Prologue

Over the last several years I have been engaged with the issues concerning architectural education in India. Both being an active teacher and administrator in several schools as well as having visited several schools on behalf of the Council of Architecture, has given me a perspective and also a sense that things are not quite the way they should be. I have also spoken about this in meetings and symposia on the subject but usually, the views expressed there either remain confined to a small group or are not recorded and soon forgotten. Mostly these occasions accept unquestioningly the curricular programs/syllabi followed by almost all schools, as mandated by the Council of Architecture's "Minimum Standards of Architectural Education, 1983" notification and limit their deliberations on the content of the training program such as the duration of the program, nature and emphasis laid on various components etc. I, on the other hand, have concluded that the infirmity is far more fundamental, deep-rooted and structural and only a more comprehensive approach is needed.

Architecture is essentially a humanistic discipline, albeit with technical and commercial components. This unfortunately is now being turned into almost exclusively into a technical and commercial one. As a humanistic discipline, it has historically been a public art with architects enjoying a public presence being the creators of the built environment that shapes the society. This very position demanded of architects that they maintain a high level of ethical and moral standards in their work and public conduct, in addition to honing their technical skills. The two quotations at the beginning of this book, one from the ancient Indian text, Mayamatam and the other from Vitruvius, lays down the essential qualities required of an architect. These include being wedded to the truth (Satyavadi) and being incorruptible (Jitendriya) in addition to being well versed in all forms of knowledge. These qualities were so ingrained in the very process of training that they were internalized by architects enough to become second nature; maybe more by some and less by others. Ethics entered architecture not only as concern towards fellow human beings but also toward nature in all its forms. Together with the art of construction, it became 'Concerned Making". Such a comprehensive approach is not obtained today. And it cannot be regained by tweaking the 'Minimum Standards' here and there. This suggests that we need to look at the very idea of architectural education afresh.

By 'structural' what I mean is that we are faced with a number of conceptual and interlinked binaries such as vocation/discipline, training/education, guild/university, tradition/modernity, knowing/acting, etc. and the present crisis stems from our inability to arrive at clarity about these. I contend that we are prevented from arriving at this clarity by the very model of architectural practice and education we have adopted from our colonial masters. Let me retrace the steps we have taken during the last one hundred years to arrive at the present state of architectural education.

It is recorded that at the turn of the last century, in the first decades of the twentieth century, methods and skills of technical representation of architecture, i.e. drawings of plans, sections, elevations, etc. were not available in India: we just did not have any Indian draftsmen with the requisite skills who knew how to do this. The Archeological Survey of India (ASI) recorded the Harappa and other sites through European draftsmen. I was recently told by the chief of ASI in Agra that when the ASI (then manned by British archaeologists) first undertook recording and restoration of Fatehpur Sikri, around the turn of the last century under the then Director John Marshall, they had no one to draw up its plans and had to hire young painters from the Sir J.J. College of Art in Mumbai (then Bombay) to prepare three-dimensional watercolour images of the finds for official records. But this is not surprising as the art of making drawings, as we know them today, is founded on a view of the world developed during the European Renascence in response to the demands of modernity and is also only about three hundred years old. Prior to that architects simply laid out the buildings on the ground and the architect/builder proceeded with the traditional knowledge he had. And this is precisely also what happened in India until the new technique of making two-dimensional drawings was imported from Europe in 1913. But there is a crucial distinction here that must be noted. Earlier it was an experiential method wherein the architect is involved, in both conception and execution, with all his perceptual senses. This is akin to a painter, sculptor or a dancer executing their work without any intermediary to interpret it. Drawings, on the other hand, demand a cerebral (as opposed to experiential) engagement. Drawings are required when someone else is executing your work and you require means to transmit exact information in coded language for them to translate your intentions to reality. In Europe this transition from the earlier to the later, more modern, practice happened more gradually and organically. In India, it was literally transplanted. A 'Draftsman's Class', started with a view to producing men with a "practical and really useful" knowledge, fit to be employed in an architect's office, was upgraded to a Diploma course in 1913 at Sir J.J. College of Architecture. This sudden import and our enthusiastic embrace of everything it contained has prevented us from engaging in a critical review of what we received and how best to incorporate it within our knowledge system. I believe a century has now given us enough historical distance to do that. This is what I intend to do in this essay.

Contemporary architectural education in India is by and large a legacy of its colonial past. The adjective, "contemporary" needs to be emphasized here as, while both the profession of architecture and the training of young practitioners has been in existence in India since the ancient times, the contemporary educational practices, both in their structure and pedagogy, is radically different and is largely an import of the colonizing European societies. The difference is in two very important ways; one, while the traditional training format was similar to the guild system (Guru-Shishya parampara) wherein the knowledge was passed on from the master to the disciple in a more direct way: by the later actually assisting the former on the worksite, starting as a junior craftsman (Shilpi) and gradually graduating to the level of the architect (Sthapati). In other words, like a true vocational activity, it imparted learning by doing and in the process perpetuated the existing best practices. Spatial configurations, reflected in the plan-form, as well as the corporeal choices, reflected in the built elements, were largely determined by tradition. Changes did occur but only gradually and over a long period. As such, architecture remained in the realm of a vocation. And in a vocation, it is the craft of construction which is the vehicle for expression. For it is only by first internalizing the craft that an architect may be able to visualize new forms and distinguish himself from others. It must be noted here that the architect in this system was also the engineer and builder all rolled into one profession.

Now, the young architects are being trained through a structured program in a university. There are many reasons for this change and the fact that architecture, together with other vocational activities such as engineering, were brought into universities, first in Europe and then in America, and came to India as colonial imports is only one of those reasons. Institutionalization of education is inevitable as societies grow and demands on individuals to engage with various tasks become more complex. Such institutionalization of education has taken place as a natural evolution in all civilizations. Throughout history, Indian civilization too has always interacted with other civilizations such as Greek, Arabic and Chinese and has exchanged ideas and evolved immensely. There is no reason to believe that ancient Indian learning centres such as Takshashila (Taxila) and Nalanda could not have evolved as modern-day universities had Indian history evolved organically. I have no doubt that these ancient learning centres, which were established to cater to the needs of their times, would not only have come up to the present time having absorbed and accommodated all the demands of the intervening history but would also have emerged as second to none of the present-day universities of the West with multiple disciplines had they evolved organically and having absorbed normal exchanges of ideas and practices from other learning centres from around the world. The legends say that notable personalities like Chanakya (economics and statecraft), Panini (language, grammar, classical Sanskrit) Aryabhatta (science, astronomy) and Nagarjuna (philosophy, Ayurvedic medicine) were associated with these universities. This suggests that there existed a tradition of liberal, holistic education with multiple disciplines nurturing each other. In ancient India, knowledge was never thought of in terms of a series of independent departments each catering to an independent discipline like a vertical silo. Had these universities continued and evolved organically and exchanging ideas with other centres of learning around the world, they might also have contributed to these exchanges of ideas with their own view of the world.

Thus, it must be clear that the de-colonization I refer to does not involve a wholesale rejection of the university system and returning to a romanticized "pristine" and "unpolluted" past of the Guru-Shishya parampara or something similar. That would amount to denying a millennium-long history as if it did not happen: we cannot move ahead by denying history, however, we may wish it were different. What I intend to do instead is to locate myself outside both these systems, in an Archimedean position, and take a critical look at both to find a way forward that is better suited to us here and now.

And that brings us to the second of the two ways in which the present training differs from that of the past. By placing it in the university, an institution dedicated to the advancement of knowledge for its own sake, architecture has become a discipline in addition to being a vocation. In the sphere of vocation,education is instrumental in the sense that it is a tool for providing the practitioner of a vocation the necessary information and experience to solve the problems that he is likely to face. Discipline, on the other hand, seeks knowledge for its own sake and the betterment of the self. This, the discipline/vocation binary, is the first of several binaries, that we will be dealing with in this essay. This means that architecture is now being recognized as a part of a much larger set of cultural constructs such as language, social organizations, urbanism, politics and even culinary arts. Thisimplies that the classes of objects or institutions within a given culture demand to be treated in terms of their interdependency as, under stable conditions, they spring from the same core values and are interdependent. Thus, while in the traditional, and more stable societies there existed, in the initial choice, reciprocity of perspective whereby architecture and society mirror each other (fig. 01),this reciprocity is far more complex in societies under transformation, like India, in which the various manifestations of culture may be linked with different value systems – cultural datums – which themselves may be constantly shifting. (fig. 02) Thus art in societies under transformation is bound to present a thoroughly confusing picture of overlapping and contrastingvalue systems. This was tellingly represented by Charlie Chaplin in his 1936 film 'Modern Times'. (fig. 03) In an iconic sequence, the protagonist, simply referred to as the Factory Worker, is shown in front of, and holding with both hands, parts of a large machine, which he does not understand. The machine represents that part of the culture which has shifted the datum and this disconnect is visible in the bewildered gaze of the man, who still exists on the old datum. Such disjunction between various manifestations of culture is a fact of life in today's India and our contemporary architecture reflects this.

This essential humanistic nature of architecture comes to the fore in architecture and a building far from being an object in space is seen as a living organism engendering a life within. Today, we marvel at our ancient buildings not only because of their corporeal beauty but also because they were the effective thresholds between the life that happened within and the whole gamut of the cultural milieu they were organic parts of. This aspect of architecture has somehow been forgotten in our contemporary obsession for the building as an aesthetic object of a certain commercial value. We must again ensure that a young architect now is expected not only to master the craft of construction but also to understand the meanings embodied in the forms he visualizes.

In universities, apart from the fact that the direct, one-to-one instruction received on the site from the master to the disciple has been replaced by a classroom or studio-based training, away from the site, the emphasis laid on honing the craft of construction will also have to be replaced by a much broader program of study that includes three primary components;

1. Tectonics – the craft of construction, materiality of buildings and their interaction with the forces of nature. This deals with the larger disciplines of science and logic.
2. Expression – development of aesthetic sensibilities. This deals with all visual arts and also performing art.
3. Concerns – Sensitization to the human condition that built environments inevitably effect, and is affected by. This would deal with the larger disciplines of humanities, i.e. history, philosophy and literature. It recognizes that architecture, as a discipline is not a standalone 'silo' of its own technological and aesthetic concerns. It accepts the responsibility that young students must be made aware of what is going on in the world around them and be able to take a position in the ever-present contests between various thought-worlds.

Earlier, the master architect / Guru, did not present architecture to his disciples in such terms. This is a classic example of analytical thinking in which a phenomenon is split into its essential parts to be re-synthesized in a new form in a new context. In this case, the entire spectrum of architectural knowledge is abstracted into its three overlapping disciplines and presented to the students through a series of lectures, seminars or workshops. The inevitable synthesis occurs in the studios where students are given hypothetical projects of various complexities and asked to bring together the body of knowledge acquired through the lectures/seminars/workshops. What used to take a large part of one's adult life in a process of transformation from a shilpi to a sthapati is now condensed in the matter of few years. But more importantly, all these happens away from the actual site of construction though some schools do offer a few token opportunities for the students to build simple structures in their initial years. By and large, the hand-on act of making is replaced by a more cerebral form of education. This too is inevitable as the tasks of designing, engineering and building have also evolved in their complexities and are now independent professions. This has also brought to the fore the crucial distinction between education and training; the second binary. It required training for a Shilpi to become a Sthapati. He was following a tradition and the problems of constructing temples or palaces were known to the masters and it involved the transfer of this information to the new generation. But e ducation is facilitating the construction of knowledge rather than the transfer of information; the latter being the objective of training. “Strictly speaking, preparation for problems that have never been solved before calls for education, not training”1

It is this form of institutionalized education in architecture that has been universally recognized as the most suitable for our contemporary times. It then comes down to turning this idea of institutionalized education into an actionable program, i.e. a curriculum and syllabi consisting of courses and training sessions that would result not only in the construction of knowledge about the man-made human habitat as a living cultural organism but also in the acquisition of necessary skills to design and supervise the construction of buildings. In several European countries initially, this resulted in setting up of independent schools or colleges of architecture. It must be noted that initially, these were not parts of any universities: most of the universities in Europe were primarily centres of liberal arts and pure science studies and were not concerned with vocational training (more on this later in chapter 2). Thus these schools were set up under the guidance and supervision of professional bodies such as RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) and their programs were designed to further the professional (vocational) interests. They were extensions of the profession and not very different from the guild system; the only difference being that instead of a single master architect (or a Guru) the young trainees were exposed to a series of leading practitioners who took turns to instruct them in the intricacies and nuances of professional practice.

It was this model that arrived in India in 1913 when Sir J.J. College of Architecture was established in Bombay (Mumbai) to replicate the standards of the British schools operating under RIBA's benevolent guidance and offering a Diploma equivalent to that of RIBA. After independence, it became the Government Diploma in Architecture. Only in 1952, it was taken over by the Bombay University but even then the basic format of the program remained essentially similar with few minor modifications. Curriculums are never value-neutral: they contain worldviews and philosophies which in turn engender the pedagogical structure and the information and the processes that are transmitted to the younger generation. We must critically look at these values. This is what I intend to do in the following pages.

