Case Study of Mumbai ee eee eS The ‘culture’ of building isan amalaam of practices and processes of various segments inhabiting and GC CeMICM URIs mua ead fee eer ene mete Sateen ese cea Cite es ode tg ate Sam Ce ET ee Co a ee eae} Ve Cana perspective Mee eal] f Tae eee includes gender interventions at the ERO ole a eset ea cla LNB Aa oo LAE Tee Che recom eC LTT ae ae aD Saal eco Be La ee eet Mee mmr TC eee cnc ieee he) processes of the various segrrents Curae a Leer ae like in a complex jig saw puzzle. "The culture of building is a coordinated SS Cun am STE cs PE sees eee ey eae ee ete eee ene nme ee cae at two levels, the mainstream and the subaltern, the latter includes the TUE TE eat eso Te ae een eae (ne ea iem aga an ee ea REET Reet aca Cream ance ete em silos The head-load of Crawford Market offer a service that sh( Neale | »ppers in more plush retail destinations don’t have access to‘Mumbai Reader - 08 GENDERING OF THE In Mumbai like in any urban areas, it should be noted that women’s contribution is not limited to their physical labour only. It is evident in construction of the city's political and cultural identity. The built environments of Mumbai form a large part of the popular imagery of the city as represented in the literature, cinema and other popular art forms. The University Tower popularly called the Rajabhai Tower, the Victoria Terminus (renamed as the CST and now a world heritage site) in the Gothic architectural vocabulary, the ‘Queen's necklace’ of Marine Drive lined with the Art Deco buildings, the large pockets of slums juxtaposed dramatically on the backdrop of the high rises are just a few of such images. These Images do not cover all the identities of the city. The economic, political, cultural and social identities of the city are often conflicting, contesting, parallel and overlapping. The culture of the building derives out of the interrelationships and dialectics of these identities. Each of these various images and identities holds within itself distinct building culture specific to its time and place and at the same time intrinsically interrelated to each other by the larger culture of the city. Mumbai does not have a rich visual history of monuments unlike many other cities of India that were built by the royal dynasties (like Delhi, Jaipur etc). Its claim to the visual monumentality comes only through the colonial period. THE COLONIAL CITY: The history of Mumbai is linked to the politics of its physical space, mainly because of its geographical location as 2GENDERING OF THE CULTURE OF BUILDING: Case Study of Mumbai gateway to the west and its tapering peninsular form. Map Ever since the city marked itself as an important port and a trading city in the 19th century, till its present status as an aspiring global city, space has been a rare commodity, created and recreated by series of major reclamations. Mumbai became the fastest growing metropolis with maximum capital accumulation and the most unequal distribution of land The colonial city is also marked by a planned segregation that was promoted by imperialism. Southern tip of the island city was fortified to create an insulated territory for the colonial rulers. The northern part within this fortification was occupied by ‘native’ Indians from the elite class from the Parsi, Bohra and Hindu communities. Hey were mainly industrialists or traders. The small 'native' traders, white-collar workers and the working class lived outside the Fort walls in largely congested areas that were further segregated on class and regional identities. Mumbai has always been the city of migrants. The rich migrants like the industrialists, and traders from Gujarat, as, well as migrants from the labour class. The labour initially came from the hinterland of Mumbai and later in the post- independence years, from northern India, The white-collar workers from the southern states came around the same time to add to the local Marathi-speaking population. Over the decades, the migrants settled in different locations of the city mainly depending on their economic class. The locations followed a hierarchy that ranged from the prestigious Malabar hill, the middle class cultural centre of Girgaon, the vibrant chawls of the working class, to the deprived slums of Dharavi and lastly the homeless on the a7‘Mumbai Reader - 08 pavements. map of Mumbai Within these class identities, were the regional, religious, linguistic and caste identities which further gave the distinct characteristics to the different settlements in the city. In the early 19th century the migrant coming to the city left behind their families but later the women too migrated, not only as social migrants but as economic migrants as well. This enriched the character of the built environments all over the city. Itis interesting to note that the trading communities belonging to Rajasthan and Gujarat with a rich tradition of the visual arts (crafts, architecture, textiles) brought their culture into their built spaces while, the working class migrants from rural