Site Lines: Talking Architecture in the Subcontinent', the exhibition at IFBE, Mumbai, will have architects and experts from allied fields discuss the importance of architectural processes and production (Source: Architecture Foundation)Every exit is an entry into some place and in these times of transition, we face existential questions which may not have answers but observations. Is the Indian landscape only filled with the tyranny of glass-clad towers and temple imagery? Can there be different imaginations of national identity? Can there be other ways of architectural representation in practice and pedagogy? These questions will hopefully find answers at ‘Site Lines: Talking Architecture in the Subcontinent’, a project by the Architecture Foundation that promotes awareness about architecture and urbanisation in India.The event, which closes on March 21, entails an exhibition, a conference, talks and book launches at IFBE, Mumbai, and will have voices from the field and allied disciplines. This project takes forward the research and ideas curated by architecture theorist-critic Kaiwan Mehta, poet-author Ranjit Hoskote and architect, urbanist and educator Rahul Mehrotra, in the 2016 exhibition, ‘The State of Architecture: Practices and Processes’. Later, in 2021, Mehrotra along with his former students, Devashree Shah and Pranav Thole, expanded the concerns of the 2016 exhibition to the larger region of South Asia — India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan.‘Site Lines’ will bring the two findings to look at the state of architecture in India and also at a generation that is under 45 years of age in South Asia.In this email interview, Mehrotra, founder principal of RMA Architects and Professor of Urban Design and Planning and the John T Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization at Harvard, talks about what governs the Indian landscape today, how younger architects are less anxious about national identities and how the private has become public. Architect, urbanist and educator Rahul Mehrotra (Source: Architecture Foundation)Excerpts:Today, past modernism and counter modernism, how would you read the country’s landscape?I believe the country’s landscape is an amplified version of what I have described in my book Architecture in India since 1990, which is to say that the simultaneity of different modes of production, the diverse aesthetics as well as agendas have only exponentially increased. What surrounds us in India today are many more modern temples using ancient imagery. And simultaneously, the tyranny of images from around the globe in the form of glass-clad towers.How has architecture post-’90s influenced the architecture of the future?The younger generation is becoming much more aware of the issues that surround them and more confident of their own instrumentality in addressing them. It is wonderful to see they are much more focused on questions of sustainability and community engagement but also are trying to imagine institutional and infrastructure projects which are all about building society. They are more grounded in their work and more constrained in the way they deploy resources to achieve these ends.Story continues below this adWhat are the similarities and differences that you have observed during your curation among younger practices?The main difference is that younger practices are less anxious about their national identities and much more focused on context and place. Kanak Dixit, the founder editor of Himal magazine, had provoked us at the last conference we had in Delhi in 2023 to identify ourselves as architects from the place we practise in rather than the countries we belong to. That was a wonderful provocation because it situated the architect in context, in locality and, therefore, their concerns changed. In the founding years of the nation, architects were more obsessed with the construction of national identity and of a meta-Indian but now architects are less anxious about that, are more regional in their concerns and much more grounded in the local.We face uncertainties not just of war and climate change, but also political transitions. What can architects do to have more agency in such times in history?It is for this reason that we use the title of ‘Architectures of Transition’ because we feel that in transitional situations, architects have to be much more mindful of their resources, how they lock material life cycles and assets in a temporal scale which is to say that we no longer have the luxury of making permanent solutions for what might be temporary problems.Therefore, temporality and situating projects, their needs and their sustainability become very critical in making choices. It is only through imagining how transitions can be made in spatial terms will we be able to address these questions. We must interrogate the programmes that we are offered as architects to also discern what their longevity will be and how we might make the built environments that we imagine more flexible, robust and adaptable for a landscape of transitions, which is what characterises the world today. The exhibition, Site Lines: Talking Architecture in the Subcontinent’, in Mumbai explores a collective dialogue that transcends political boundaries (Source: Architecture Foundation)We believe the pursuit of built form is impacted by every ‘tremor’ that is registered in an extremely interconnected yet precarious social, economic, cultural and political system. It is impossible to discuss the practice of architecture in India today without addressing key urgencies and the paradigm shifts. Thus, the focus of this conference is to explore the interplay between individual practices in self-reflection and transition in relation to the unpredictably changing world.Story continues below this adWe now have botoxed public spaces and the commons are rationed out even in main metros. How can design make a difference?Essentially what has happened in the world today is what was considered as private has become very public. The scale of weddings in the public realm as outlets of ostentation have played out in the Indian landscape in unimaginable ways. Weddings were always discreet and private but now have become public spectacles. On the other hand, what was supposed to be commons in terms of public space, access, etc. have become privatised as witnessed in the many private parks, private gated communities, etc. This inversion will set up unnecessary polarities in our society and will be a big challenge for architects, urban designers, planners and landscape architects to reverse in the future.Architecture education has been linked with real estate in recent times. Is a better industry-academic synergy possible?The perception that real estate is a sector that creates jobs for architects is an illusion. It is clear to us from the research we did in 2016 that architectural commissions have actually reduced. Another way to put this would be when you have a low-rise, low-density development like in any of the colonies in Delhi, you have, perhaps, 500 families that live in these who might employ 150 or 200 architects to build their homes. Whereas when you have 500 families that are delivered houses by the real estate sector through a developer, those buildings, often gated, are designed by one architect, often someone employed in-house by the developer. Therefore, the employment of architects is directly related to the form of the built environment. How the industry and academics would solve this problem would not be an easy question. However, this would be the responsibility of urban designers and planners as well as policy makers in terms of how cities are imagined. I believe schools should learn to get a pulse on what is surrounding them to see how pedagogy can address this question.