Friday, October 21, 2005

Currency

It happens everywhere...sooner or later.

The concept of currency is very interesting. Currency is a language within an information system and also a measure.

Each of these "systems" have a common blueprint once you have figured out correctly the language used in them.

The currency used in your adult life system will be wealth... Money, primarily, social systems and its interactions shall evolve out of it.

The currency in a b-school would be your CQPI / CGPA or whatever you call the units in which you measure your mutation from a human to a rat ( in most cases, at least).

The same social structures evolve, restricted clubs, hierarchies...Preferences according to your currency holdings.

All these systems are symmetric, in simple words: if you know one, you'll know the other..Provided you get the language correct.

Moral of the story : Take your history lessons seriously.

Saturday, October 08, 2005

Architecture..random musings from the past

A few years ago, I had written this article, which I found while exploring my old PC.

Those were the days of unfettered wanderings,where you could play with your mind the way you wanted to, it was also much easier to mould then...less experienced isliye !

The article is on architecture, It is unreadable, juvenile, I am also sure for an architect it will sound like bullshit... but I believe it makes a point.

Hence in a world where style is substance, we will try giving the reverse a shot.

Here it goes...

The how’s and why's of architecture

Every time I am bored I got to my terrace and just stare at the trees. I don’t know what is it about them, their form or man’s natural impulse to be with nature that relaxes me. Mildly mesmerises me.

Why isn’t our architecture such? Why do we have such a never-ending fascination with straight lines? Architecture should blend into the surroundings not dominate or impose it. Harmony is the fundamental and underlying principle of all beauty. Imposition of any kind and any form except that of our minds over our ownselves is to be outrightly rejected that is the fundamental cause of all disharmonies, and on a larger extent war.

We are fascinated by lines as they appeal to our sense of symmetry, lead to an easy understanding of things which in turn helps us overcome our deep rooted fear of ignorance which in turn is the cause of all our fears. This isn’t enough; we have to extend out understanding of things much beyond the Greeks. Now our architecture should be symbolic, nay, the most important symbol of our progress. We have come a long way from the Greeks, we know now, perhaps even they did, a circle or any curve either definable or indefinable ,is but constructed of many lines, the very building blocks for our understanding, mother nature like all other things knew this way way back and thus the rarity of straight lines in nature.

Thus stands wonderfully destroyed our fear of the non-linear curves. What remains to be checked is on what scale do we implement our non-linear entities? City scale? Here most cities have a non-linear shape already (most Indian cities at least). Larger perhaps? Anything larger has a non-linear form already. Perhaps building size, colony size? Ok. Then where do the linear forms come into play, aren’t even the most 'curvy' curves made up of infinitely small straight lines? Well, we took care of that by accident, our bricks are linear by nature and form. So we need not bother about that one ever again.

So how does this great revolution in architecture come about from? Who stands to be the leader of this change? We do. Our art over the years has changed: the classicists, the renaissance, impressionist, post impressionist, cubist, neo-classicist so on and so forth. As we examine the history of this forms they started sounding and looking ridiculous in their times, wildly and widely criticized. Now they stand to command the same attention and the same 'utility' as did the phantoms that preceded them.

So will, this great new form of architecture that we conjectured and this heralds change, by default it becomes permanent form the linear we shift into the non linear, from the finite into the infinite. We will find this new form not only exciting but also much more relaxing and much more natural. This new dawn will not only involve a change in form but also a change in concept, from material to usage. For all we know it could even redefine society as we know it, be a harbinger of progressive change in the very nature of our thinking, and the best of it is that it promises to stand side by side with the forms and styles we know. As one is imposing and other unimposing, they stand to compliment rather than constrast. Who know we may land up exactly above where we started, genetics stands as a proof of this case.

Like all thing worthwhile in life this requires courage to try, and a deep understanding (assuredly increasing by the day) and a brand new way of thinking.
The new world, the new millennium is here, it is only a matter of time when we gather enough courage, hopefully out of adventure than desperation, that we implement what we have just surmised. Amen.

-------------------- Malhar Vadke.