At present we have more than five hundred schools of architecture and all are either a department of a university or affiliated to one as mandated by the regulatory authority, the Council of Architecture. The nature and the consequences of this forced marriage between architecture and university also emanate from the same values and need a more detailed exploration. We shall do that a little later.

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1. Who is an Architect?

Who is an architect? What role does he play in society? There is an endless debate, even among architects themselves, on these questions. The role an architect assigns himself varies with each architect. Some consider themselves as a dispassionate 'professional' working selflessly to meet the goals defined by his client, with his attention focused on technical and managerial skills at one end of the spectrum. While others see themselves as nothing less than an agent of change in society with his ability to think differently and also making others think differently through his buildings and visionary proposals on the other end. There are many variations in between.

It is easy to fall into the trap of self-exaggeration while thinking about the role of architects in society. Architects themselves have been historically prone to this malady. Possibly because the term 'architect' has been used almost as a metaphor to include even the creator of the universe (Vishwakarma). On the other hand, it is sobering to think that despite all the polemics the architectural community has been historically engaged in, and for all the spectacular projects that we build, “the architect is involved in very little of what is built, and has very little control over even that little … architecture dictates nothing in the end”2. Notwithstanding these stark polarities, the role of the architect today still retains the duality of the architect being a force of the society as well as a force in the society. As the former, he conforms to, and advances the prevalent values of the society through his built works, while as the latter, he assumes an adversarial position as the critic of the prevalent norms and proposes an alternative view of the world built on a different set of values.

There is an element of possibility in all these claims made to describe the roles of an architect. In hindsight, it is apparent that the life we live, the patterns of association we engage in and the secularization of culture, globally and at least in urban India, were all contained in and anticipated by the built works and the polemical projects that began to appear in late 19^th century in Europe. There may not have been a causal connection here and architecture may not have dictated the culture that followed, but the architects of the early 1900s certainly thought differently and through their concrete images made us think differently too. I refer here to the works of Tony Garnier, Henri Labrouste and Auguste Perret. They were considered radical and avant-garde in their own time but the architecture we consider normal today has its roots in their works. They were the agents of change in 19th century Europe as was Louis Sullivan in the US.

Historically, architecture has always been a public art and architects have enjoyed a public presence in society. Yet, their capacity to impact the life of society was limited to the elite until the 17^th century. Thereafter, rapid industrialization, coupled with urbanization and democratization of society has increasingly brought architecture to the consciousness of the common man. It was in this environment that Modern architecture was born.

Modern architecture was thus based on the firm belief in the ideals of social betterment through architecture and urban change. Architects, in turn, saw themselves as agents of this change. The number of polemical writings and manifestos that flooded the market during the ensuing hundred and fifty years is a testimony to the role our profession has assigned itself.

The schools of architecture too began to be caught up in this vortex. As usual, the young students, especially in the West, were at the forefront demanding a reorientation of education. As Giancarlo De Carlo in his analysis of the unrest of 1968 wrote, the students “Began to realize it was a question not only of organizational structures and teaching methods but rather of the purpose of their preparation; in broader terms, of their social destination. The objective of their struggle therefore could no longer be simply to substitute new symbols for old symbols and new men for old men. Instead, it was a question of finding out the reasons and the ways of being an architect in a world whose symbols and heroes (old and new as well), for a long series of very good reasons, the students had refused. The students were, in fact, concerned about a different way of doing architecture for the building of a different world (we know what world we are talking about, but for clarity's sake we can say; not classiest, not racist, not violent, not repressive not alienating, not specializing, not unifying)."3

In the last fifty years, there seems to be a marked shift. Collective fatigue from the almost revolutionary frenzy, which marked the post-war years, seems to have set in. The optimism with which the post-war reconstruction began was founded on that belief in the social benefit of architecture, a sense of service to the larger community. Somewhere along the way, this original belief was lost in return for a much reduced, and almost narcissistic, preoccupation with aesthetic and technological virtuosity of the single building; an object of aesthetic consumption. It is believed that this happened because “the ideals of Modern architecture were too closely identified with the dominant aesthetic modes – the International Style – and thus susceptible to challenge of aesthetic, as opposed to social confrontation”4. But I am inclined to believe it had more to do with the inherent contradiction contained within Modern architecture; the very attempt at internationalization of architecture, and the resulting abstraction, led to its alienation from the lived experience of a large part of the society it aimed to benefit. This is especially true of those societies, like India, which had come under the colonial occupation of the West.

But that is no reason to turn away from the very valid and sustainable ideals of architecture and declare an 'end of ideology'. I firmly believe that it is possible to sustain the central focus on the political and social importance of architecture in the public realm without losing its aesthetic and tectonic functions. To do that we must reaffirm the following core values before we undertake any critical reevaluation of architectural education in India.

• An architect is a public intellectual crafting the material world to communicate ideas – ideas of a better, more equitable and humane world to live in. Client's brief is an unavoidable instrument for achieving this goal.
• He makes designs of buildings rather than the buildings themselves.
• Designing is a fundamentally humanistic enterprise informed by a critical understanding of the ways it affects our lives.
• He also creates the 'climate' within which those buildings are seen, which points to a complete campaign of lectures, writings, exhibitions etc. to educate the public on the nature of design and to raise the aesthetic sensibility of the society.
• The practice of architecture has an inherent duality; on the one hand, it has the tectonic and the sensuous qualities by which it presents itself to and becomes a part of, the objective world around us. On the other hand, it responds to the society and the state of the world. In architectural education, this duality must be well balanced.
• There is no polarization between the emphasis on technical skills and thoughtfulness in an individual. Schools will have to address the entire spectrum.
• The national policy for architectural education will neither be “academically weighted” nor will it be geared toward “programmed professionalism” (where every graduate is expected to enter professional practice). Each school should have a choice to locate itself within this range.
• The term “practice of architecture” includes both detachment as well as engagement with the act of building, i.e. teaching, writing, and research, projects that may not be built and their exhibitions and also conventional practice. Each architect should have an option to define the boundary of his/her practice within this range.

These values will form the backbone of the curricula that schools will have to evolve. Any curriculum by a school, which deals only with a list of courses to be taught and time spent for each course, without an underlying ideology and philosophy will remain one dimensional and prone to abuse.

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2. Architecture and University

Schools of architecture in India generally exist at three institutional levels; integral departments of a university, 'independent' colleges affiliated to a university, or completely stand-alone institutions that are referred to as “Deemed Universities”. The last category is uncommon since, to attain this status, the institution must first acquire a certain critical mass along with other design-related departments that will ensure a large enough number of students and faculty to attain that critical mass. Only a few schools have been able to match these requirements and thus the rest are compelled by the Council of Architecture to affiliate with a university in their respective states. This relationship with a university, either as an integral department or as an affiliated college, has not always been a happy one.

There are three primary reasons for this state of affairs. First, at the larger level of the society, our national educational policy has, from the outset, established and accepted a hierarchy between a degree and a diploma as a mark of graduation. Generally, a degree program, offered either by a university or a college, differs from diploma programs in that it often requires the student to take general/liberal education courses to support a more rounded education. For instance, at many institutions, those earning their bachelor's degree are required to take English, math, science, philosophy and history. In India, only a university is empowered to offer a 'degree', the logic being that a degree refers to a much broader spectrum of 'education' (as opposed to 'training') and a university with its orientation toward a “liberal education” will be able to provide a liberal framework even for a professional curriculum. A diploma, on the other hand, is assumed to be limited in scope to offering only a trade-related, vocational 'problem solving' training. John Henry Newman in his famous essay on 'The Idea of University', writing in the middle of the nineteenth century, proclaimed that the one great purpose of a university was to provide a “Liberal Education”, which he defined with characteristic eloquence as that “process of training, by which the intellect, instead of being formed or sacrificed to some particular or accidental purpose, some specific trade or profession, or study or science, is disciplined for its own sake, for the perception of its own proper object, and for its own highest culture” and to form a habit of mind "which lasts through life, of which the attributes are freedom, equitableness, calmness, moderation, and wisdom" 5 (italics mine). Thus the vocational training, offering a diploma, was relegated to the second rung of the educational ladder, the Polytechnic.

So, what happens when vocational programs, such as engineering, medicine or architecture are included within the precincts of the university, as it happened when Sir J.J. College of Architecture was amalgamated with the Bombay University? Do these vocational activities become less vocational? Do they enlarge their concerns beyond the 'how-to' which would normally preoccupy them? Does the University alter its institutional character and change its objectives? I believe that educational planners and authorities such as AICTE, CoA, Medical Council, UGC, etc. have not paid much attention to the complexities involved. Since our focus is architecture, let us examine this in the context of architectural education.

In a lucid and perceptive lecture Henry Nichols Cobb, then the Dean of the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, rather bluntly stated that “……architecture is a misfit in the university”. Prof. Cobb argued that in a university, conceived and dedicated as specified by John Henry Newman, “…there could be no place for the specialized, quasi-autonomous professional school”. He goes on to suggest that the solution to this condition requires the university to “…enlarge its conception of its task to include those areas of knowledge, or perhaps we could better say those ways of knowing, that are both instrumental to and nourished by certain modes of acting, which human society has come to see as central to its well-being. Each of these linked modes of knowing and acting, which we call professions, is characterized at least to some degree by the ancient wisdom that practice is the basis of theory. Hence in welcoming professional schools into their scholarly precincts, universities have inevitably had to face the problem of how to connect themselves intimately and productively to ongoing professional work while still preserving an appropriate critical distance from current practice ”6 (italics all mine).

This quote from Prof. Cobb deserves careful reading. After first declaring that architecture is a misfit in the university, Prof. Cobb points out two important conditions under which this relationship can be mutually beneficial. First, architecture must see itself as a discipline in addition to being a vocation. A discipline, to quote John Henry Newman again "for its own sake, for the perception of its own proper object, and for its own highest culture”. This is what the “linked mode of knowing and acting” implies. Being a discipline in a university implies that architecture is not merely a set of actions leading toward the construction of built edifices; it is also a field of knowledge, like philosophy and science are fields of knowledge, developing and communicating ideas through the language of the well-crafted material world of exquisite sensuous and tectonic qualities. And this also includes generating ideas through research, and publications.

And second, to fulfil the first condition, schools of architecture must cultivate a healthy scepticism and disengagement from the currently prevalent practices and ethos of the profession and actively encourage the students, as well as faculty, to question and innovate different ways of doing architecture. This is essential to the growth of the profession and those in the profession should stop criticizing schools that “they only produce talkers and dreamers”. After all, where would the profession be without the likes of Laugier, Boullee, Ledoux or Viollet-le-Duc, or for that matter, Tony Garnier of the “Cite Industrielle” fame? They were visionaries who did not build much but certainly shaped architecture in ways that we practice today.

I believe neither the schools nor the profession as a whole has understood this before rushing into insisting that schools be part of a university. Sadly enough, universities too have started architecture programs or affiliated colleges without asking what this means. As a result, universities have become devalued and bureaucratic examination conducting organizations only, as far as the affiliated colleges are concerned, and not contributing anything to the growth of the professions these colleges represent.

In actuality, it is worse. I believe the presence of vocational training within universities may already have a profoundly negative impact on universities. Barring a few, most universities are well on their way to vocationalise all education. The term 'employment-oriented education' is often heard as if the sole purpose of education is to be able to make a living. It is nearly impossible to change the mindset of the established universities. Occasionally there may emerge a Vice-Chancellor enlightened enough to see things differently. But they do not last long and in any case, they too have to work within a complex web and many layers of decision making that is too wedded to the idea that all education must lead to wealth creation: Saraswati in the service of Lakshmi. This is not so brazenly stated, however, the premise is that all education must be geared toward “problem-solving”. Their brochures proudly proclaim that their aim is to provide "job oriented education". They expect the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences too to address the 'problems' of society at the expense of fundamental research and explorations, i.e. to generate and nurture new ideas that have never been thought before.

Technology has always been considered a problem-solving activity. In simplistic terms, it is 'applied theory'. Scientific knowledge applied to solve mankind's problems. We have always believed that given time and technology, we can reach the moon. And we have, not only metaphorically but also literally. But the same human ingenuity that has taken us beyond the moon has also brought us to a point where we need to pause, take stock and realize that no field of knowledge, either vocational or liberal, can be alienated from its ethical, moral, environmental and philosophical dimensions. And technology too has its moral and ethical dimensions.

To consider technology in general, and architecture in particular, as purely vocational, as value-neutral and free of ethical, moral, environmental and philosophical considerations of its social and cultural milieu on one hand, and also to place it within the context of a university, on the other, is contradictory. It is this inherent contradiction that causes the less than happy relationship between a school of architecture and the university referred to at the beginning.

