural stone. Can any of the artificially contrived surface materials, that folks and interior designs use so often, match this beauty?
One of the things about this is also that this stone is glossy like glass. Glass means maintenance, at some point, will be a pain.
Which building in Ahmedabad would attract you enough to spend a good part of your day in its presence?
That sounds like a contrived question. Let me re-attempt.
Is there any built space in Ahmedabad that you may want to spend all your day in?
At one point, when I was a child, the garden in Gandhinagar offered that space. But then children have fascinating ways of turning their surroundings into entertaining spaces.
Now, a member would immediately say, Karnavati Club.
Recall more such spaces? We are building more buildings. But those buildings can’t seem to hold us, accommodate us. In fact, the more time we spend among such buildings, the greater is the feeling to go away somewhere far, somewhere where the memory and sights of these buildings can be obliterated.
Such is the city we’ve built and continue to build.
What we witness in our age is a serious serious deficit of patience. Gurus tell us and we acknowledge, and then we fall back to rectangulism as soon as we come to interior design and such matters.
In the background you see a gate made about 600 years back in Lucknow. 600 years! What would it take to make something as beautiful right now? Don’t tell me money!
What the soles desire,
Not necessarily what the eyes see,
That’s how the floors must be.
Your choice of flooring for your house depends on quite a few factors. One of the factors is how does it feel to the soles of your feet. Repeat:
HOW DOES IT FEEL TO THE SOLES OF YOUR FEET?
But then now so many of us wear slippers most of the times when we are indoors. And so the feeling to the soles is kind of lost. And then flooring becomes just a matter of visual pleasure.
This looks good, that looks good.
I am confused.
Oh this color is not so good. Let’s check some more colors.
Oh this doesn’t match the color of the table!
Oh, but we chose that laminate. And so this color will look good.
Our senses have gone for a toss and so has our sense of designing. But some small reminders may help. But then who reminds whom… When? After the interior design is horribly done, it’s all a matter of criticisms, odd expressions and jealousies.
See this.
This wall is clad with White Mint stone (in shot blast finish). Let the project get over and this is going to look one of a kind.
There’s this semi-fraud-acquaintance who took a lot of assistance from my Dad in getting stone and design related work for his big house project. I am compelled to call it house coz it’s hard to call it bungalow.
One of the features of this man’s project is the numerous kinds of stone and surface material he has used to garnish his house with, both inside and outside.
Needless to say, I was appalled at the way it all felt when I got a chance to visit this site once, more than a year back. The work’s still going on I hear.
Taj Mahal is primarily a one stone work.
Kailash Temple, they say, is not just one stone, it is one-rock work. Incredible, isn’t it.
Now, for the sake of funny arguments, a professional like an architect or an interior designer or a status-symbol-maker may say but these are public monuments, not houses for living. So let me ask another question.
Would you want a house that looks as gorgeous as a monument or a house that looks like a hodge-podge of materials?
Funny argumenter may even say, “But monuments require more money and space to make.” Really? Is that so?
The practitioners and house-makers of today’s age seem to earn a lot from the use of materials instead of the use of imagination. Bitter and easier said and true wherever I see.
In Ahmedabad, you can witness the architectural obscenities in the form of flats almost everywhere you go. Especially the newly developed or developing areas.
Contrast Ahmedabad’s flats with these, built somewhere in China. Out here wonky urban planners and funny builders are trying to extract every little penny out of the FSI allowances and policies by making cubic and cuboidal blocks typically painted in horrible greys and browns.
We are looking for a builder to work with who attempts something like this.
Distinct and charming in its own way! You may want to check some more pictures here.
Please forgive them, the folks at Mail Online (dailymail.co.uk) who have written the linked article and bizarrely titled it Bizarre ‘pyramid-shaped’ building in China becomes an internet sensation.
Towards some work in progress… 30mm thick Granite slabs. Rock solid.
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