A walk to remember : An alternative urban narrative

Gajjar Akshar Shaileshkumar

AR3023

“History provides material for biography while memories provide material for autobiography. Memories begin when history ends. These two are generators of identity in a city. ” - Architecture of the City. With new cities being built and developed at an unimaginable pace one sees genericness in their design and perception. Bopal like many other recently developed city/ peri-urban area is subjected to the same fate. With no history to attach to, what creates memories in such generic city scape. Leisure being defined as “time free of necessity” is introduced in the landscape of Bopal using architectural follies. The current urban scape of Bopal allows for no unexpected encounters or surprises, nor does it have the opportunities of loitering. Follies lead to creation of alternative narratives. These narratives negate the existing and create unexpected, drastic and surprising moments in the city. These narratives generate events hence adding to the memories and identity of the city. In the areas of high density or fragmented land pieces these follies ‘attract’ the parcels of land leading to a perception of a larger whole while in places of chaos they create ‘detraction’ from the surrounding becoming an escape. These points of insertion attempt to create an aversion from the existing leading to an alternate reality of perception different from that of the empirical reality.

Report Content

"History provides material for biography, memories for autobiography." Architecture of the city. Lack of memory and identity to the urban fabric is one of the main concerns of the project. Scarcity of public spaces in Bopal and exemption of informal vendors from city planning are also of concern.

Architectural follies are introduced as a typology to tackle with the multi layered concerns of Bopal.

Psycho-geographic maps of the urban fabric of Bopal are drawn before and after the insertion of the network of follies.

Folly I : The eye, Climbing on the existing water tank at the edge of Bopal lake the folly creates an alternate vertical narrative.

Along with the existing spiral stair two other movement shafts, the elevator and the slide are added.

Folly II: The madness, sitting on the Bopal gam BRTS stand the folly mocks the utilitarian use of architectural elements. The stair winds around the shear walls creating an alternate journey of meandering.

Folly III: The escape, Sitting on the busy junction the folly creates an alternate narrative of solitude and calm.

Leisure is in slowing down and enjoying small moments of walking, sitting, talking, meeting etc. The miniature painting attempts to depict these possibilities of leisure in the folly.

The detail of the entrance and of the interior spaces created by the curving wall.

Even though the three follies have a very idiosyncratic relation with each of their immediate context at a larger scale all three attempt to generate frictions in the utilitarian urban scape , generating events and hence memories.