Universities cannot be blamed entirely for this: schools of architecture within the university too have to share the blame. The balance between engagement (with the concerns of the profession) and disengagement (a critical questioning of the current practices and ethos) is essentially a function of the curricular program which is largely the responsibility of the school/departments themselves. At best, the university can provide an environment where contact with other disciplines may nourish the questioning spirit of a young architect. While we may not have any control over what the universities do, we must address what can be done at the level of the schools. Today, schools of architecture, either affiliated to a university or integral departments of the university, exist as independent, vertical islands of expertise unconnected and unconcerned with the vast pool of knowledge that the universities offer in natural and social sciences, humanities, arts and other emerging areas. Rarely a school of architecture in India reaches out to other fields of knowledge to find connections7. Architectural education is increasingly becoming one-dimensional. New knowledge is generated most often at the boundaries where fields of knowledge overlap. And where else would one find this except in the universities? Schools of architecture must reach out and actively connect with other fields of knowledge that the universities uniquely offer.

And lastly, there is another more immediate reason why this forced affiliation with a university is questionable. There is an element of mistrust towards private enterprises: it is assumed that only the public institutions can be trusted to ensure the public good. Thus private colleges are assumed to misuse their independence to grade their own students abnormally to boost their competitiveness. This statist attitude is problematic on two counts: one, universities, barring rare exceptions, themselves have become hollowed out, politicized and so bureaucratic by a succession of state-controlled measures that pursuit of excellence is farthest from their mind. Secondly, it does not make sense for the Council to approve a college, after rigorous scrutiny, and then not trust the same institution to maintain quality. This raises questions about the Council's own processes and motives. It is better to be highly rigorous in the initial stage and then leave the colleges to operate in the free market environment: if their students do not come up to the expectations of the profession, the schools will face the consequences of public and professional disapproval and will have to shape up or shut down.

The forced affiliation has also been justified as beneficial to the students. It has been argued that instead of going to various colleges to seek admission in architecture, students are now required to go only to one university, or state agency like ACPC in Gujarat. But this also robs the student applying to colleges of their choice as this decision is often made by a bureaucrat far removed from the students and the colleges. The process of admission should be so designed to enable both the students and the institutions to exercise their freedom to choose each other.

In short, forcing colleges to affiliate with a university to remove inconvenience to students is not a very convincing argument. Colleges should have an option to either affiliate with a university or not (See appendix 1 for more on this.)

To conclude, the relationship between schools of architecture and a university is far more complex than merely a matter of administrative convenience or maintenance of standards. Do we see architectural education as liberal education or instrumental education? Do we see architecture as a discipline or a vocation ? After all, the future of the profession is negotiated in the schools of architecture and unless we arrive at clarity on these questions, we may be facing a bleak future.

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3. Design academia and the profession

"A university based professional school is charged with two seemingly irreconcilable missions. On the one hand, the school is required to serve its profession by training young people for practice-an activity that presumes allegiance to established professional standards and procedures. On the other hand, the school is expected to shape its profession by advancing knowledge in the field-an activity that is inevitably critical of practice and often subversive of prevailing belief systems in the profession. To promote both of these missions-to resolve this paradox without excluding either of its terms-is the central task confronting the faculty of a professional school."

Henry Cobb, Dean, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, 1986

There exists a rather uneasy relationship between the 'professional' arm of architectural practice, i.e. those practitioners who are engaged in the exigencies of designing and erecting our built environment, and those who are involved in teaching the young architects. Each seems to look at the other with some amount of distrust bordering on contempt. Thus we have a situation of Academe vs. Profession: you either belong to one or the other. Avenues of each informing the other are difficult to negotiate, leading to a lack of professional growth.

Practitioners, often view the work done in academia as abstract, unconnected with real-life luring students away from the realities of the practice. A significant number of these practitioners, while acknowledging the necessity of schools to confer a degree and thus legitimacy to the training of a young architect, prefer schools to focus more on current values and ethos of the profession, and methods and techniques of production, so the graduate can be immediately productive in the profession – in other words, a kind of 'programmed Professionalism'. Ideally, they would like to determine and control the content of the educational program or at the least settle for a role of regulator and monitor.

On the other hand, the academicians, when not envious of the material wellbeing of the practitioners, suspect them of being concerned only with the transient. Regular architects are made to feel very inferior. During one of the CoA accreditation visits, I found at least one school in South India, with a large number of PhDs on their faculty, actually resisting the appointment of practising professionals in the city as Visiting Faculty. If this is the trend at other schools, architectural education is in danger of being hijacked by those whose real interest is in words and not real buildings. At the same time, many teachers do not engage in practice; either they believe it does not add any value to their career or it is disallowed by the university possibly to ensure that their attention and loyalties are not diverted from their primary duty as academicians. In the words of Peter Cook, this makes “Architectural education … extremely sanitized, detached from the reality of making, become contrived and bureaucratically driven where the process of making, thinking and intellectualizing have in some way been rendered a synthetic exercise”.8 If we base our argument on the premise that an architect is an intellectual who makes designs of buildings and not the buildings themselves, then it is incumbent upon the teachers to base their academic work on nature of 'practice' which will include participation in national competitions, publications and exhibitions of their own work.

We cannot expect the profession at large to assume a critical and adversarial stance towards the social and political establishment: which would be unrealistic and self-defeating. Though Crystal Palace, Barcelona Pavilion and the Centre Pompidou (fig. 3.1) indeed present us with a radically different view of the world these are exceptions rather than norms. Besides, these were accepted by society through the necessary conditions that were created by academia. We have not quite recognized the debt that the Centre Pompidou (fig. 3.1) owed Peter Cook and his colleagues of the Archigram in the British academia (fig. 3.2). By and large, the sheer exigencies of survival prompt the professional architect to stay on the side of the establishment and its prevailing norms. This has inevitably perpetuated those norms unless nudged by a 'subversive' idea which can only come from academia.

In the past, when architects were trained through apprenticeship, there was no divide between the profession and the academia; the profession itself was the academia. The Master Architect was also the teacher/mentor. With the introduction of college-level training of architects in early 19^th century Europe, the relationship between the profession and the training institutions has come under scrutiny. Initially, the relationship was purely functional. The school was expected to train young students in the same manner that the Master Architect had done before. The professional organizations such as RIBA even set up mechanisms of certifications of young graduates before they can be initiated in the profession. The school thus was an extension and an arm of the profession. The profession determined the nature of the activity called 'Architecture' and by extension, the content of the training program. This was only one step removed from the guild/apprenticeship system and the beginning of its eventual institutionalization, though the umbilical cord between these training institutes and the profession was still intact.

The 20^th century saw a tremendous social, environmental and technological upheaval globally, that resulted in an increasing demand that the profession of architecture redefines itself. Simultaneously, the profession was gradually detaching itself from social responsibility to build appropriate habitat for all towards increasingly being seen as aligned with the elite who could pay for its services. (Mr Bhalla, former President of the Council of Architecture had estimated in 1985 that only about 1.5 to 2 per cent of all built work in the country is done by professional architects.)

The Schools have also evolved as institutions independent of the profession and are now supported and funded by the society at large as part of a university or funded directly by a corporate or individual entity. Thus the proverbial umbilical cord that joined the schools to the profession has been truly cut. Ironically enough, schools continue looking to the profession for legitimacy and many teachers continue to nurture the old impression that schools exist to feed the profession with a constant supply of competent manpower. While the profession continues to envisage a monitoring role for itself in the education of architects. The question is if the profession is to monitor education, who will monitor the profession? In this situation, it is necessary to reevaluate and redefine the nature of architectural education and the relationship between the profession and academia.

I agree with Prof. Mark Wigley who says “…architecture schools are the laboratories in which the field of architecture negotiates its future”. where … “the design studio is the laboratory at the heart of the laboratory”9.

This implies that we recognize and acknowledge the essential duality of architecture: both as a vocation and a field of knowledge at the same time. As a vocation, it must deal with the sensuous, tectonic, commercial and managerial demands of the profession by which architecture becomes a part of the objective world. As a field of knowledge, it must address the larger issue of human habitation with all it philosophical, social, cultural and environmental ramifications and its responsibility to point towards a better and more humane world to live in through the sensuous and tectonic productions.

This leads towards another duality; that of the profession and the academia. They are two sides of the same coin; one cannot do without the other. The profession must recognize schools (academia) as much more than an entity that provides employable graduates and actively encourage, and even participate, in the experimentations, innovations and questioning of its own current default practices. I would like to think that, by placing these schools within the university framework, as opposed to the old guild system where master-architects themselves taught, mainly by example, a space is created for the schools to do just that. If the umbilical cord joining the training institutes and the profession is truly cut and the schools are no longer an extended arm of the profession, these schools will be seen as that which not only serves the profession but also shapes the profession. The later may even require the schools to take a critical and even adversarial stance vis-a-vis the profession.

The schools on their part, must guard and nurture this fragile space by not assuming that their role is to only feed the profession with employable graduates and thereby reinforce the profession's current image of itself. In reality, this will kill the profession by blocking its capacity to evolve. I believe we are already witnessing this condition in India today; the profession is increasingly focusing its attention away from the public good and thereby losing relevancy.

One way to guard this fragile space is to understand the similarities and the critical differences between the work done in a professional atelier and the studio in a school. A studio is similar to an office in that students are given a 'program' within which they are asked to develop a design and prepare drawings. It is however different from the office in that the product of the studio does not result in a built form but enables an understanding of design issues and the processes by which one chooses to arrive at a resolution of these issues. The design and the drawings produced in the studios are vehicles for this understanding. It is the processes by which a student has arrived at the resolution that is more important than the resolution itself.

India is a vast and multi-dimensional society with seemingly insurmountable problems to solve before we can reach the level of development and quality of life many other societies take for granted. To achieve this end, we need, not only the unskilled workers, who are not looked down upon for what they do, but also innovators who are dreamers and critics of the prevalent norms to take us into the uncharted paths, and the whole range in-between. This is a much larger issue about how a nation educates and trains its citizens and one hopes that those in charge of directing the nation's efforts in this direction are seized of the matter. However, to the extent that architectural education is nestled within this larger milieu, it must also be seen in terms of how it can shape the profession to be a meaningful participant in this national endeavour. After all, the profession of architecture, like all other professions, not only serves society but also shapes it and the future of the profession is born and nurtured in the schools of architecture.

Let us assume, and hope, that the academia and the profession can and will come together to deal with the burning issues confronting all of us. We must begin by accepting that the education system we have inherited and accepted without question, still leaves much to be desired. Any professional establishment in the country will tell you that most fresh graduates, with a B.Arch. degree, are not skilled enough to perform basic tasks of accurate and correct draftsmanship, much less contribute as a credible designer. But, they expect to be paid a salary commensurate with their qualifications. The demand for architects being high in the non-metro areas, many of these 'architects' set up shops and end up making atrocious buildings. These are not just dwellings for small-town residents; they are often public buildings. Let me give you an example. It is common these days for private organizations to set up technical institutions in the non-urban areas where land is relatively inexpensive. These institutions have to be approved by the AICTE (All India Council of Technical Education) for which they need to submit drawings of the buildings they propose to erect. AICTE invites a panel of architects to scrutinize and approve these buildings. I have been on several of these panels in different parts of the country and can report that, if I want to be generous, I would call these proposed buildings no better than what one would expect from a third-year student and not a qualified practitioner. These are merely exercises in "plan-making" that students, by the time they reach the third year, would have become comfortable with. The term 'design', as a thoughtful arrangement of parts, cannot be applied to these. These are usually large buildings housing large engineering colleges with a budget of several crores of rupees. If that level of 'design' is what their schools have prepared these so-called 'architects' for, then I do not see much future for our profession. This is not to deny that in the last fifty years India has produced exemplary works of architecture, some of which are by young architects, that we can be proud of. But, I believe, on closer scrutiny, it may reveal that many of these architects will have augmented their education with external exposures as well as experiences. Or, some of these exemplary architects would be motivated and propelled by an inner urge for excellence and would do good work despite the schooling they received; the entire system of education cannot be judged by these good examples. It is that which is not noticed, and which constitutes much of our urban and semi-urban public architecture, that is a cause for concern and demands introspection.

One way to bridge this chasm between the profession and academia is to recognize that in this fast-changing world new information, new technologies and new ideas constantly demand our attention and it is difficult to keep pace with this change. Digital technology and Artificial Intelligence are changing the very nature of our profession in ways unimaginable even a quarter of a century ago. Schools and the younger generation of architects are less likely to be overwhelmed by this and may already be harnessing some of these new ideas and methods. Schools should actively consider offering short duration workshops (of a week) in various cities during summer and winter breaks and invite local architects to participate. Architects who have been away from academia for more than two decades and have been preoccupied with consolidating their practices may not have the time or incentive to remain abreast with emerging ideas on a day-to-day basis (habit of reading thoughtful articles or books is conspicuously absent among architects in India barring a few notable exceptions) but would benefit most by such interactions. They would miss such opportunities at their own peril.

