Nehal Jain

AD4006

As architects, we may have various definitions about our work but when we complete it and hand it over to the public realm our words are left behind. As Architects, we must come to terms with that moment of silence. Can there be a process of creating meaning that begins after we have stepped away from our finished work? Unlike the performing arts which live in the presence of the artist, architecture must live in the absence of the artist. Meaning comes from the acts of in-habitation that weave memories into space, just as the yogic concept states that the body is an empty form that is brought to life by breath moving through it; Architecture is brought to life by the in-habitation moving through it.
 This gradual creation of meaning through memory could be termed as “the aesthetics of absorption”, and is different from the “The Aesthetics of expression” that typically preoccupies the attention of architects. The practice tends to design space that tune in to the aesthetics of absorption by facilitating cultures of in-habitation that are favorable to the accrual of memory.