Directions and Discourses of the Contemporary Architectural Practice Situating the Indian Practice in the Global Discourse

Abstract

The Indian architectural practice stands as a part of the global architectural practice, borrowing from it and reflecting it in many ways. It also maintains a certain contextual specificity due to the nature of the building industry and prospects of the built environment specific to the developing urbanity of the country. In this paper, we track certain key threads of the Indian architectural practice while situating it in the larger global discourse. The evolving nature of the entrepreneurial practice, its collaborative underpinnings and its methodologies are considered from the perspective of the responsibility and role of the architect. Public perception of the discipline is also understood in conjunction with how projects are communicated and expressed within the community or architects. It is shown that though there is an on-going discourse of change within the community, very little of this thought process is evident within the public realm. The ‘expert’ architects have not been able to reinvent themselves as proponents of the built environment; rather their project expressions are increasingly disconnected from the public demands and exigencies.