Alumni associations are another good forum at which the profession and academia can come together for mutual benefit. Alumni associations are not only important resources for the school but also an effective way for the schools to stay in touch with the professional community, at least those of its own graduates. This also places a responsibility on the schools: Alumni associations function out of a sense of loyalty that a school has been able to generate among its alumni. Unless graduating architects feel that the time they spent (often the most important and formative years of one's life) on the campus has been significant, it is difficult to imagine a continuing relationship with the school. It is the responsibility of the school to make campus life (and not just the academic program) an enriching experience and ensuring well-rounded development of their students for this to succeed. After all, such associations are, by nature, independent of the schools and a voluntary coming together of people who have shared experiences and not only want to keep the memories alive but also want to contribute something in return to the institution. Some schools are now starting alumni associations as an official arm of the school and then graduating students are compelled to become members. This is fallacious and contrary to the voluntary spirit of an association. Even if we concede that it is necessary to keep track of graduates, this can work only in the context of the larger institutional framework that inspires allegiance. In the absence of such institutional imagination, this will not succeed.

In conclusion, this binary of profession and academia is a complex one. If there is a tension in this relationship, we must learn to harness it "Architecture is actually best 'served,' or benefited, by the continued presence of both conserving and subversive forces in both the academy and in practice, but if these forces exist in isolation and/or align uniquely with either the academy or practice, then the discipline of architecture will begin to weaken… In considering this diversity and the seemingly irreconcilable forces, which shape our discipline, rather than seek common grounds, we might incline toward the notion of critical distance, a distance born of necessity and maintained through knowledge, the nature and purposes of which are continually clarified: a distance in tension."10

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4. The Enlightened Anchor: Regulating Architectural Education

To regulate anything, by definition, is to limit its freedom. But this is a necessary condition of all social organizations. The acceptance of regulation is inherent in the very decision of early settlers to form and live within organized social groupings. For two or more individuals to share a common space, each must give up a part of one's absolute freedom to protect not only the remaining freedom of all but also the common space so created. We call this the Greater Common Good. All political formations, either monarchy (of benevolent or malevolent type), or authoritarian dictatorship (either dictatorship of the proletariat or an elite individual) or democracy, are distinguished from each other by the regulation each imposes on their citizens. Unlike the former two, democracy involves a constant and continuous negotiation among the members of the society to determine both the degree and kind of regulation the state is empowered to exercise. The state is thus the regulating agency and it, in turn, evolves an appropriate mechanism for regulating various activities of the citizens. Thus the idea of regulation is a fact of life and we cannot wish it away. One may, however, negotiate with the state (or the regulating body) about the kind and extent of regulation desirable and appropriate in a given situation. In fact, in a democratic order, to initiate and sustain such negotiation is one of the sacred duties of every citizen, for every state or regulating body tends to over-regulate and a vigilant citizenry is essential.

It is in this larger context and perspective that I intend to explore the issues connected with the regulation of architectural education in India because the nature and quality of education will flow from the nature of the regulatory order.

One cannot escape the feeling that in drafting the “Architects' Act 1972” education did not receive enough 'application of minds' of the framers and they were subconsciously following the colonial model set by the RIBA; they assumed that if you took care of the profession, the profession will, in turn, take care of education. Such a position was aligned to the assumption that architecture is a vocation and in a vocation, the practitioners are the ones best suited to pass on the 'tricks of the trade' to the next generation. Thus the Council, which was originally conceived to regulate the profession, with a majority representation of professional bodies, took it upon itself to 'regulate' education together with the profession.

Council of Architecture was created by an act of parliament – The Architect's Act, 1972. Its primary objective was to regulate the profession by instituting a mechanism for registration of architects. This was found necessary because, in addition to qualified architects, many with some knowledge about construction, such as civil engineers and contractors, were found to practice architecture and often indulged in unethical practices. With a growing economy and demand for residences and public buildings increasing, this was becoming critical and had to be attended to. Thus the Act was specifically intended to codify 1) who can use the title 'Architect' and 2) what qualifications should one have to register. Architectural education, the pedagogical details of the program, its format and duration etc. were neither a part of nor were intended by, the 'Act'.

The Council had two choices – as the Council is a professional body, it could accept the educational qualifications offered by universities or colleges with a five-year full-time program (or eight-year part-time program) and stipulate that the applicant should have a certain number of years of professional experience, in addition to the degree, and clear a specific professional examination conducted by the Council before applying for registration. This is a standard practice in many countries and ensures that professional entities and academic institutions do not step into each other's domain of expertise.

The second choice the Council had, the one it exercised, was to take upon itself the mantle of an educator and specify the detailed program of study, courses, time spent for each course and the duration and stages of the program. This was notified through the "Minimum Standards of Architectural Education 1983". The assumption underlying this was that the professionals, who constituted the majority of the Council members, were well versed about the larger issues transcending the vocational concerns. Buried under this rather well-intentioned act of the architectural community more than four decades ago were several questions the answers to which were assumed to be self-evident and therefore did not receive sufficient attention from the framers of the document. These questions resided in the domain of the 'discipline' of architecture and could be best left to academia. These were:

1. What is the nature of the activity we call architecture?
2. …the nature and profile of its practitioner, the architect?
3. …the nature of the practice?
4. …the nature of the education of architects? and
5. …the nature of the relationship between the profession and the education of architecture?

The answers to these questions were rather uncritically accepted and taken – for – granted as truisms and conventional wisdom by the founding fathers of the Council in India though they had already come under critical scrutiny and were actively debated since the Second World War in the rest of the world. However, to be fair, the framers of the Act had also left the door open for future generations to apply their minds and define these terms from time to time and arrive at a shared understanding which may guide our work. The fact that we have not engaged in such a fundamental and structural review and course correction for more than four decades is unfortunate. I intend to use these pages to initiate a debate on these issues for I firmly believe that the resolution of the problem of regulation will flow from clarity on these matters.

In the earlier pages I have already elaborated on the above points and shall not repeat it here except to restate the essential core belief as under:

Architecture is an idea and an activity with two linked modes of knowing and acting. As such it is both a discipline and a vocation at the same time. As an idea, it is free of the circumstantial while the profession is an activity, which results in partial manifestations of that idea and is of necessity bound to the circumstantial. While the profession is engaged in serving the society and thus must align itself with the current values and exigencies of the present social order, the discipline, and by extension, its education, must aim at shaping the society and must cultivate a healthy scepticism and disengagement from the currently prevalent practices and ethos of the profession and actively encourage the students to question and innovate for different ways of doing architecture for a better world.. This is essential for the growth of the profession.

Historically, all over the world, this model of controlling and regulating education by the profession prevailed unchallenged until the beginning of the twentieth century. This integral relationship between the profession, the academy and the regulator changed in the 20^th. century, which saw tremendous social, environmental and technological upheavals at the global scale, resulting in an increasing demand on the profession of architecture to redefine itself. This process of redefinition, by its very nature, had to be initiated in academia. After all, as we have noted earlier, the future of the profession is always determined in the studios and the classrooms of academia. In this situation, any regulating body or mechanism must ensure that the schools are not constrained by the need to only serve the profession and thereby stay within the prevailing norms. They must be free enough to look for and open up new boundaries for the profession to follow.

This implies that we recognize and acknowledge the essential duality of architecture: it is both at once a field of action and a field of knowledge. As we have seen in chapter 3, the relationship between the profession and academia ought to be both supportive and adversarial at the same time. The nature of the design processes undertaken in the professional establishment and the studios of the schools are very different. This places the schools of architecture in a space of their own, proximate and yet independent of the profession, which they will have to guard against the ever-present danger of encroachment.

The factors and issues that impinge upon Design are numerous. They may be ergonomic, behavioural, formal, technological, social, environmental, symbolic etc. A practising atelier will either choose to prioritize and focus on some more than the others or seek to strike a balance. In academia, though ideally students should be exposed to all of them in a structured manner, in reality, the availability of faculty and their skill sets, often determine the identity and direction of the school and the exposure it can offer students. Thus unlike a professional atelier, a school is a dynamic entity which changes every few years altering its pedagogy and the delivery system depending upon the skills (faculty) available. Revising and upgrading the curricular ideology and direction every five years is essential for a school. Due to its inherent nature as a laboratory and the dynamic nature of its delivery system, schools have to be given greater freedom than the profession. For example, today in most of our schools' studio exercises mimic work in the professional atelier in the manner in which they are framed: 'Given a,b,c data, design a school'. This is most likely going to result in students designing schools -and learning what goes into the making of a school- more or less in the same way schools are being designed today and not what schools might be if thought of differently. If the studio teacher instead decided to pose the problem differently as: “In architectural terms, and through the medium of design, explore the nature and form of the institution' school”, the result may not be as well resolved as in the case of the former but the level of inquiry and the resulting construction of knowledge by the students will have a far greater potential to inform our understanding of the institutions we build. It will be a struggle for the students and some of them may take longer, but it will establish Design as a process of exploration and a search for expression than a process of problem-solving. Innovation can flourish only under such freedom. Any regulatory mechanism we devise must be able to offer this freedom. Design itself, in this case, is seen as a critical inquiry on the nature of Design; architecture interrogates itself. In other words, Design is research. The process of Design itself is employed to search for meanings embedded in the physicality of our built environment.

The desire to maintain uniformity seems to inform the present CoA in its task of regulating the education. A few years ago, when I proposed to the then President of the Council that schools should be ranked by objectively arrived at national criteria, he responded that the Council cannot be seen to favour some school over the others. One cannot escape the conclusion that here the desire to be neutral, a desirable quality in a regulator, has been mistaken to imply uniform standards. At least in education, uniformity has a strange way of resulting in uniform mediocrity. And mediocrity always tends to perpetuate itself.

While ensuring a certain minimum level of quality in the built environment, and a minimum level of skills and critical capacities among the young graduates a regulatory agency must leave the field open for an institution to seek to attain the highest level of performance possible. For a professional architect, this pursuit of perfection is ensured by the inherent competition built into professional practice. For the schools in India though, there is no such incentive to reach for the sky. The state control of education and the command economy has so far ensured that these institutions do not have to compete with each other and proclaim their unique offerings to attract bright students. In the absence of effective competition among the schools, the Council's 'minimum' standards tend to become the maximum beyond which the schools have no incentive to go. The Council has ended up making most schools similar to each other as far as the facilities and the curricular program is concerned. As for the calibre and commitment of the teachers, only the 'fire in the belly' may motivate a teacher to transcend what the system requires. As there is no accountability, the system neither rewards the better performers not punishes those who are lagging behind.

At the time of writing, we have, reportedly, more than five hundred schools of architecture in both private and public sector institutions, located in urban, semi-urban as well as rural areas. While such diversity has the positive potential to cater to all sections of the society and spread education, it also presents huge variations in purpose, aspiration, performance, management as well as resources. Such variations inevitably reflect on the level of both training and education these schools offer. Regulation is inevitable under such circumstances. But, as we have noted earlier, regulations imply limiting the freedom only to the extent that it is seen as desirable and suitable by each of these schools to ensure a Common Greater Good, which in this case would be the best education that the country can provide to its youth. This does not have to result in uniformity.

The regulatory mechanism comes in two alternative forms: One, similar to the mythical Lakshmanrekha, a circle describing the limits of one's freedom. You are asked to act freely- as freely as you can – so long as you remain within the circle: the circle that Lord Rama's brother Lakshman inscribed around their jungle abode and asked Sita never to cross while the brothers were out hunting for the golden deer that Sita desired. This part of the Ramayan mythology has acquired immense gravitas in Indian culture implying a circle of probity in our daily life. It determines the extent and limits of a person's moral and ethical behaviour. It worked well in a society and at a time when morality and ethics had well-established meanings shared by all. At a time of such certainty, institutions too evolved to align with the circle. But today we live in a time when certainty is far from obtainable. The poet W.B. Yeats has already announced at the turn of the last century "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;"11 Our institutions are on trial and the young need freedom to explore new worlds.Lakshmanrekha sets limits to one's freedom to do that. The length of the radius determines the amount of freedom you have; shorter the radius, less freedom they allow.

At present we have two overlapping Lakshmanrekhas in architectural education: the first is the Council of Architecture's detailed specifications on how each school should conduct its business – list of courses and the relative time allocation between technology, design, humanities, professional practice, fine arts etc. A well-intentioned document but I am afraid it feels like the circle. No wonder our schools are more or less similar to each other, barring a few notable exceptions. If they offer any choice to students, it is of degree and not of kind. However, to be fair, the radius of this circle is longer than that of the other circle and some schools have been able to interpret the instructions with positive results.

