International 2015 Workshop in India Ahmedabad.
Country of contrasts, difficult to judge from a European look, hard to avoid romanticism.India will reveal part of their identity and then contradict.
With more than 6 million people, Ahmedabad is the sixth most populous city in India. Historically, it is positioned as one of the economic and industrial centers with special importance in the XXth Century when hosted Mahatma Gandhi, leading the activism for India’s independence from Britain. During the second half of the century saw a period of cultural splendor, attracting big names from the world of architecture and modern art that will leave a mark in this enclave of living traditions.
Ahmedabad is the result of constant hybridization between tradition and modernity. Getting to know this city is approaching a fragment of India, a portion of such a plural country that it would be wrong to claim understanding. The urban fabric of the city is a direct result of this mixing and conflicts involved, patents and making visible the contrasts in the country is immersed, from slums to consolidated historic fabric, through new financial areas built in the form of skyscrapers glass, or even old peripheral rural areas today engulfed by the fast growth of the city. Ahmedabad offers countless case studies where test our understanding of the context.
With more than 6 million people, Ahmedabad is the sixth most populous city in India. Historically, it is positioned as one of the economic and industrial centers with special importance in the XXth Century when hosted Mahatma Gandhi, leading the activism for India’s independence from Britain. During the second half of the century saw a period of cultural splendor, attracting big names from the world of architecture and modern art that will leave a mark in this enclave of living traditions.
Ahmedabad is the result of constant hybridization between tradition and modernity. Getting to know this city is approaching a fragment of India, a portion of such a plural country that it would be wrong to claim understanding. The urban fabric of the city is a direct result of this mixing and conflicts involved, patents and making visible the contrasts in the country is immersed, from slums to consolidated historic fabric, through new financial areas built in the form of skyscrapers glass, or even old peripheral rural areas today engulfed by the fast growth of the city. Ahmedabad offers countless case studies where test our understanding of the context.
The relation of the context with space and time in which it sets, is a key element in order to get close to this environment, changeable, dynamic, fluid and mutable, threatened by the current urban policies that, regardless of temporality as a factor, is jeopardizing some traditional idiosyncrasies of the region.
A fragment of the city is studied, the Pols, trying to face the challenges that these specific areas arise, from a global perspective and without forgetting the value of establishing debate in these processes, restating what we “know”.
We reflect on the lessons that we can draw from contexts like this and the potential contributions to the site as external agents; a laboratory of social, cultural and technical learning for Spanish students that working with Indian students and local actors seek to pose the right questions to extract from them the tools with which to tackle urban projects in such contexts.
See the students work here.
A fragment of the city is studied, the Pols, trying to face the challenges that these specific areas arise, from a global perspective and without forgetting the value of establishing debate in these processes, restating what we “know”.
We reflect on the lessons that we can draw from contexts like this and the potential contributions to the site as external agents; a laboratory of social, cultural and technical learning for Spanish students that working with Indian students and local actors seek to pose the right questions to extract from them the tools with which to tackle urban projects in such contexts.
See the students work here.