Maharashtra, evolved a rich culture of the performing arts (theatre, music, dance) that creatively amalgamated the traditional folk forms with urban expressions into the city environs. In the mid-1800s, the Fort walls were pulled down to increase the physical expanse of the exclusive colonial presence. An ornate gothic style of architecture was imported for the public buildings representing the powerful legal, political and educational institutions like the high court, the secretariat and the university. These imposing public buildings carefully surrounded by luxurious green spaces accentuated the monumentality. At the same time it underlined the gap between the ordinary natives and the colonial rulers, physically and symbolically. The class barriers represented by the architectural symbols and imagery continued even after the transfer of power in the post-independence period. South Mumbai till date is perceived as a forbidden area for the city's poor, specially the poor women. Ironically it is only on every January 26th,Republic Day ( the day free India's Constitution was enforced - January 26, 1950) that the common people from the distant suburbs make a special trip to visit theseGENDERING OF THE CULTURE OF BUILDING: Case Study of Mumbai monuments that are enhanced by special lighting to mark the occasion. Many of these prestigious public monuments were built with the wealth generated by the textile industry that employed two-thirds of the Mumbai's labour community. Narayan Surve a well known poet from working class, articulates this very well in the poem ‘Mumbai! (It is people like me...oh city.) CONSTRUCTION OF POLITICAL AND CULTURAL IDENTITY: Mumbai's status as an important manufacturing centre was due to the textile industry and investment of the wealth generated from this into other industries. “A journey from the southern tip of the island of Mumbai past the Gothic and art deco structures and graceful avenues of the residences of the prosperous to the central part of the city where the textile mills are, is one that seems to take us into a different city altogether. Leave the broad main road and turn into the smaller lanes and this feeling is intensified. High walls that surround the mill structures, the chimney towering behind, the box-like unpainted three or four storied chawls, the vegetable and fruit vendors who line these lanes, and if it is time when the shifts change, streams of workers flowing to and from the mill gates, all combine to create an impression of a time warp even today. If we were transported back a hundred years, this place might still have seemed the same. This is true in some parts. In others, the spanking new high rises vie with the chimneys. Tall, secure, walled in, exclusive upper middle class residential complexes, exclusive restaurants, a fashionable studio, a popular discotheque stand cheek by jowl with the old, shabby, unpainted tenements, The gentrification of the area is more than evident ~ [Menon, Adarkar 2004].In the late 19th century, many millowners built the — 'chawls' within the spacious mill compounds in order to lure workers from the hinterland. ‘Mumbai Reader - 08 This is the description of Girangaon, (literally translated as the village of textile mills). The social and cultural life of the community in Girangaon was a mixture of the vernacular Marathi culture and that of the cosmopolitan progressive instincts of the working class the world over. In turn this ‘compound culture’ extended to the rest of the city. The Girangaon area is an example of an integrated development of built environment linked to social and political processes. In the late 19th century, many millowners built the one-room tenement - ‘chawls' within the spacious mill compounds in order to lure workers from the hinterland. But later the migration increased.3 The Bombay Improvement Trust (BIT) formed in 1898 and the Bombay Development Directorate (BDD) formed in 1920 also constructed housing for the workers in the textile mills precinct, in the form of four to five storeyed chawls - one room tenements facing common corridors in the front and rear. The common toilet blocks were placed at the end of the rear corridors. The industrial housing schemes provided by BDD are known as BDD Chawl complexes totalling over 200 chawls in central Mumbai. Identified by their drab box like exteriors and constructed in RCC frame work and brick walls painted in dull gray, these chawl complexes provoked the well known architect, Sir Claud Bately to call them “cheerless, architect less, gardenless,” (Dwivedi, Mehrotra 1995) and the noted urbanist, Patrick Geddes who resided in Mumbai between 1920-24, compared them with “Boleshevik barracks”, However all these chawl complexes comprising 30 to 50 buildings, conveniently located near the suburban railway stations in central Mumbai, are laid out with wide open spaces, and include a large playground and a communityGENDERING OF THE CULTURE OF BUILDING: Case Study of Mumbai hall. Often @ single room tenement 10ftx12ft would be