The second circle (fig. 4.1) is the mandated affiliation with universities, which has created a peculiar situation: the length of the radius here is inversely proportionate to the number of schools affiliated to a single university. For example, there are more than 20 schools of architecture affiliated to Pune University. The university has to treat all of them with the same yardstick and requires that they follow the same curriculum and performance standards which are determined by an academic body representing all the schools. It attempts to provide a common minimum baseline of performance amongst all schools. This must result in an average (mediocrity) which, instead of raising the standard of the weak schools within the group, ends up holding down those with higher aspirations. For these schools, the circle becomes restrictive. On the other hand, schools which are a department of a university, or a single school affiliated to a university, have all the freedom to set their own course and the circle is relatively large. Though it is another matter on how they handle this freedom.

It must be stated that under Lakshmanrekha, which predetermines the boundary, freedom can only be limited to 'variations on a theme'. And the theme happens to be the one originally brought in from colonial Europe. Our design education still remains in a colonized condition.

Compare this with the variety of directions available in the US. The schools at Princeton and Rensselaer, for example, have a program that lays great emphasis on historical and theoretical studies intertwined with Design. They take the position that architecture is one of the foundational humanities and Design is fundamentally a humanistic enterprise informed by critical theory. MIT, on the other hand, has evolved a program around several disciplinary centres such as technology, history, environmental science and computation. It places architecture at the intersection of all scientific and humanistic disciplines. In the 1980s, Columbia University, under the leadership of Bernard Schumi, embarked on a program of developing 'Paperless Studio' with a firm belief that the then-emerging digital technology shapes architecture. The Graduate School of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania, on the other hand, has taken a position at the other extreme; it believes that architecture faces a decline under the influence of technology and is resisting this trend by emphasizing cultural studies and anthropology to provide the humanizing element. There are other schools with more varied programs, but this brief list is meant to make a point.

All these positions are valid and indicate the broad spectrum of interests that architecture covers. But such radical variation could not have been sustained and nurtured under a regulatory regime that first prescribes standards and demands all school adhere to them (up to 75%). The variations have evolved under a system that instead asks “In what way is your school unique and better than the others”? Variety, and choices offered to students, govern the regulation of education and not uniformity.

Is there an alternative to the 'Lakshmanrekha' model of regulation? I believe there is. Imagine a drawing, which shows a single line, undulating – not straight – but strong in its visual presence. Originating from various points on this line and going in both direction perpendicular to the line are series of other lines, far more irregular, wavy, zigzag and reaching out as far as they can go but always returning to the anchoring line in the centre; there is an implied limit, never stated but felt by the strength of the central line. It is as if the central line is holding the others from straying too far for fear of losing their anchorage. It does not explicitly set limits to freedom, as the circle or two parallel lines do, but implies it by representing the core values, the “Dharma ”, represented by the anchor line, which guides individual actions. We can call this “The Enlightened Anchor” (fig. 4.2). Thus we can replace the limiting circle, 'Lakshmanrekha' with “The Enlightened Anchor ”, representing the core values and leaving the boundary to be determined by the schools.

The difference between the two forms of the regulatory mechanism is that while one says that a school is free to improvise as long as it remains within limits set by the regulator, the other says that it is free to find its own limits as long as it is committed to the core values set by the regulator.

Lately, the CoA has evolved a point-based, objective process for evaluating schools of architecture. On the face of it, it is hard to argue against this as it is a process-driven method and attempts to eliminate the subjective biases of the members of the inspecting panel. However, it is problematic in that it mirrors the Indian Civil Services' penchant to focus on processes of decision making alone, regardless of the result, and attempts to avoid making mistakes that can be attributed to one individual. This colonial administrative system is highly process-oriented, irrespective of the length and complexity of the process. Mistakes are penalized but not failures to achieve results because no goals to achieve are spelt out. An institution may function as long as the Minimum Standards of Architectural Education of 1983are maintained. It is no wonder then, that the minimum has become the maximum. We must discard the 'Lakshmanrekha' model of regulation in favour of “The Enlightened Anchor” which empowers schools to set their own goals prompted by and accountable to society and students. They will face questions such as "how different and better are you than other schools?" "Can you justify our youth spending their formative years under your tutelage?" and "how do you accommodate and provide equal opportunities to students of variable capacities, aspirations and financial capabilities?"

Regulation is a misnomer if the educational institutions are not free to explore new boundaries and innovate: there will be nothing to regulate. There is a very thin line separating regulation from control and this should not be breached. Let the Council of Architecture evolve, with the help of the architectural community and a shared understanding of the five issues mentioned earlier. This will form the central line in the drawing I referred to earlier. Let each school then interpret this and evolve an appropriate program to suit their regional context and available skill set. The regulation would involve looking at the work of the school, which would include projects designed, ideas explored, and research carried out both by students and the faculty. This will be evaluated not in terms of specific predetermined standards but in terms of the school's contribution to both the discipline and the vocation of architecture. It will not worry about the specifics of how this is done. Each time a school succeeds in showing us a new boundary to our imagination, the profession can only grow.

Not all schools will be happy with this. Remember the economic liberalization of the 1990s? Not all industries welcomed it and a few even demanded going back to the command and control regime. But it did free the competitive animal spirit of our entrepreneurs. It is here that real regulation is required; to make sure that this animal spirit does not harm the Greater Common Good. I believe the Council's role as a regulator will come into play only when schools are free to seek their own boundaries. If we could do this for our economy, I see no reason why we cannot do it for education.

The Council of Architecture has an opportunity to show the country at large what educational liberalization looks like.

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5. The Ailments and Infirmities

To be fair to the architectural community in India, it must be stated that there is a growing awareness at all levels of the profession, professional, academic and regulatory, that there is something amiss about the way architects are being trained and educated in India. There have been various attempts over the years to empanel the best minds to deliberate and come up with remedies and suggest reformative measures. I, too, have participated in some of these deliberations – but these have primarily focused on the symptoms and overlooked the structural fault-lines within the body academic. I list below a few of the serious infirmities that come to mind.

First, the structure and components of the educational program brought in 1913 from England have never been critically evaluated for its suitability for a society vastly different from the English. Even in England, and much of the Western world, architectural education has moved beyond 19^th century Beaux-Arts format. In European/American societies, with a relatively smaller population and better resources, it is possible to maintain a lower ratio of students to teachers retaining a sense of intimacy between the two almost similar to that of the Guild system even after moving to the institutional format. In India, a ratio of 5:1 or even 10:1 is practically impossible to maintain as the number of students is so large and ever-increasing. Schools have to admit more students without a corresponding increase in the number of teachers in order to be financially viable while, at the same time, keeping the cost of education reasonable. This has turned education impersonal and less effective. Still, the difference is not only in the size of the class but also in terms of the cultural plurality and the full range of tasks, from basic vocational to the cutting-edge creativity, that require a structure that is much more open to improvisation.

The luxury of teaching a class of 30 students belongs to a distant memory that only a few teachers remember. Today, schools are accepting 80 or 160 students at a time. They come from rural, urban and semi-urban areas with varied background and equally diverse exposure to modern life. This is bound to reflect in their ability to comprehend and express themselves and, more importantly, in their aspirations about how they imagine their future. This is not such a bad thing. Students in a class are never a monolithic block and vary in terms of natural talent, intellect, past experiences, capacity to comprehend and the speed at which they complete a task. In the guild system, these differentials were factored in when a master accepted several apprentices under his care. Some students completed their training faster than others took much longer, but eventually, all reached their desired goal sooner or later. Such flexibility is practically impossible to maintain when the student/teacher ratio reaches 30 students for a teacher, and the duration of the program is pre-determined- five years or ten semesters of 16 weeks each, with minimal leeway to extend this without the attendant stigma of failure.

The norms and criteria for performance, evaluation and schedule are set not by the teacher but by the institutional bureaucracy. Unfortunately, bureaucracy loves uniformity; different rules for different people is anathema. On the surface, the practice of uniformity is hard to argue against: it is democratic. But democracy means not only equal treatment for everyone but, and more importantly, equal opportunities for all to realize and reach their potential. This means creating institutional conditions through which variations in potentialities and aspirations are recognized. An example of what happens in the absence of such recognition will best illustrate my point.

A few years ago, I was invited to interact with a class of students in Maharashtra in their last semester of a ten-semester program. They had been asked to submit, within a week, proposals for the project they planned to undertake for the rest of the semester. Most of them were ready, and we had stimulating discussions. But one student, who had done very well in the previous semesters, was uncertain. She knew just what she did not want to do; a standard architectural project with a program of a set of activities, which results in an architectural resolution. Instead, she wanted to explore the architectural implications of an idea she was only vaguely aware of. Still, with another week, she will be able to articulate it as an actionable proposal. In other words, she was prepared to challenge herself to go beyond what she (and everyone else in the class) was already familiar with and was ready for a possible failure at the end of the semester as she had no idea where her exploration would lead. But she needed more time. However, the school, working under the rules set by the university, was unable to give her extra time even though her teacher was sympathetic. Such examples are institutional maladies when administration becomes remote and impersonal. I do not know what finally happened to her, but one hopes that she was able to keep her dreams alive, for she gave me a glimpse of what we can expect in our next generation if we nurture them well.

It is evident that a system designed to treat a wide variety of students as a monolithic body and subject them to uniform expectations is a system designed for the convenience of the institution and is not student-centric. This is a serious and structural infirmity.

That the raison d'etre of the Council of Architecture was to register architects and to establish qualification guidelines for the use of the title 'Architect', is at the root of the next infirmity. All efforts of the Council, especially those concerning the education of architects, have been directed at producing full-fledged 'architects'. The title 'architect' here is understood to mean a person who designs buildings and advises, and in many cases also supervises, in their construction'12. This is the conventional definition of the term 'architect' and is accepted the world over. However, in the context of our present discourse, it is problematic on two counts. One, it is tilted heavily towards the vocational side of the profession and to that extent only partially defines the term. Two, it does not recognize that even within the vocation we need a wide range of skills. Skills such as draftsmanship, architectural assistance, project managers, specification writer, preparation of estimates and bills of quantities, etc. require training and not a complete liberal education that is awarded 'B. Arch.' degree. Those with these skills are the modern-day 'Shilpis' and 'Sutradharis' but not 'Sthapatis'.

There is a growing demand for such skill-sets in professional establishments, but we produce only 'Sthapatis'. This results in a mismatch between demand and supply. Graduates from a full five-year program are often unable or unwilling to accept a position below their 'status' as full-fledged architects and expect remuneration commensurate with that 'status' which is a drain on the establishment's finances. Worse still, many graduates open shops in semi-urban areas and go on to design mediocre buildings.

At the other end of the spectrum, many architects with vocationally-oriented training become teachers as the salaries of teachers are upwardly revised. These are often not academically inclined, unquestioningly follow prevailing norms and are neither critical thinkers nor abreast with current debates. Consequently, they are not able to inspire and guide students to innovate and end up perpetuating the system that they themselves came through. In one school which I know, none of the full-time tenured teachers and no accountability from the authorities (a state government), confessed never to have read a book, not even fiction, ever since they graduated and were declared 'architect'. They simply repeated what they had been taught.

In simple terms, our present education system has failed to equip a graduate who has the whole spectrum of skills, ranging from simple draftsperson to innovators and critical thinkers that the modern profession requires to meet the demands of the equally modern national economy. This is a serious infirmity.

The third infirmity concerns the role of teachers. The sheer number of students overwhelms the teaching community. This has resulted in two undesirable but interconnected consequences. One, as more teachers are hired, many of them are underprepared, lack motivation and commitment. And two, increasingly teachers are beginning to see themselves more as judges of students' intellectual calibre rather than as guide and mentor for students to realize and reach their potential. In other words, their self-perceived role seems to consist of solely passing judgment on students' work in terms of grades or pass/fail remarks. These judgments are ironclad and remain to haunt the students for the rest of their lives quite often with devastating consequences. The timeless aim of education is to make the student compete with his/her own strengths and weaknesses and be a better scholar than what s/he was before and not with other students. Often this requires nurturing and mentoring.

At the root of this is the inability to distinguish between skill acquisition on the one hand and cultivating the habit of critical thinking on the other. One is in the realm of vocation (the field of action), the other in the realm of discipline (the field of knowledge). For the former, a rigorous apprenticeship program, in which repeated exposure to a task leads to perfection, may be ideal. For the later though the process is non-linear. It requires application of mind, reading, debates, discussion, trying out ideas that have never been tried before, including failure to reach anticipated results. Teachers will have to be nurturing and mentoring and desist from making pass/fail judgments.

Confusion persists regarding the productivity of the institutional education system. Earlier in the case of the Guild or the Guru-Shishya parampara, the value or reputation of the master was founded not only on the number of exquisite buildings he has built but also the number of fine disciples he has been able to attract and train. In fact, both the professional and academic productivities were intertwined: one depended upon the other. When we move to the institutional structure, the teacher does not replace the master/ Guru; it is the institution (the college or the university) that takes this place. Teachers are the employees of the institution, and they must adhere to the norms set by the institution (Here I do not include the adjunct or visiting faculty, who are drawn from the profession. They too have an important role which will be discussed separately).

