Arjun Appadurai : The Social Life of Design

Arjun Appadurai is a professor at NYU & a prolific writer focusing on socio-cultural themes. He is a visiting Senior Loeb Fellow at Harvard & recently gave a series of lectures at the GSD one of which was titled ‘The Social Life of Design’. I have to admit that I am not intimately familiar with the theoretical background & texts that  that he often drew upon, so the account may seem rather disjointed. Nonetheless, it touches upon some of the major points that stayed with me.

The presentation was peppered with images from advertising & began by pointing out how in today’s world we almost have an ‘object fatigue’ – we are inundated by a multitude of objects – cellphones, ipads etc that cater to our various complex needs. Often designers of these various objects (much like architects) design within a pre-existing established context. Yet what is often overlooked is that they are creating context themselves too. This context is not just the physical reality that they create but is also associational. For example, how a Mercedes ad that depicts a lavish villa in the background, includes fine dining & fashionable clothes, creates a context that extends beyond just the object, to suggest a ‘way of life’. It then creates a context for other objects that can be designed & sold separately.

According to him, design proposes ‘a’ way of doing something, ‘one’ solution to a problem, where endless other solutions may have existed. It almost acts as a source of discipline – limiting numerous possibilities to a select few. Architectural design continuously seeks to strike a fine balance  between the ‘joys of transience’ and the ‘imperatives of durability’. Urban & rural planning is ‘design with a social conscience’. It should have more to do with not just creating the physical infrastructure but also the ‘intangible’ infrastructure of conviviality & happiness within communities & settlements. Historic preservation has not yet found its proper home in the space between design & planning according to Appadurai. He felt that most planning initiatives up to now have been focused on trying to create /restore order where ‘seemingly’ none existed, rather than understanding whatever it is that was still working. He concluded the talk by showing photos of some Mumbai slums as representative of his ideas of ‘intangible’ infrastructure.

‘Kirkbride’ Asylums

For almost the past three and a half years, I have had the opportunity to work with a rather strange, yet immensely intriguing building type—historic mental asylums. I knew little about them at first, but once I started exploring (and got paid to do so!) there was hordes of interesting information, concocted in such a terrific blend of architectural and social history that it was difficult to wean myself away.

What had gotten me interested in historic preservation as a young undergraduate was the potential to transform decaying, dilapidated buildings into vibrant, functioning ones. I was spurred by the potential and power to give seemingly ‘hopeless’ buildings a new lease of life. The more dramatic the ‘before’ and ‘after’ shots, the more excited I was about the project. So fresh out of college, when the opportunity to work on the reuse of an abandoned asylum came my way, I lapped it up with unbridled enthusiasm.

The seemingly ‘dark’ histories of the institutions, their practices and the stories of the people that occupied them, have a mysterious appeal. The stigma attached with their reuse has sort of a forbidden charm, and the potential to erase their dark past and script a new future, holds a tempting challenge for many architects and preservationists. Although I still feel detached – somewhat like a voyeur when I peek back into the histories of these buildings, I have to admit that the process has been very rewarding.

Recently, I presented some of our work with historic asylums in the US, specifically ‘Kirkbride’ Asylums (named after Dr. Thomas Kirkbride, an influential psychiatrist) at the Boston Society of Architects Historic Resources Committee Meeting. The minutes and presentation are available at their website here. What had struck me at first, and continues to fascinate, is the immense faith that the doctors and architects placed in the power of buildings to not just impact mental well-being, but actually ‘cure’ insanity. The buildings were not just the backdrop to the treatment, they were the ‘medicine’ itself!

The Bamboo Train

Just read this amazing article in the Smithsonian – ‘Catching the Bamboo Train’ about how villagers in rural Cambodia have repurposed an abandoned railroad and scrap machine parts to get from one village to the next. The solution is a simple bamboo platform that sits on metal wheels & an axle and is powered by a ‘motors ripped from broken motorbikes, rice harvesters and tractors’. The train called a ‘norrie’ runs on a roughly 300 mile stretch of abandoned tracks and seats everything from 10-30 passengers, livestock, vegetables – you name it! I have seen a number of articles in the past years about how architects and urban planners are trying to turn abandoned railroads into pedestrian/tourism corridors or simply preserve them as artsy relics. This story struck me for its simplicity yet immense ingenuity and purposefulness. In an area not served by good transportation, the villagers make great use of the tracks with simple materials, resulting in a low-cost solution that works so well, and most importantly serves real needs.  The article resonated with a recent book I came across ‘Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement’ chronicling 11 innovative projects across the globe that address local needs in economically depressed communities. The book is actually the monograph of an exhibition by the same name that just closed at MoMA in NYC. I couldn’t see the exhibition but was very impressed by the featured projects. While watching a movie about origami a while back I heard this quote

“Much of the beauty that arises in art comes from the struggle an artist wages with a limited medium”    ----Henri Matisse

I often feel the same about life in economically constrained environments – distilled to the very essential they often reflect the best human thinking and innovation.