occupied by 20-25 workers, made possible because of the different time shifts in the mills. When the migrant workers started bringing their families from the native villages, these housing units received a new dimension. If Patrick Geddes were to enter inside the chawls he would have witnessed a unique vibrancy representing the working class community life in the tiny rooms and the wide corridors. Urbanisation generally loosens barriers but the identities of caste and religion often became the criteria in the BDD chawl allotments. Some chawls were exclusively inhabited by Muslims, while others by dalits and/or caste Hindus. Thus chawls in the Worli area came to be occupied by the Dalits (the lowest caste earlier known as ‘untouchables') and remain to this day a strong dalit ghetto. Interestingly the Dalit Panther movement in the 1970s emerged from such dalit bastions. However some chawls had a mixed community, Muslims, dalits, caste Hindus, ete, and retained their diverse complexion until the post-Babri masjid riots of 1992-93 forced its Muslim inhabitants to move out to Muslim dominated areas. They never came back. The chawls built by the rich Hindus and Muslims as land investments exist in the middle class localities of south Mumbai as well, (Girgaon, Kalbadevi and Bhuleshwar) majority of the vernacular Marathi and Gujrati population lived in the rented tenements of the chawls, often clustered around a linear open space to form a 'wadi’ and accessed from the main roads. The cultural and community life of the city was in many ways an extension of the culture and institutions of Girangaon. The city's new globalised cultural milieu has not been able to completely obliterate traces of the old. 101102 ‘Mumbai Reader - 08 Women of Girangaon have been at the centre of this history. While in the early period of textile industry the migrant labour was predominantly male, by the turn of the century, there was a significant proportion of female migration for economic reasons in addition to the social migration. A large number of women worked in the textile mills. The proximity of housing (as the site of reproduction) and the textile mills (as the site of production) was highly beneficial to the women who had an access to the wage labour market. This physical and social reality of women contradicts with the town planning norms of zoning based on the segregation of public/private, which are in turn based on the male experiences and perceptions about work and leisure. The mill worker women could exploit their economic, social and political potential to the fullest made possible to them by the urbanisation. Although majority of the women were illiterate migrants, their militancy in the labour struggle was one of the major factors in making the trade union movement of Mumbai a showcase not only for India but for the world. They showed their mettle in the freedom struggle, in the struggle for the linguistic state as well as extended their whole hearted support to the naval mutiny against the colonial powers. As early as 1908, women workers initiated the strike of all the mill workers to protest when the British government arrested the National leader, Bal Gangadhar Tilak who had worked hard on the issue of alcoholism amongst the textile workers. In 1940, they succeeded in their demand for the provision of créche at their work places, in the textile mills. The decline of the textile manufacturing sphere, however, eroded the power base of the women, which they had gained after a continuous struggle against capital, patriarchy andGENDERING OF THE CULTURE OF BUILDING: Case Study of Mumbai imperialism. Women workers were the first segment to be retrenched, the compulsory provision of the eréche being one of the causes. Al ue ND ARCHITECTUR Bombay city improvement trust (BCIT), planned large reclamations in the southern and western seafronts of Worli, Cuffe Parade, and Marine Drive to be handed over to the up market residential developments that were occupied by the millowners, cotton merchants and the professionals. The large apartments in the Art Deco buildings with long balconies overlooking the sea fronts reflected the glamorous contemporary character of the rich and the successful lifestyle of the new rich. On the other hand, the unorganized migrant labour reclaimed with their own hands large areas of marshy land on the eastern suburbs to erect their hutments. Today these lands are the prime locations, their status till date of illegal encroachment. The urban form of Mumbai was getting determined by class interests of the business elite through new associations like Bombay Chamber of Commerce, Bombay Mill Owner's Association, Bombay Cotton Trade Association, which got representation on the agencies responsible for the physical development of the city like Bombay City Improvement Trust, port trust, municipal corporations, development direct rate, governors couneil [Dwivedi, Mehrotra 1995]. Although most of the public buildings in the colonial period were designed by British and European architects, the