The Home and the Street: Critical Reflections on the Working Class Interior and Public Space in India 1970–1990

Description

This paper outlines a critical methodology towards analysing the working-class interior, imagined and produced by architects in postcolonial India between c 1970-1990. Developing from Farhan Karim’s discussions on ‘austere Modernism’ (2019) in postcolonial India, this chapter expands his analysis to consider the ways in which architects such as Charles Correa, Balkrishna Doshi and Raj Rewal imagined the working-class minimal interior in relation to the street, reflecting perceptions of the public and private lives of the subjects and their domestic space. Through a study of drawings and texts produced by these architects, this chapter reflects upon the ways in which the life of the Indian poor captured the imagination of the professional architects, highlighting the dialectic of modernity – its propensity for order amid what was perceived as disorderly life on the street – ultimately shaping living spaces for the working-class urban and suburban family.

Period	18 Mar 2021 → 19 Mar 2021
Held at	Bard Graduate Center, New York, United States
Degree of Recognition	International