RETHINKING INDIAN MODERNITY FROM THE MARGINS: ARCHITECTURAL POLITICS IN THIRUVANANTHAPURAM IN THE 1970S

摘要

This paper interprets the context and implications of a little-known but consequential ideological feud that emerged between rival "regionalist" and "modernist" camps of architectural practitioners in the south Indian state of Kerala in the 1970s. Beginning with a comparative analysis of the private residences of the key protagonists-the expatriate British Gandhian, Laurie Baker, and J. C. Alexander, an influential modernist and doyen of the architectural profession in post-independence Kerala-the paper explores the contrasting views of both camps as they debated the idea of the modern house. Turning to the architectural historiography of modern India, the over-representation of one camp and the relative invisibility of the other is then examined in the context of the radical cultural and political climate of the 1970s in Kerala. The paper considers how Baker's rise to wider recognition and impact by the end of the 1970s can be understood only by understanding the "author function" that Baker satisfied in Kerala society. The paper concludes that the complex network of influences and actors that appear in this specific case study, drawn from the assumed margins of India's modern architectural history, makes the case for a flatter ontology of history, rejecting the existing "diffusion" model and enabling buildings and context to speak in equal measure.