Indian architectural firms started getting works in the real estate boom of 1930s and 1940s. The sites were made available for lease by government agencies in the congested areas of| Sir J School of Architecture was ‘the only school at that time and for along time to come. Its main aim vas to produce architects as good draftsmen who would assist the colonial architects and would work in the offices of state PID (Public Works department). Excessive stress ‘eas on the drawing and engineering skills ike surveying, valuation, etc, It is interesting to note that until the Council nf Architecture was formed in the 1980s, the architeet’s license was called as the surveyors license, which could be obtained after finishing three years of architecture, 104 ‘Mumbai Reader - 08 south Mumbai by clearing earlier settlements “Residences were being extracted from fort in order to make the vacant land available for leasing out to the financial and business houses" ~ [Dwivedi, Mehrotra 1995]. Not surprisingly the architects of such prestigious public buildings designed in classical European, Gothic or in hybrid Indo-Sarcanic style, were all non-Indians, mostly British. Even the public buildings financed by the Indian philanthropists would engage British architects. By the 1940s some of the banks and insurance buildings started engaging Indian architectural firms. These firms fulfilled the aesthetic and symbolic aspirations of the Indian patrons but continued to follow the architectural vocabulary of the British. The architectural fraternity of Mumbai since the late colonial period represented the elite and the upper middle class. They translated the contemporary modern lifestyle of the industrialist, bankers, lawyers, doctor into Art Deco homes and offices of the 40s and 50s. By and large the Bombay architects by virtue of their class and cultural upbringing were not necessarily rooted in the culture of the region, the language, the art forms, the traditions. Some of them who belonged to the regional vernacular middle class spoke the regional language, but their sensibilities prohibited them from exploring the depths of their own culture and tradition. They remained firmly rooted in the pedagogical tradition of Sir J J School of Architecture. The stifling pedagogy defined the discipline of architecture and education in the city. On the one hand it divorced the practice of architecture from social and experiential processes and on the other it was not conducive to creative expression by local architects.GENDERING OF THE CULTURE OF BUILDING: Case Study of Mumbai Barring a few exceptions, architects of Mumbai lacked exposure to international modernism. They saw fulfilling the demands of the commercial market as the main aim of their vocation. Unlike Delhi post-independent issues like a debate on tradition’ modernism, a search for nationalist identity and the attempts at architectural transformations Were not on the agenda of the Mumbai architects. Delhi being the capital of the ‘nation in making’ needed to become a showcase for the sophisticated cultural products. Mumbai did not have such compulsions. It was a showcase of commerce and wealth during the colonial period and remained the same in the postcolonial decades as well. The scarcity of space and the harsh monsoon climate were the other important factors that limited the vocabulary of the architects in Mumbai. Economy of space became a self imposed defense. This resulted in the ‘utilitarian’ architecture based only on the minimum standards prescribed in the Development Control Regulations (DCR). Policies affecting architectural developments in the city are till date devised by engineers and state bureaucrats who grossly underrate and misinterpret the discipline of architecture. From making the Development Plan for the city and formulating the complicated system of DC regulations, to sanctioning the projects proposed by the architects, the final word is of the ‘chief" civil engineer. Over the years this created a culture of negativism in which the DC regulations that were devised and revised by the planning and sanctioning authorities became more and more stringent, and the sanctioning process became more and more complicated. Interpretation of the bye laws in order to procure maximum built up area became the most sought after criterion for the selection of the architect for a given 105..co-operative societies were formed on the basis of common identities, very often based on caste, region and religion. ‘Mumbai Reader - 08 project. Ironically the architects themselves were not aware of the important social issues thrown up by architecture. FROM A 'SHARED' TO ‘SELF-CONTAINED’ LIFESTYLE: COOPERATIVE HOUSING SOCIETIES The British governmentstarted encouraging suburbanisation in 1930s through the BCIT and the BDD. Building activity reached its peak in 1933-42 to correspond to the increase in the population. The passing of the Rent Control Act in 1942 reduced investments in the buildings for tenancy. This led to the emergence of the