LECTURE-1

DATE: 5TH JANUARY 2020

It has to be understood that learning cannot happen on its own. You must
come prepared with this mind-set that the contact hour that we have is
spent well. You should be dear and oriented towards learning that would
require commitment. Commitment happens in the form of presence and
regularity. Whatever happens in the class is only for learning. This kind of
commitment is expected.

Submission. Submission means you actually believe that you will learn. If
you come to the class with that disbelief that learning is not going to be
possible or it would not happen or I’m going to the class just for the sake of
attendance, then definitely it’s not going to happen. So you have to
condition yourself for a situation where in learning is likely to happen. I
have already submitted to you that you could approach to me for
discussions and would be available all the time. I actually intended that
somehow I believe there has been a sound practice in our culture that is
our daily routine. We are living in an age of information; applying and
seeking information is going on. Preparing yourself with an over burden of
information is a challenge.

If we come to skill sets, this subject is a foundational subject and it’s the
beginning of all good things that are about to happen. So think about it. I
would like to highlight about the preparation. Preparation and skill sets are
kind of interrelate. This subject usually relies on reading. When you read it
leads to: Summarising, Sequencing, editing and documenting. These are no
small skills. They are very poorly developed in the current generation of
students who are coming. Reading material can be provided if used
properly. Once material is provided to you, you must read and assimilate,
write and assimilate, listen and assimilate then present and assimilate.
Assimilation is an essential requirement for each of these processes.

The references could be anything. They could be videos, ted talks,

photographs etc. the issue with listening is, basic difference between the
listener and speaker. Not listening is a lack of commitment problem. In my
first year of teaching I had stated that not more than 25 percent of you all
would be actual architects. Let me elaborate on this. Statistically 25
percent would be the number of architects from one batch and the update
being it even lesser than 25. What happens to the rest of 75-80 percent? Let
me state an example.

This whole infrastructure is built for 80-100 students, in which 85%

doesn’t typically operate “as architects”. At least 30% of you are not
listening to the class. Another 35% are listening and not bothered. So what
it actually is, it’s actually not registered. The idea of contact of ours typically
is to put you into an evolutionary passage. Evaluation starts singing on its
own. I see my job here is to pick you up and drop you in the orbit, so that
you are an anti-gravity force and no instructions required. So this struggle
to bring indifferent listeners, indifferent learners is a lost battle and a lot of
formally educated people out of every one of the main profession who
ultimately start complaining that the profession lacks money and many
other factors. In fact there is a lot of money and if I can make it then each
one of you can make it.

The potential lies in the candidate, not in the profession. No profession is

good, no profession is bad. The reasons to fail are too many and the reasons
to be successful are too few. So your inputs would show up if you are
successful or not.

I had some experiments with listening in my past few years. Generally

everyone thinks this is a story being discussed. I had asked the students to
make an audio recording of my lecture class and convert it into text format,
word by word. It actually worked out very well with the previous batch. I
expect similar form of work could be presented from your class.

It is not a matter of memory. Memory is one thing to nurture but we cannot

leave everything to memorisation. When it comes to memory there are two
aspects. One is, what you memorise as a matter of information gathering, to
get rid of the burden of blaming exams and the moment I tell the whole
memory is crossed, it’s erased. Now fundamentally this is different than the
way you were copy writing in schools in order to clear exams. The learning
which is happening here is essential, you have to be kind of regular, there
has to be commitment towards learning. You learn because you need to
learn, you make a living out of it.
I’ll rate a very interesting remark from Vishwanathan Anand; somebody
asked him what does he do to make a living? He said he played chess to
make a living. Now that’s a wonderful statement. Can somebody have the
guts to say “I play to make a living”? Not many, those who have a
commitment would follow a different route of learning. So this listening for
two modes, one is to bear exams and other is simply something that gets
washed away.

Someday a pass out comes to me and states “Sir you told me this” and
honestly I don’t remember any such memory. But the question is why does
that boy remember it? It must have been a turning point in his life. It is
something which happens at the subconscious level. You don’t really
remember that at that point of time and when it goes deep down and the
interesting thing about it is that you can recall it with will. In this meeting
this boy says that I had asked him to draw a straight line without
sharpening the pencil and without lifting the paper. He remembered it that
is probably a turning point in his life. So I didn’t know that it would be a
turning point in his life but it actually was. The point is that subconscious
mind registers in about permanent way. Allow that to happen.