For a school of architecture to mirror the productivity of a master architect, it will have to rethink on both issues – of producing good buildings and the quality of the students coming out of its portals. The former is beyond its scope as it cannot engage with the exigencies of the marketplace and the circumstantial, and the later is difficult to measure. Instead, we have a peculiar situation with teachers claiming credibility and legitimacy based on the number of students who have graduated during their tenure. This is both unreasonable and unjustifiable. I am not aware of any instance, in recent history, when students have sought out a school based on the reputation of a professor or a particular group of teachers. Teachers, especially the full-time employees of the university/college, cannot claim the same stature as that of the master/Guru unless they have produced at least nationally, if not internationally, recognizable work. This is not very likely in the present situation.

So, how do we measure the productivity, and by extension the credibility, of an institution? How does a young student go about deciding which school/college he is going to trust his/her future with, just as in the old days one used to aspire to be with a master? If it is the program that an institution is offering, Council of Architecture has ensured that it is mostly the same.

Still, in the final analysis, a school is no more or less than the people who teach there. Thus, even if no individual teacher replaces the master/Guru, it is the aggregate of the faculty, the entire body academic consisting of all teachers, along with the able and competent leadership of the Principal, or Head of Department/Dean, that is responsible and accountable for the credibility of the school. One of the greatest misconceptions in academia is that the primary function of teachers in institutions of higher education is to teach; to pass on the knowledge/information they have accumulated over the years to the next generation. Many teachers are in this mistaken impression that their productivity may be counted in terms of the number of students they have taught over the years, forgetting the fact that this is a cumulative achievement, if at all, and not an individual credit.

At the root of this is a misconception about the role of teachers in an institution. Academic institutions are centres of ideas, and their primary objective is the advancement of knowledge. Thus the entire scholarly community, in architecture included, are men and women of ideas and their productivity must be judged based on their contribution towards the advancement of knowledge in their respective field of expertise. For the faculty in architecture, this would involve continuing research, writing and publishing in reputed national and international journals, participating in national and international conferences and symposia and participating in architectural competitions to keep both vocational skills and critical intellect on the cutting edge. We may think that the American diktat 'publish or perish' is too harsh, but it has its genesis in the belief that ideas must be generated and placed in the public domain for knowledge to be advanced. At present, we have the regulator (CoA) and the universities being content with the requirement of a doctoral degree and most teachers fulfil this as the obligatory requirement for career advancement. But rarely is this research placed in the public domain; mostly, it is locked up in their respective university libraries to be referred to only when someone needs it for literature review. (The value of such doctoral research, which mirrors natural or social science research, in its aims and methods of inquiry, is itself questionable for a discipline like architecture.) For architecture, this is especially fatal as it turns a vibrant creative profession sterile. All research is a creative act, and conversely, all creative activity is research. Let me restate, to emphasize my earlier point, that in architecture, design itself is research. Consider, for example, the work done in the 70s by Peter Cook and his colleagues in the Archigram group or the Japanese group of Metabolism. They both remained within the bounds of architecture using their unique skills of visualization to project new ideas of urbanity and habitation.

We may disagree or argue with what they had proposed but cannot deny that it constituted advancement of knowledge and thus, research. The fact that many teachers in our schools of architecture are not even aware of these or even more recent emerging trends compounds the problem. I must hasten to add that I have also come across some excellent young teachers with enough 'fire in the belly' to buck the trend, and we must be thankful for them. My comments are founded on the general systemic rote I have noticed during my numerous accreditation visits to different schools on behalf of the CoA. The problem stems from the fact that a well-conceived system of accountability is conspicuous by its absence in India. Universities are content with the annual performance reports, which are mostly bureaucratic and are rarely objective or acted upon. The Council of Architecture, on its part, does not evaluate the academic work of the teachers beyond the classroom contacts with the students. It is possible that we still hold the belief that if you take care of the profession, the profession will take care of the education.

What ails architectural education in India is far more structural and cannot be treated by superficial tweaking of the document, 'Minimum Standards of Architectural Education 1983'. It is not a question of increasing or decreasing the weightage of courses or shifting the apprenticeship from 7^th to the 10^thsemester. We must find a more comprehensive way to overcome all these infirmities together.

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6. Think out of the box

It should be abundantly clear from the previous pages that the model and the system of architectural education we have accepted has outlived its validity. I refer to it as the 'colonial model' not in a political sense but as a well defined, well articulated and well packaged gift in the box brought from the distant shores with the best of intentions. I do not doubt that Claude Batley & Co. who initiated the first training program in Bombay in 1913 meant well and it has served reasonably well for most of the last hundred years. But as the litany of malaises shows, there is a growing disconnect between that system of professional activity, including its education, and the way we have evolved as a large and pluralistic society.

Still, – and this is a real irony – the institution of regulation, the Council of Architecture, and the mechanism it has evolved for education did not come as part of that same gift box. We created it, and that too leaves much to be desired for it was conceived by locating ourselves within the same gift box we received from Europe. Thus, when I say 'think out of the box', I am suggesting we step back and question each of the assumptions we have accepted as part of the colonial model.

I can say this with some authority backed by a bit of personal history. The principal architect of the Architects' Act 1972 was the redoubtable Mr Pilu Mody, a reputed architect and a Member of Parliament from Godhra in Gujarat. A friend of my father from their student days in Bombay, he would sometimes stop by at our Baroda home during his visits to Godhra. On one such visit, I had an opportunity to ask him about the Act, which was in the making at that time. It was clear to me that he was following the “Architects (Registration) Act, 1931/38” (initially drafted by RIBA) of the United Kingdom. Our Act is modelled on this and Pilu confirmed this. He was a large man, by girth, and equally large-hearted, and he gave me, a young rookie architect, a patient hearing too, but his faith and respect for RIBA were unshakable. When I indicated that the membership of RIBA included a large number of scholar/architects who often acted as critics and conscience keepers, he smiled and said it would happen here too. Well, it has not yet and not for lack of scholar architects; among whom are several exceptional minds. But their potential to be conscience keepers has neither been acknowledged nor factored into the institutional structure we have devised for the profession.

This brings me to specific proposals that I believe address the issues and ailments discussed in the previous chapters. These are in three parts: 1) Regulatory structure, 2) Academic structure and 3) Curricular structure.

a. Regulatory Structure

I want to propose several amendments to the Architects' Act 1972. The first addresses the bicameral nature of architecture elaborated earlier; that architecture is both a vocation as well as a discipline. The present composition of the Council does not reflect this. At present, of the 53 members, 36 are either Chief Architects or architects nominated by the states. They represent the vocational side of the profession. The others are professional architects working in and representative of various governmental bodies such as Defense services and Railways. Only five are representatives of the schools of architecture and out of these two are nominated by the AICTE. Clearly, we have a Council heavily weighted in favour of one side of the profession – vocation. Several things need to be done to remedy this.

• There should be two Vice-Presidents, one exclusively responsible for overseeing the academic side while the other looking after all matters relating to the conduct of professional activities including registration of architects to practice, maintaining ethical standards, international equivalence concerning WTO, etc. This reflects the essential bicameral nature of the architectural profession. The Vice-President in charge of academia should constitute a Board of Architectural Education (BAE) consisting of 10-15 members drawn from a) the academic community with an exemplary record of teaching and generation of ideas, b) Scholar/architects with nationally and internationally published work and scholarly publications, and c) Elders (see Appendix 1: BAE, Appendix 2 Elders). Their tenure will be three years.
• The admission to architectural education will not be limited to the students coming from the science stream only. The prejudice in favour of science was founded on the earlier assumption that architecture is a vocation requiring technical proficiency. This has resulted in an acute paucity of critical discourse about architecture in this country; we do not have competent architectural critics, and journals, to raise questions about what we are doing. If architecture is also a discipline, we need to attract students with a broad range of interests.
• The vice-president in charge of professional activities will constitute a Standing Committee for Qualifying Examination (SCQE). The SCQE membership will have equal representation from CoA member architects, BAE and the Indian Institute of Architects. The SCQE will evolve and conduct, twice a year, a practice qualifying examination which will be mandatory only for those architects who want to register themselves as practising professionals with a license to sign official drawings and documents. An architect should be able to take this examination whenever s/he is ready and may clear it after as many attempts as necessary. Anyone who has successfully cleared a full five years academic program but does not want to or is not yet ready to design and supervise buildings in his/her own name does not have to appear for this examination. They may still refer to themselves as architects, registered with the CoA, and work in a professional establishment or pursue an academic career.
• The qualifying examination will assess a candidate's understanding of professional responsibilities, technological expertise, and ethical and moral conscience as well as establish and maintain standards for professional licensing.

I have mentioned earlier that there is a provision for only five members from the academic community (clause 3.3c). I suggest the following revisions.

• A number equivalent (rounded) to 5% of the total number of schools of architecture elected from among themselves by heads of architectural institutions in India imparting full-time instruction for recognized qualifications; Representation will be equally divided among each zone; North, South, East, West and Central. Thus if we have 500 schools, the number will be 25, five from each zone. As the number increases, their representation too will go up.
  It's an unpleasant truth, especially for architects working in the Govt. set up – PWD, defence services, railways, etc., but it must be said. Clause 3.3f stipulates that the State Governments nominate one architect from the State. Usually, it is the Chief Architect of the State. Unfortunately, the very nature of our system ensures that a person who reaches that level will have made many compromises with the bureaucracy and the political establishment. The 'pursuit of excellence' is not one of the values they internalize. As members of the Council, we must look beyond bureaucratic norms for the best in the State. Besides, to the best of my knowledge, no office of the Chief Architect of any state, or a Govt. agency, has yet produced an exemplary building. As far as I know, no work of a State or Central Chief Architect's office has been celebrated by the IIA Award of Excellence – a recognition by one's peers13. Here is my suggested revision.
• An architect from each State nominated by the local chapter of the Indian Institute of Architects. The criteria for nomination shall be an outstanding and exemplary contribution to the profession of architecture in the State.
• However, if a Chief Architect has indeed produced exceptional work under his/her watch, the possibility of his/her being nominated by the above process is still open. In any case, it is more desirable that the members of the Council are nominated by their own peers and not by faceless bureaucrats or a minister whose interests may not be in keeping with the interest of the profession.

b. Academic Structure

This takes into account two interconnected issues and aims at making education more student-centric: 1) academic sequence and 2) profile and responsibilities of the faculty.

Academic Sequence

For some time now, there has been some confusion about the length and duration of the undergraduate program; is it ten semesters (five years) or eight semesters (four years) long? Traditionally, and globally, a ten semesters program has been seen as the most appropriate and optimum. However, calls for reducing it to eight semesters come from two sources: one, students (and parents), especially from the middle class and economically weaker section of the society, who want to finish the training and enter the productive world of employment as soon as possible. And two, certain school managements who see this as a way to reduce the cost of offering education by reducing infrastructure (studio and classroom spaces) and the number of teachers. Both are founded on an element of truth and the reality of the emerging middle class in India. Architectural education is indeed expensive and many families, with rising aspirations, not only find it difficult to sustain a long drawn training program but also are eager to get on the road to wealth creation as soon as possible. On the other hand, with the State-imposed restrictions on fees, privately funded schools find it challenging to balance their books and reducing the length of the program seems a possible way for the program to be more affordable. They propose to do this by shifting the internship program to the last two semesters.

I continue to be of the firm opinion that it is not advisable to curtail the duration of the program from ten semesters to eight. The complexity of the architectural program, located at the intersection of art, science and humanity, is such that ten studios are required for a student to be exposed to a variety of experiences which, in the earlier guru-shishya parampara used to take much of one's adult life. But let it not be forgotten that in those days learning and earning happened simultaneously: looking after the material well-being of the shishya, however minimal, was one of the responsibilities of the guru. Moving from that to an institutionalized education requires restructuring the academic schedule in such a way as to offer a much better 'rites of passage' from shilpi to sthapati and at the same time forging a new relationship between learning and earning. Curiously enough, the five year – ten semesters program offers just such a possibility.

The five-year program is already structured into two stages of three plus two years. And these two stages run continuously, one following the other seamlessly, at the end of which successful students are awarded the Bachelor of Architecture degree, certifying them as architects (sthapatis). Somewhere in the middle, depending upon the convenience of the school, a semester is set aside for an internship when the students are exposed to a real-life work situation. But this is universally seen as unsatisfactory: the professional establishments consider the time duration of one semester too short for an intern's work to contribute in any meaningful ways, and as a result, the salaries offered to the student/trainee is also minimal if anything at all.