Co-operative Sector in urban housing. The co operative societies were formed on the basis of common identities, very often based on caste, region and religion. Later in the 1960s they were formed on the basis of the common employing establishments like banks, insurance companies, ete. Nearly 25 per cent of the plots leased by the government were leased to such cooperative societies. In the 1960s commercial pressure on the residential areas in south Mumbai started rising. The locations of the traditional settlements in south Mumbai - Girgaun, Kalbadevi, Bhuleshwar - were in demand by small trading establishments. This lured the middle class white-collar Marathi, and Gujarati families to sell of their one/two room tenements (with common toilets) in the chawls to move northwards to the ‘self-contained’ (exclusive bath and WC) apartments. The early societies based on regional/ caste community collaboration evolved a typology which was a complex of 10-15 walkable apartments of 3-4 floors placed around a central open ground, (Gujarat cooperative society at Parle, Saraswat cooperative society at Mahim, Karnatak cooperative society at Matunga, etc. are few such examples). Around the same time the state governmentGENDERING OF THE CULTURE OF BUILDING: Case Study of Mumbai through the Maharashtra Housing Development Authority (MHADA), undertook the creation of large-scale low rise and affordable housing for the middle class in various suburbs of Mumbai. Many growing urban families that were attracted by the ‘self-contained’ culture of the nuclear family availed of the housing loans and invested in the suburban cooperative societies. New concept of privacy and exclusiveness entered the families with the addition of a bedroom and a toilet. The new gadgets like the fridge invariably became a decorative piece in the living room and the sofa-cum-bed became another symbol of modernity. The role of women in this transitional period is of extreme significance. On one hand the woman was the vital partner in the economic and social change that the so-called nuclear family brought for the urban culture in Mumbai and on the other hand she continued to be burdened by the gender stereotypes of the earlier social order. Women did not mind commuting form distant northern suburbs to the southern tip which has till date remained the main provider of white collar jobs. Their pay check went for the repayment of the housing loan, or for buying gadgets that were meant to relieve them from tedious chores. However participating in augmenting the economy of household or buying the gadgets did not actually free them from the patriarchal division of labour. The women's income, always perceived by the family and the society at large as secondary and dispensable, never obtained the status of the primary bread winner. While the apartment would be often in the name of the woman, being the beneficiary of the loan, the entire management of the co operative society was in the control 107108 ‘Mumbai Reader - 08 of their male counterparts. The working women were made to feel guilty for breaking away from the traditions of the joint family for depriving the children of personal attention from other relatives. The cooperative structure of the urban housing had the potential of a participatory and innovative planning intervention that would have gone a long way in reducing the double burden on the women caught in the trap of production and reproduction. For example the municipal bye laws specially allowed 2 cooperative society to build a ‘society office’ that was free of FSI. As a logical extension, the municipal authorities would have as well sanctioned collective facilities like the créche and common laundry/kitchen space free of FSI. However the architects as well as the users lacked the gender awareness and the possibility of fulfillment of the gender needs through the process of planning. CASUALTIES IN THE REAL ESTATE BOOM In the 1970s as the real estate market boomed, the business of developing land became highly speculative. The co operative housing sector mainly sustained by the middle class was threatened as it came into the clutches of the market. In place of the collective venture, the building industry went in the hands of the individual investor called the developer/builder whose prime objective was to exploit maximum profit out of the investment by selling every inch of the available FSI. The inevitable common interests drew the municipal authorities, the bureaucrats, the developers and other influential players from real estate business closer into a nexus soon to be joined by the underworld whose muscle power was often needed to evict the vulnerable residents ~ the natives, the tribals, the single women - to acquire the land for developing. Not surprisingly the mafia soon dominated the real estate world.GENDERING OF THE CULTURE OF BUILDING: Case Study of Mumbai With upwardly rise of the real estate market the minimum standards of the ‘habitable’ rooms started shrinking. As if in tune with the wage labour market, where