Highlights Rabindranath Tagore's architectural vision through his writings. This book explains the different levels of this form of architecture and evaluates it in the context of the present artistic and cultural environment, while connecting it with the Bengal Renaissance. Architecture of Santiniketan: Tagore's Concept of Space is a search for the clues hidden in Rabindranath Tagore's philosophy and architecture that will link the past with the present. This book highlights Tagore's architectural vision through his writings. A product of immense
Santiniketan holds a unique position in the cultural history of India, as an embodiment of a concept and ideal which was part of what is largely regarded as a cultural renaissance in the early part of the century. The cultural leaders and artists who committed themselves to Santiniketan felt a need to view all the arts and crafts as a single connected panorama in order to revitalize the roots of their traditions. They wanted to see art as part of daily life, not just in museums, picture galleries or audience halls of the affluent. They also wanted to keep alive the priceless methods and techniques that had contributed to forming the distinct personality of the country s age-old visual tradition of murals. As a result, they turned Santiniketan into a rich open-air museum of modern Indian art with several in situ murals, some of which are landmarks of Indian history. The monograph is an effort to bring these murals before a wider public and to describe their background. It contains a general survey of the murals, detailed description of the major works and their historical background, and brief discussions on technique and themes. It has reproductions in black and white and colour, a catalogue of works, and a bibliography. Altogether it promises to be a useful source book on the early efforts in Saniniketan to relate art to architecture and environment, focusing especially on the pioneering works by Nandalal Bose and Benodbehari Mukherjee. It also presents the few murals done in more recent years by contemporary artists like K. G. Subramanyan and Somnath Hore, which depict their novel image, are in the same spirit as the earlier ones. K. G. Subramanyan is an eminent painter, muralist, printmaker and writer on art. His books include Moving Focus, The Living Tradition and The Creative Circuit. He is presently Professor Emeritus at Kala Bhavan. Jayanta Chakrabarti is an art historian with a special interest in Indian painting. He is the author of The Techniques of Indian Painting and Kalighat Painting, and co-author of Drawings and Paintings of Rabindranath. He is currently Professor of art history at Kala Bhavan. Arun Kumar Nag is an archaeologist by training and profession. He is currently attached to the Department of Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology, Visva-Bharati. He has also worked as a conservationist and his interests include art, literature, and nineteenth century sculpture. R. Siva Kumar is an art historian with a special interest in modern Indian art. He is a Reader in art history at Kala Bhavan, Visva-Bharati.
This book explores how histories of migration, cultural encounter and transculturation have shaped formations of urban space, domestic architecture and cultural modernity in Kolkata from the early colonial period to the beginning of the era of India’s economic liberalization. It charts how these themes were manifest in what was an important ‘contact zone’ in the history of globalization and the modern city. Drawing on a wide range of resources and representations, from urban plans and architectural drawings to European travel journals and Bengali literature and cinema, the book investigates the history of Kolkata through an examination of key urban and architectural spaces across the colonial and postcolonial epochs. Through illustrated chapters, it sheds new light on questions of difference and segregation, cultural hybridity, migration, and entanglements of tradition and modernity in the city, analyzing spaces inhabited by a diverse range of cultures, including several neglected in previous studies. Architecture and Urbanism in a Contact Zone offers an instructive contribution to the fields of global architectural history and theory, urban studies and postcolonial cultural studies for scholars, researchers and students alike.
This book showcases cutting-edge research papers from the 6th International Conference on Research into Design (ICoRD 2017) – the largest in India in this area – written by eminent researchers from across the world on design process, technologies, methods and tools, and their impact on innovation, for supporting design for communities. While design traditionally focused on the development of products for the individual, the emerging consensus on working towards a more sustainable world demands greater attention to designing for and with communities, so as to promote their sustenance and harmony - within each community and across communities. The special features of the book are the insights into the product and system innovation process, and the host of methods and tools from all major areas of design research for the enhancement of the innovation process. The main benefit of the book for researchers in various areas of design and innovation are access to the latest quality research in this area, with the largest collection of research from India. For practitioners and educators, it is exposure to an empirically validated suite of theories, models, methods and tools that can be taught and practiced for design-led innovation. The contents of this volume will be of use to researchers and professionals working in the areas on industrial design, manufacturing, consumer goods, and industrial management.
Thinking Design looks at ‘design’ in its broadest sense and shows how design originates in ‘human need’ which is not only physical but also psychological, socio-cultural, ecological and spiritual. The book calls for broad-based, socially integrated designs with a large global vision that offer creative solutions to a variety of subjects rather than providing multiplicity of objects. Exploring the course taken by design during the time of Gandhi and in the following era, the author advocates the need for service - or process-oriented designs in contrast to product-oriented designs. A remarkable feature of the book is the way its narrative is enlivened with case studies detailing design inventions, interspersed with tales of Mullah Nasiruddin that provide a tongue-in-cheek take on aspects of design.
Featuring the latest research commissioned on the occasion of the Bauhaus centenary, this book explores the global influence of the renowned Bauhaus school of arts and its famed artists. Bauhaus Imaginista marks the centennial anniversary of this fascinating and popular school of art, which championed the idea of artists working together as a community. The Bauhaus reconnected art with everyday life and was active in the fields of architecture, performance, design, and visual art. Founded by Walter Gropius, its faculty included such luminaries as Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, La´szlo´ Moholy-Nagy, and Josef Albers. Placing emphasis on the international dissemination and reception of the Bauhaus, this book expresses the Bauhaus’ influence, philosophy, and history beyond Germany. Rethinking the school from an international perspective, it sets its entanglements against a century of geopolitical change, as many of its artists fled World War II Germany. Bauhaus Imaginista takes readers on a global visual tour of Bauhaus influence from art and design museums to campus galleries and art institutes in India, Japan, China, Russia, Brazil, Berlin, and the United States.