I propose to extend and improve this structure by making the two stages discontinuous and offering the students multiple choices to pursue both learning and earning. It involves laying more stress on vocational training and technical skill development in the first stage of six semesters. While each school should be free to devise an appropriate curricular structure to achieve this goal, it is advisable to devote the first two semesters as an integrated 'foundation program' wherein the students should be made aware of the essential tripartite nature of architecture, consisting of logic (science and technology), aesthetic sensibilities (design, art) and humanistic concerns (historical developments, culture and an awareness of the world around us).

This proposal recognizes that a class of students may not be thought of as a monolithic body; Students within a class vary in terms of natural talent, skills and intellectual capacities, learning abilities, career aspirations, past experiences and social and financial profile. This is especially true of a changing society such as India where the gap between one's dreams and aspirations, on the one hand, and the ability to realize them, on the other, is always in flux. The younger generation in such a situation requires alternative paths to realize their potential in a way suitable to each individual. The possibility to exit, and also to return, need to be built into the academic sequence. (For details see appendix 2)

Profile and Responsibilities of the Faculty

I want to restate the fact that when architectural education moved from the guru/shishya model to the institutional set up of a university, it is the institution (university or school of architecture) that replaced the role played by the guru and not an individual teacher. Only on rare occasions, at least in India, is an institution identified by the presence of a well-known architect/teacher with whom students (mostly at the graduate level) might desire to study: most of the teaching faculty of the school enjoy a degree of anonymity. It is the institution that puts together and offers students a package of facilities, which includes faculty, with their publicly acknowledged research, and publications if any, facilities and infrastructure such as a well-stocked library or workshops. Faculty, and their achievements, are rarely highlighted while presenting the profile of the institution.

However, this still overlooks a critical quality that a renowned guru offers his students that an institution cannot; the credibility of a master architect/builder founded on executed architectural projects. This is especially important because, under no circumstances, the dual characteristics of architecture as both a discipline and a vocation be compromised. One cannot over-emphasize the fact that the very act of placing architecture in the academic portals of a university creates the danger of architectural education becoming sanitized and removed from the reality of vocational practice. This is especially so because the university authorities generally tend to disallow the faculty, as full-time salaried employees, to engage in parallel professional pursuit. Most institutions overcome this infirmity by inviting renowned architects on its faculty as an adjunct or visiting faculty. However, this puts schools located away from urban and metropolitan areas at a distinct disadvantage as busy architects prefer not to travel far away from their practice bases.

The role and importance of these 'guest' faculty cannot be underestimated. A school should ideally seek to invite the best and most experienced architects from not only the immediately surrounding community but also from other places. A system of ranking should be worked out depending upon years of experience and nationally, if not internationally, recognized contribution to the profession. Accordingly, appropriate budgetary provisions should be made to place the 'guest' faculty at par with the in-house faculty. After all, whenever we refer to an academic institution such as a university, a school or a college, we primarily refer to the cumulative intellectual skills represented by the faculty which includes not only the full-time 'employed' teachers but also the 'guests' who give their valuable time and the benefit of their experience as part of the offering of that institution. The credibility of the institution, both in the mind of the prospective students and the society in general, is measured by the intellectual calibre represented by the faculty. This makes it incumbent upon the institutions to ensure that their faculty roster, which includes 'guest', adjunct or visiting faculty, represents the best talents drawn from the professional community and backed up by a body of architectural production, both built and unbuilt.

The role, and responsibilities, of the in-house, permanent or tenured faculty is not only complementary to that of the 'guest' faculty but in many ways is more a demanding one. Unlike the 'guest' faculty, who are actively practising professional architects, engineers or consultants in many related disciplines and therefore more focused in their respective fields, the in-house faculty are expected to be more generalists. Also, unlike the 'guest' faculty, whose productivity is measured in terms of their built works concerning both quality and quantity, the measure of the in-house faculty is not as clearly understood leading to the misconception referred to earlier.

It must be understood, unambiguously, that knowledge generation, and not just dissemination, is the first and foremost objective of any academic institution. In this quest, the in-house faculty must see themselves as men and women of ideas engaged continuously in seeking and enlarging the boundaries of knowledge in any field, including architecture. That is the prerequisite condition under which a vocational activity like architecture can exist as part of a university. Dissemination, either to the society in general through publications or to future generations through teaching, occurs but as a by-product and a necessary vehicle in the pursuit of knowledge. All universities, thus, are research institutions by nature. The productive worth of the in-house faculty is to be determined by their contribution towards knowledge generation in their respective fields.

In a notification issued on May 2016, the Ministry of HRD, Govt. of India, prescribed the following norms for the in-house, 'full employment', faculty:

"In the UGC (Minimum Qualifications for appointment of teachers and other academic staff in universities and colleges and measures for the maintenance of standards in higher education) Regulations, 2010, the overall workload of Assistant Professors and Associate Professors/Professors in full employment was prescribed to be not less than 40 hours a week for 180 teaching days. The direct teaching-learning hours to be devoted by Assistant Professors (16 hours) and Associate Professors/Professors (14 hours) ….

In consonance with established academic and teaching traditions, and with a view to reinforcing a student-centric and caring approach, teachers are encouraged to work with students, beyond the structure of classroom teaching. Indicatively, this could entail mentoring, guiding and counselling students. In particular, teachers would be the best placed to identify and address the needs of students who may be differently-abled, or require assistance to improve their academic performance, or to overcome a disadvantage. There are no prescribed hours for such efforts, measured either in weeks or months. While they will not be included in the calculation of the API scores, these are nevertheless important and significant activities that could be carried out by teachers.

Teachers were required to allocate 6 additional hours per week, beyond the direct teaching-learning hours, on research. These hours can now be also utilized for tutorials/remedial classes/seminars/administrative responsibilities/ innovation and updating of course contents." (emphasis added)

This is generally the norm in all Indian universities and colleges, including all schools of architecture. It makes two things very clear: one, the emphasis placed on the classroom teaching and two, the almost casual way advancement of knowledge (research, innovation) is treated. Assuming that all teachers take their work seriously and prepare well before they meet the students in the class, the 14-16 hours/week, in reality, turns out to be 25-30 hours including the time to prepare for each hour of lecture/seminar/studio. That leaves only 10 hours for mentoring, guiding and counselling students and for tutorials/remedial classes, seminars/administrative responsibilities and innovation and updating of course contents as well as research. Even the paltry six hours/week allotted to research will now be nibbled away by other non-research activities.

The term 'research' has been grossly misunderstood in architecture; indeed, in all creative arts. In its broadest sense, research implies advancement of knowledge. It involves work that enlarges our prevalent boundaries of knowledge and opens up new ways of looking at the world around us. In that respect, all research is a creative act, and conversely, all creative actions are research. Picasso's 'Guernica' or Mies Van Der Rohe's 'Barcelona Pavilion' is no less than Newton's Theory of Gravity or Einstein's work on Relativity as both research and creative works. Both 'Guernica' and the 'Barcelona Pavilion' have fundamentally altered the modern perception and changed our world views. And yet, our educational bureaucracy would not confer a research degree to Picasso or Mies unless they produce a dissertation under a guide in a prescribed format, including an appropriate literature review and following a method of deductive logic, and examined and approved by three 'experts'.

At the root of this confusion lies the inability to distinguish between the liberal disciplines such as sciences, both natural and social, and humanities on the one hand and vocational fields such as fine arts and architecture on the other. Both employ thought processes which are different and often diametrically opposite to each other. While one is linear, logical, analytical and systematic, the other is usually circular or following no known path and intuitive. It would be unfair to subject a work of art or poetry to the same kind of intellectual rigour as say a scientific discovery or technological innovation. Earlier, in chapter 5, we have already elaborated on how design itself is seen as a critical inquiry on the nature of the Design. In other words, Design is research.

And yet, in architecture, research does have another meaning which we need to explore. Every building, like every work of art, embodies ideas that transcend the moment of its creation and the personal situations of its architect. They tell about the intellectual and material culture which engender them. An architect, more often than not, internalize these and they, in turn, are expressed through his/her choices. It is in academia that these ideas are discussed, deliberated and analyzed to push the boundaries of the profession. It is here that the boundaries between a discipline and a vocation overlap. Teaching, for me, has always been a site for creative thinking. Often the work of a student, though focused on a specific and concrete situation, prompts one to question some long-standing and taken-for-granted assumptions. A casual question by another sometimes takes one into unexplored areas. The cumulative results of these encounters give birth to ideas that may not always be new but always reveal something about the nature of the activity we call architecture. It is here, in continually exploring the ever-expanding meaning of architecture that 'research' has a place. In architecture, throughout history, built production and the production of ideas that inform architecture have always gone side by side, mutually supporting each other. After all, the written works of both Vitruvius and Alberti not only codified the existing artisanal practices but also articulated and clarified the nature of architecture as practised in their times.

Thematically, these ideas may range from a theoretical construct, an analytical understanding of a historical building or method and process of designing. In any case, articulation and subsequently placing them into the public domain through publication will most likely result in pushing the boundaries that much further. It is these, low level, popping up of ideas that often animate the day-to-day life of academia and not just structured and well-funded research projects. An occasional discussion with a colleague may result in an article on a current issue, or a seminar with students participation may give rise to a paper, that are not-to-be-underestimated meaningful intellectual productions. I know much of my intellectual production is the result of this process, and I also know of a number of my colleagues who are actively engaged in this. However, these are mostly stray, isolated individual initiatives and must be institutionalized to ensure that this happens as a matter of course. Such intellectual productions may not be qualified to award a PhD under the present bureaucratic setup, but this must be recognized as essential to a teacher's productivity.

Research in a vocational field should exist at two levels: 1) generation of knowledge which expands the existing boundaries of the discipline, as elaborated above, and 2) innovation of tools, methods and materials to solve society's problems within the boundaries and perspective of one's profession, i.e., architecture in our case. At both these levels, research can happen in small doses and may grow to become a focused 'research project' requiring a larger team and funding. But it begins with an individual initiative.

For this to happen, both the institutions and the faculty will have to acknowledge and internalize that the advancement of knowledge and innovation are as significant, if not more, than mere dissemination of knowledge to the next generation. It is only on this condition that a vocational activity like architecture can validate its presence in a university. But even this acceptance will not be enough; necessary structural changes must be made in the work conditions for the faculty for its effective operations. For this, I offer the following concrete proposal.

Education at the university level must be structured more to facilitate learning than teaching. At present, it emphasizes teaching where the teacher is seen as the font of information and knowledge flowing from the teacher to the students, who are the receptors. This might be appropriate at the high school level, but at university, students should be viewed as active constructors of knowledge under their own initiative. A metaphor of 'scaffolding' can best describe the role and responsibility of the faculty; a support structure, facilitating the ascent of the student from one level to the next. For example, say, students, in the course 'History of Architecture', are expected to learn about Renaissance architecture. Under the present scenario, the teacher prepares a series of 15 lectures lasting 2 hours each and offers them once a week. In doing this, she may have consulted about ten books on Renaissance architecture and provided the students with a comprehensive picture of the period. She would possibly have spent a total of 50 hours preparing and lecturing in the class for this course. At the end of the semester, an examination determines the level of comprehension of the students. For a class of 30 students, the teacher spends an additional 15 hours to evaluate the students' response to the examination—a total of 65 hours for the semester for this one course.

Here is an alternative scenario: At the beginning of the semester, the teacher spends 4-5 hours presenting an overall broad outline of Renaissance architecture listing its most salient features. In addition, she also gives the students the list of ten books that she had referred to and even a list of about 20 questions (question bank), the answers to which would cover all the features of that period. The students read the books at their own convenience, and at their own pace for the rest of the semester until they are confident enough to answer any of the 20 questions. They have a minimum of 12 and a maximum of 20 weeks (assuming that the semester is 16 weeks long with a minimum four weeks break between semesters; more about this later) for this preparation. Any time during this period, if a student faces any difficulty or needs any clarification, s/he can approach the teacher in her office at a mutually convenient time. Otherwise, the teacher is free to pursue any other academic or administrative work, including following up on her own 'research' interests. After the end of 12th week, but before the end of 20th week, any student confident enough to face examination can request the teacher who, in turn, will randomly choose 4-5 questions from the question bank, for the student to answer. Thus, every student will have a different set of questions to answer. If their answers are satisfactory they will be graded (A, B, C, D), awarded the credits for the course and can then focus their attention to any other subject course, which also may have a similar schedule. If not successful in this examination, the student will be permitted one more attempt to earn the necessary credits.

There are multiple benefits to this alternative. One, students are pro-active seekers of information rather than passive receptors and in the process inculcate the habit of research and the ability to connect various sources; an indispensable habit for any future research in either an academic or professional career. Two, it recognizes that students are not a monolithic group; they vary in terms of their capacities and priorities. Some students may be able to finish a task in 12 weeks while others may take more, up to 20 weeks. Three, students can choose and prioritize their work. If, for example, a student is more involved and engaged in say, his studio project and wants to keep the momentum, he can concentrate on this for a week or two and return to Renaissance (or any other course) once he has reached a resolution. Four, students are more likely to discuss and engage with each other about things they are reading and cross-check information being gathered. A form of 'peer group learning' may take place whereby a small group may split the whole topic into small sub-topic with each member of the group focusing intensely on any one part and then sharing it with others. Five, each student develops his/her own sense of the subject rather than being fed the same through a stock lecture. And finally, the teacher has more time and freedom to work on things that are of interest to her at the moment. For example, if she has discovered a critical difference between Alberti's and Palladio's approaches to plan-making, and wants to articulate a coherent argument to be published in a paper, she can do this during the time now available with her.