the policy of retrenchment is first imposed on the women, the economy drive of the home spaces first attacked the ‘women's’ spaces. The bye-laws were altered to reduce the minimum standards of the kitchen and the toilet. This further decreased the possibility of making the cooking and household activities more participatory. The shrunken kitchens further suffered because the source of ventilation and light was subsequently allowed to be derived from the inner open ‘chowks' ( small courtyards) instead of external facades. Similarly the need for accommodating two family members in a bathroom ~ a caregiver along with a child or an aged ~ was ignored while reducing the minimum standards for the bathroom. Another precious casualty in the utilitarian culture of ‘minimalism’ is the balcony, an indispensable feature of the urban residential typology of Mumbai. The balconies fulfill many functions ~ environmental, spatial, and social. For women, the balcony has always been an interface between the private and the public spheres. The pleasure offered bY ssamped sitchen n'a dhatavi the balconies floating in the infinite space, was one of the household few pleasures enjoyed by the home bound women. However in order to increase the utilitarian value of the apartment, when the balcony was permitted to be ‘enclosed’, it became an integral part of the ‘room! The ‘physicality’ of being part of the outside was replaced by ‘framing’ the outside from the inside, thereby ‘domesticating’ it. eT Seaeee ESO) In the decade of the 1980's, the New Economic Policy of the Indian government gave rise to the new corporate and 109mo ‘Mumbai Reader - 08 business class.To lure this class that was trying to distinguish itself from rank and file of the society, the alliance of the developers and the architects, promoted architectural aesthetics in the name of post-modernism which screamed out for attention in a full gamut of colours, forms and shapes on the fagade. A new category called ‘the elevation (facade) architect’ was created for the market. While the ‘municipal architect’ is appointed mainly for making plans and getting them sanctioned from the local authorities, the role of the ‘elevation architect' is to re clothe the building to simulate a historical period of greater prestige (Roman domes to hide the RCC water tanks, Greek columns on the exterior skin of the double wall). The interior space of the apartment shrank further although it got its share of Italian marble flooring and Victorian sanitary fittings. The globalisation period since the 1990s, witnessed the city's industrial sector ~ the backbone of the working class economy, steadily closing down. The government converted large tracks of land in industrial zones to residential zones which fulfilled the desire of the large industrial giants like Godrej, and Tatas to exploit the real estate potential of their land. This gave rise to luxurious gated residential complexes with up market amenities like a swimming pool, club, and state-of-the-art security systems, etc. These were constructed to attract the nitche investments by the NRIs and the globalised corporate and professional segments. While these suburbs were slowly getting market sawy and self-sufficient in terms of commercial infrastructure, the commuting distances from work places increased tremendously. On one hand, closing of industries rendered 4,00,000 workers jobless and displaced; their families uprooted from theneighbourhood culture (builtpainstakingly over the years mainly by the community). On the other hand the middle class working women spent additional energy inGENDERING OF THE CULTURE OF BUILDING: Case Study of Mumbai commuting from the new up market residences located far away from any suburban transport facilities. Many white collar women who accepted the apparently attractive option of Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) to escape the stress of the double burden, could not however escape the social isolation. The frustrations in working class women because of displacement and the vacuum in the lives of the middle class women because of isolation, led them to become vulnerable to the commercialisation of culture skillfully managed by the globalised market and media. The entry of the new forms of financial capital owned by the transnational corporations into the city created an overriding desire in the new professional and corporate class to change the image of the city to rise to the status of the global financial centre. The commercial buildings were designed in the globalised genre of architecture. The vocabulary of glass and metal claddings became a symbol of the global financial capital which is as placeless as its users for whom India is just one launching pad. For the common city dwellers it is a symbol of yet another sharpened contradiction represented by the exclusive and closed glass fagade. area ee) In the late 1990s, very slender ice cream coloured towers appeared on the skyline of Mumbai in the name of the poor. The slum up-gradation and slum