The document is an interesting thing for me. I would support sharing it

with the whole class. I would take it two terms, one in terms of sequence
and other being in terms of content and focus on content. Last time
graphics were not so affordable, but this time I would like to be more
graphical. So I actually mean that I have a huge collection of references. The
main intention for documentation is that we have references which talk
specifically towards a topic and is easily accessible. What I want is you
should function as an interface between them and bring out whatever
relevant material is found related to the topic which we are discussing in
class.

My objective is I want you all to be very clear with this subject. You all are
young people and you should work hard and mercilessly. Let’s not have
mercies on us, including me. There is so much content available which
should be referred to. Say I gave you a collection of references specific to
this subject head. One thing is we could collect information specific to the
syllabus. Syllabus is not often very well drafted, sequencing is not good.
Everyone can have their own sequencing.
When we are talking about references I will mind a couple of things. I have
books, pictures, videos, journals. Videos I would say in general, I would say
it as a boosted dose to the content. It would be very difficult to get videos
specific to the topic or subject. But there would be videos specific to a
particular architect, a particular building of history or contemporary world.
Also I would be appreciating it. In fact I have a huge collection of ted videos
dedicated to design. Typically a video would be like 10-20 minutes long. I
do have journals which are really good to work with and specific to our
topic.

In this whole attempt, there are two essentials I want to happen.

Unfortunately, what comes to us comes from the English speaking world,
all of us, and that’s a tragedy. What is that a tragedy? This is like a cheer
assistant. Donald trump kills Iranian commander, and says he can spend 3
trillion dollar in military and kill anyone anywhere. The irony here is that in
a country like America, if Americans can accept a person like trump as a
president who is in and out a property dealer and I have been keeping a
track from the last 35 years. That is the problem of America, but if
American president says I will kill you because I have guns then that’s a sad
reflection of their state.

Let’s say he is killing someone who is from another country and I see both
the countries. I am an architect and I make an assessment in a very
different way. What does America have? What does Iran have? The amount
of art and architectural contribution that the Islamic has done to the world
is immeasurable. The contribution of this side of world towards art and
architecture is incomparable to American and Europe put together. And art
and architecture happens when you have gone beyond te wars, when you
have preached with yourself. If you are stuck in wars them your level of art
and architecture is much similar. The cultural problems of America and
Iran are actually killing them. The number of gun fights in America last year
was about 14.

What I wish to highlight is that this part of the world’s architecture is rich
and is inspiring the world. Art and architecture is getting demolished but it
is the evidence of what people have done in the past. Now here is an
explanation that why this literature which even I would be committing a
mistake by giving it to you for reference and that is my problem into being.
Like what do I give you to refer? So don’t get refrained to only the content I
supply. I was wondering if we could generate reference specific to this
country because the significance of this subject is not detached from the
core required to the profession.

Why are we taking examples from abroad when we are living in a culture
which is very different, whose problems are different, whose context are
different, whose climates are different, whose people are different, whose
materials are different. On one count I feel there is enough content I can
give you but what I’m seeing I that what act of betrayal from my part that at
this age I’m able to call an apple as an apple.

I think students should identify all the significant examples in our country
and relate them to what we are discussing. The kind of architecture India is
having or it still has and add all other countries surrounding India
including east and middle east, we notice the rest of the portion is forest.
To see from my perspective as an architect these are the sources of
learning. So form a group of students who volunteer to gather good quality
photos and videos. They can even personally visit these places, take
pictures and then makes a compilation and try analysing them together.

It would suddenly make you feel that how we are! Even though I have
enough material, which I will give it to you but my focus is to keep here. If
you could do this it would be really very relevant contribution that we can
make instead of those authors. We could be quoting those examples; we
should be getting kind of remotely directed to the literature. Let’s discuss
further about it in the next class.

DOCUMENTATION DONE BY G PAVITRA SAI (2019UAR1051)