%0 Unpublished Work %D 2011 %T An invitation to Discuss the Values and Purposes of Architectural Design Today %X

Can we engender a discussion about the values and purposes of architectural design by thinking of dissolving the words “architecture” and “architect” into the phrase “built environment and design professions engaged in its making”? Many of us “architects” would agree that this phrase provides a more realistic and a more appropriate frame of reference than the term “architectural design” to discuss our work in today’s world. Indeed the renaming of schools of architecture as “faculties for the design of the built environment” the world over confirms this shift in the contexts in which the architectural profession finds itself working today. This view of the architectural profession has its genesis in the Modern Movement in the West at the beginning of the twentieth century. Its truth and foresight were aptly acknowledged in the naming of the Centre for Environmental Planning at Ahmedabad, under B.V. Doshi’s leadership, almost half-century ago. Seen from this broad perspective the architect as philosopher-artist dependent on the indulgent or generous patron would shift to the periphery whereas the design professional wrestling with the real world of rapid urban transformation would occupy our field of vision and become its focus. Today, I am thinking particularly to the fast changing scenario here in India where the processes of rapid urbanization and urban development will determine a significant aspect of the quality of life for 40% of the nation’s population that will be living in cities by the next decade.

%C New Delhi %8 09/2011