rehabilitation policy of the 1980s and early 1990s changed to the populist free housing scheme, promoted by the right-wing alliance government for the benefit of the developers and the professionals when the real estate market was down. A generous FSI of 2.5 was awarded to enable the developers to subsidise the housing for the poor by selling the balance FSI, in the mm2 ‘Mumbai Reader - 08 market. The scheme known as SRA was a sheer planning exercise, without critically examining the future projections regarding the excess load on the existing infrastructure of the locality and the city as a whole. In spite of the large funding provisions, the housing for the poor was never perceived as an opportunity to improve the quality of life of more than half of the city's population. Neither the policy-makers nor the architects and other professionals had empathy for the beneficiaries and least of all any sensitivity towards gender issues. Unlike any other professional assignment of this scale, most of the architects who undertook SRA projects had never entered the existing slums to see how the poor live and what their needs and aspirations are.® They were unaware of the fact that more than one third of the households are women- headed households and had specific needs in terms of their physical and social infrastructure determined by their social place in relation to the labour market and family.” ADVANCE LOCALITY MANAGEMENT: Lastly | would like to mention an emerging phenomenon promoted by municipal authorities as an interface of civil society initiatives. Citizen’s groups have been formed comprising of local residents (the Advanced Locality Management ALM groups) who have been entrusted the responsibility to upgrade the local neighbourhoods. Far from being participatory in terms of their composition, a new nexus of the elites of the city - economic elites, bureaucratic elites, the professional elites (including the architects) and the media elites - is actively evolving the ‘urban renewal proposals that will mainly protect their class interests. The vision of the future city as reflected in someGENDERING OF THE CULTURE OF BUILDING: Case Study of Mumbai of these proposals 10 are not based on the shared values. In the name of ‘cleanliness’ and ‘beautification’ the not so hidden agenda of ‘othering' of the poor of the neighbourhoods is becoming increasingly transparent. There is no mechanism for evaluation and debate by the excluded segments of which women form a major part. The gender conscious collectives of the women (and men), professionals and non-professionals, academics and activists will have to be alert and confront to bring the concerns of the urban subalterns on the top agenda of the renewed politics of space in the city that is aspiring to be global. If the shared intentions don't exist then there are no criteria for evaluation; arguments lose their grounding and the debate becomes one based on power and will... rather on reason (Howard Davis). CONCLUSION This paper has attempted to show the gendered dimensions of the culture of building in the city of Mumbai over the last four to five decades by looking at the patriarchal, class and market forces which generate the process of building. The main actors who play major roles in the making of the built environment are the landowner, the builderfinvestor, the architect/planner, the policy-makers and implementers, and of course, the end-user. The other players comprising more than half the population of the city, create their own built environment with least help from other segments. This large population of urban poor have very often reclaimed the land for creating their own Neighbourhoods. These communities have expressed in their built world a visual sensitivity and appropriate technical skills. However 1| Maithreykrishnaraj, Women's Studies and Higher Education, Taking Stook Key note address atthe symposium organised by Centre for Women’s Development Studies, New Delhi in September 1931 and postscript June 1885 2 iy study on ‘infra Structural Amenities far Women in Low Ineame Households of Murba’ was conducted in 1992, published in Shelter Wemen and Development, First and Third World Perspectives, (ed) bby Hemalata C Dandekar, George Wahr Publishing Company, Michigan, 1993, In 1861, 1,28,000 people came from Ratnagin alone. ih 1921 ~ the migration cubled to 23600 [Dwivedi, Mehrotra 1995}. * 50,000 families in 1920s, 207 chawls were builtin Re, Each containing 60 single room 10. 32 at Delisle road, #2 at Naigaon, 121 at Nor, 12 at Sewri Handed ‘wer to collector n 1928, Total 16000 Rms ~ [Dwivedi Mehrotra 1995] 5 the latter sanctioned 4000 building plansin suburban Mumbat in 1921). The population 1923 ~ 1.06 milion rose to 1942 ~ 1.49 million, Still 50,000 people vere homeless [Dwhedi, Mehrotra 4995], By carly 19305 TP schemes were completed at Bandra, Santacruz, Park, Andheri, Malad, Borvali and Ghatkapar. § international Conference on the Housing for Poot, November 2000, organised by Indian Institute of Architects, Mumbai chapter See tesults of the study Neera Adarks infrastructural Amenities for Women in Low income House holds of Bombay’ Shelter amen and Development, First and Third World Perspectives, (ed by Hemalata ( Dandetar, George War Publishing Company, Michigan, 1883 m4 ‘Mumbai Reader - 08 both these kinds of built worlds are affected in various ways by the overriding politics of space in the city. The following observations get highlighted in my study: (a) The role of architecture has been narrowly defined by an architectural pedagogy which was articulated at an earlier colonial stage and has not been sufficiently re-examined. It has failed to create an awareness towards the potential of the discipline to address the social and economic issues that play a crucial role in the determining class and gender character of the culture of building. In spite of the glamour attached to the profession, the architect has a secondary status in the hierarchy of the building profession and is vulnerable to the dominating pressures ranging from the political to mafia forces. (b) The entire process of buildings intrisinically connected to the politics of space in the city resulting in the unequal distribution of the urban land and the increasing economic disparity between the priviledged and the deprived. This is accentuated by the NEP based on liberalisation, globalisation and privatisation. Women form the major segment of the deprived are most affected by this. This is true in spite of the fact that 50 per cent of the total users of space are women and more than 50 per cent of the total graduate architects are women not only in Mumbai, but in the other major cities as well. (c) While the needs and aspirations of women are subjected to the total apathy of planners and policy- makers, they themselves are unaware of their potential to critique the gendered character of the built environments, and to contribute towards making a gender conscious environment. However, there are a large number of women working as associatesGENDERING OF THE CULTURE OF BUILDING: Case Study of Mumbai or under the male professional who have shown exceptional capacity at handling projects independently at all levels and a few exceptional women have also independently transcended the gendered culture of the building industry. But women as architects are conspicuously absent as decision makers in the present culture of building given its hegemonic, male-centric and scam-ridden character. Secondly there is also the dilemma faced by contemporary women architects of making crucial choices of participating or contesting the existing situation in the profession. As Ellen Perry Berkeley, a feminist critique writes, “real problem for a thoughtful woman is not whether she is accepted into the profession but whether she wants to be accepted into the profession as it is now", typical house pattern in DharaviREFERENCES: 8 had conducted a workshop with women from the slum communities, when our fm worked as architectural consultants, on the Slums Rehabilitation Scheme in collaboration with YUVA, 2 voluntary organisation active in the same slum community Te involve women Of the community to participate in the planning process, we conducted series of Interactive workshops including 3 "theatre workshop to help express their perception of architectural space and their concepts of shelter Full-scale rooms were drawn Cont he floor to help women experience and visualise space; the women creatively enacted the domestic scenes that brought ‘out the hierarchical relationships within the household space. By moving within the demarcated ‘tenement space of 25 sq mts, they experienced the actual space tobe allocated to them, which helped ‘them suggest ways of dividing that space for different domestic activities, Many of these suggestions questioned accepted planning norms. They felt that corridors connecting rooms could be deleted to sromate more interaction and to gain the extra area. Most of them were under the Intibition of keeping the main doors closed 23s they thought itwas 2 norm they must follow once they shift to mult-storeyed apartments. They wanted the cooking platform in the kitchen not to face the wall as it isolates the woman from the other activities. They also prefered the platform on the float level which create ‘ conducive environment for sharing the chores by the family members. They wondered why the size of the kitchen ‘drawn in the three alternative plans Grann by us was small barely enough to ‘accommodate one person. Berkeley, Ellen Perry (1979): ‘Architecture: Towards Feminist Critique in Feminist College: Educating Women in Visual Arts’ edited by Judy Loeb, New York Teachers College Press, Columbia University. Davis, Howard (2000) The Culture of Building, Oxford University Press, New York, October. Dwivedi, Sharda and Mehrotra Rahul (1995): The Cities Within, Indio Book House, Mumbai. Menon Meena and Neera ‘Adarkar : One Hundred Years, One Hundred Voices, An Oral History of Millworkers of Girangaon. Seagu! Publications, Calcutta,