But we are assuming that all teachers will have the motivation and incentive to use this extra time for productive academic work. Ideally, teachers are also learners; a good teacher is always curious and alert to use every opportunity to expand her own knowledge base. Unfortunately, the reality is otherwise: We cannot expect all teachers to have the proverbial 'fire in the belly' for self-edification. A teacher in a college of architecture, in reality, practices two distinct professions; she is an architect and a teacher at once. She has received training for the former but is generally untrained for the latter and ends up learning the ropes 'on the job', which goes against 'self-motivation'. Thus some form of accountability mechanism coupled with a robust teacher training program is needed to institutionalize the role of the teacher as an agent in the advancement of knowledge. The latter can happen only if the affiliation with a university is beneficial to the college and the senior faculty are mentors. The American system of tenure only after seven years of full-time employment and a rigorous peer review is one such mechanism to address the former. In India, BAE and NASAI14 will jointly have to evolve an appropriate method to implement this.

c. Curricular Structure

The curricular structure is the structure of the curricular program consisting of various knowledge streams that go into the making of an architect. Curriculum also connotes a philosophy and a set of values a school articulates, which in turn gives direction to its pedagogy and the actual content of its teaching program. Here too, we need fresh thinking. Most schools today follow the guidelines provided by the Council of Architecture in 1983 under the 'Minimum Standards of Architectural Education Regulation' (amended in 2006). Above, in the earlier sections of this essay, I have dealt extensively with the issue of regulation of architectural education by the Council of Architecture and have also proposed an alternative mechanism. Thus, it should be evident that I am not enamoured by the idea of a uniform 'Minimum Standards' regulated from the top by the national regulating agency. It does not acknowledge or respect the essential diversity of India. Our 'nation's Founding Fathers dared to envisage a national identity without 'flattening' the diversity. Over the centuries, this diversity has produced equally diverse architectural expressions that vary from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and from Saurashtra to Shillong. Decolonization does not imply returning to traditional architectural idioms and vocabularies; we do want to sit among modern societies, but I am also convinced that it is possible to do it on our own terms.

If architecture is a cultural construct and cultures are rooted in their respective geographies, then it must be clear that architecture is inextricably connected with the land, water, flora, fauna and the climate of the place it is built on. In fact, architecture is rooted in both the time and the place of its making. While time is variable, the place remains constant. Five hundred years ago the people in the hills of Darjeeling, the backwaters of Kerala or the deserts of Rajasthan built their houses or places of worship in response not only to their evolved habits of occupation of space but also to their unique relationships with the land, water, trees, birds, the changing seasons and the rhythm of day and night. In other words, architecture has always been a living organism organically connected to its particular geography and not just an object in space as we seem to have reduced it to today. We may have evolved, and the way we occupy space today may be different from what it was five hundred years ago, but the geographies remain. How do we train and sensitize our students to the particularities of geography and the ecology, physical, cultural as well as social, while still remaining open to technological challenges, is a question central to curricular structure?

Specifying a list of twenty plus courses, with the number of hours spent on each, is certainly not the answer. It makes all the schools the same and sanitizes learning. The BAE and the NASAI may articulate the core values and concerns, 'the enlightened anchor,' and leave the schools and their faculty to evolve the specific curricular structure rooted in the pedagogical philosophy, specific to the school. The direction this pedagogy will take will be determined by the locational specificity of the institute and the intellectual skills and capacities available at any given time. The last is variable; people may come and go, faculty may grow, and teachers will acquire new skills. The schools which are able to negotiate this dynamic process, with stable leadership and a coherent team of scholars, may produce exemplary work, not to mention students, and may qualify to be considered for the status of the National School.

The present curricular structure, and the courses, adopted by most schools in India, more or less following the 'Minimum Standards' of the Council of Architecture, is a strange mixture of the classical École des Beaux-Arts and the Modernist Bauhaus. The former arrived in India as part of the colonial imports while the latter became inevitable as a result of the modernizing impulses after Independence. However, neither of these pedagogies were scrutinized and understood with enough academic detachment to see their appropriateness for a society belonging to a different thought-world. It must be noted that many of the schools in the Western world, whose curricular structures were also founded on these European pedagogies until the mid-twentieth century, had already begun to move away from them by the 1970s. Today, the certainty of modernism playing itself out, not only the schools of architecture but also the entire profession is grappling with the meanings of what we create. It makes eminent sense for us to begin by reducing the architectural curriculum to its most essential and irreducible components of design, construction and humanity. Design as the thoughtful organization of parts, which includes but also transcends the question of aesthetics, construction dealing with the physicality of the human-made environment, and humanity encompassing the multiple concerns, historical, theoretical, environmental and cultural, which invariably impart meanings to architecture. Let this be the Enlightened Anchor, the point of departure which ensures the core values of architecture and from where each school may proceed in the direction best suited to their specific situations.

India has a rich history of generous philanthropy in the area of education. Excellent universities and colleges came to be before Independence under the different princely states, religious bodies, and wealthy individuals. The state control of education, post-independence, was initially motivated by a desire to spread education far and wide beyond the urban and well-to-do segment of society. However, it also carried an unspoken but unfounded suspicion of private philanthropy as motivated only by profit or religious propagation. This was unwise. While some institutions may have other interests, in addition to education, by and large these were never overt and never compromised education. Many of these institutions are still around, and at least those who have remained relatively independent of the State are giving a good account of themselves.

Half a century of state control has effectively killed this well-meaning and selfless philanthropy by creating so many procedural obstacles that only a brave soul may think about starting an educational institution. Either that or those who have learnt the art of manipulating the system to their advantage but then they can hardly be expected to be motivated by 'pursuit of excellence'.

Rekindling of the philanthropic spirit can only happen concurrently with reforms of the bureaucratic mindset. The Indian Civil Service has much to answer for, but things are not so bleak. The fact that the economic liberalization of 1991 happened (though haltingly and we want more with a better regulating mechanism for a fairer spread of its benefits) and was steered by the same bureaucracy shows that the steel frame is not so broken. Those officers were by and large products of a system whose guiding principles were a suspicion of free enterprise, mixed economy, restrictions on foreign exchange, both inward and outward, and several social evils it engendered – smuggling, corruption and rise of power brokers. Though this system is not completely dismantled, yet the fact that the task was even undertaken indicates a wholesale overhaul of their thinking. We need a similar effort to implement educational liberalization. Earlier in chapter four, I have ventured my views on the role that the CoA can play to bring about educational liberalization at least in architecture. But to do that that it must think outside the gift box we received in 1913 from England.

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Epilogue

That after seventy years of being politically independent of the colonial rule, we have still not been able to unshackle ourselves from the colonial hold on our minds and our knowledge systems, specifically architectural education, may come as a surprise to many and may even anger some of those who are at the helm of either regulating or administrating it in various capacities. However, as the preceding essay shows, a deconstruction of the history of architectural education since the beginning of the twentieth century leaves no doubt that, even with perfectly good intentions to modernize, we have unthinkingly walked into accepting many ideas, elements and assumptions that have left the profession of architecture unable to fulfil its potential, barring a few notable works produced by individual architects.

It is indeed a sobering thought and must force us to take a critical stance and a fresh look at the last hundred years of architectural education in India. This is precisely what this essay has done.

However, the term decolonization, and by implication, colonization, must be understood in its context. Archaeology, linguistics and genetics have all confirmed that India has a history of human migrations from other shores since the beginning of history. All have stayed and intermingled with the local population and have enriched the civilization that now we know as Indian. Before the arrival of the Europeans in the 16th century, all earlier arrivals constituted migration and not colonization. Colonization retains the original allegiance to the source of its power and annexes foreign lands and its people as external resources, maintaining control with the 'mother country'. Only the Europeans did this. Thus, I want to re-state that the term 'decolonizing' does not, and should not, mean a wholesale rejection of all that is attributed to external import since the Islamic invasions of India in the 11^th century followed by the Europeans in the 16^th century.

Notwithstanding the motivated political arguments, which reads history with a selective lens, the Indian story is replete with instances when ideas, world-views and innovations brought in from other lands have enriched the local narratives. This history of the last thousand years cannot be wished away. There is always a temptation to speculate on how indigenous traditions, institutions and forms may have evolved without any external infusions. But such temptations must be resisted. To imagine that civilizations are stand-alone silos unaffected by each other is to live in a fool's paradise. If anything, the history of human civilizations has shown that all have survived, flourished and are enriched by encounters with others. True, such encounters have generally been violent and initially destructive. But as Paul Ricoeur has noted, “No one can say what will become of our civilization when it has really met different civilizations by means other than the shock of conquest and domination. But we have to admit that this encounter has not yet taken place at the level of an authentic dialogue”15 (Italic mine).

This essay, then, is an attempt to throw open such a dialogue with a non-violent encounter between ideas about both architecture and education and to question each notion, traditional Indian as well as those brought in from other shores, from the perspective of the other. It is intellectual archaeology; peeling away layers and layers of ideas that have been accumulated over the years of ad-hoc responses to exigent demands and looking for the core of what constitutes architecture.

Such an interrogation immediately confronts us with a series of binaries. These are training versus education, vocation versus discipline, guild versus university, tradition versus modernity, knowing versus acting, etc. The seemingly polar opposites implied by these binaries tempts us to take sides. But as this essay makes clear, both architecture and the education of architecture are best served by the continuing presence of both sides of the binaries: architecture is both a vocation as well as a discipline. It requires both training and education, and it is both a mode of knowing and acting. In fact, it is a linked mode of knowing and acting. But these ideas neither exist in isolation nor do they align uniquely with either academia or practice. It is for the regulatory mechanism to ensure equilibrium. But today, unfortunately, we do not see any sign of this.

Much of the confusion stems from an absence of clarity on many of the fundamental questions at the core of the debate on architecture and education for architects. What does it mean to be an architect in the times we live in given the complexities of our societies for which we have to build a habitat? What is the relationship between the design profession and academia? Should one control the other or should they be mutually supportive and regulate each other? Is it not paradoxical to locate architecture, a vocation with its knowledge system being geared towards fulfilling a task, within the academic portals of the university dedicated to the process of learning, by which the intellect is disciplined for its own sake, for the perception of its own proper object, and for its own highest culture? Is it not the central task of architectural education to resolve this paradox without excluding either of its terms?

I have attempted to do this in chapters 1 to 6. Some of the questions, such as 'who is an architect?' require answers bordering on the metaphysics of the profession. Architecture is a profession unique among other professions in the sense that throughout its history, it has redefined and re-imagined its self-identity in response to emerging cultural, intellectual and technological milieu. Elsewhere, I have noted how the original tripartite definition of Vitruvius – architecture equals stability, commodity and beauty – has been rearranged to suit the prevailing ideologies of the time.16 This is so because design is essentially a humanistic enterprise and, unlike medicine, law or engineering, its purpose and objectives evolve in step with the evolving human history. And still, there is an essential core which we often lose sight of and needs to be re-stated every once in a while. I believe this is such a time.

The question of the relationship between the design profession and academia has led us to explore the differences between the two modes of knowing and acting, between discipline and vocation, and to conclude that the institutionalization of architectural education makes it mandatory for architecture to straddle both horses and function as both a discipline and a vocation at the same time. It is interesting to note here that in the early Renaissance period, Leon Batista Alberti had defined architecture as having two arms, Matter and Design. To Matter, he assigned all the materiality of architecture, the art of constructing an edifice, a vocational task which can be learnt by training. And Design he placed in the non-material region as 'thoughtful arrangement of parts', requiring a critical and deliberative skill acquired through life-long study. But Alberti was not alone; the 10^th century Indian text on architecture, Mayamatam, mandates that for a Shilpi to become Sthapati, he must be well versed in all forms of knowledge – 'sarvashastra visharada'. 17 This duality of architecture, being both a vocation and a discipline, was always known to our ancients too. In the context of the contemporary complexity of life, the institutionalization of architectural education within a university acquires a fresh meaning. Alberti's adjective 'thoughtful' can be interpreted to mean not only a critical inquiry, through design, on the nature of human habitat but also on the character of design itself. In other words, design as research.

More difficult to deal with are the questions about regulation. I have stated that regulations are inevitable, but in a democracy, the regulation also involves continuous negotiation about the degree and kind of regulation we can accept on our freedom. Neither 'The Architect's Act' nor the notification about the 'Minimum Standards of Architectural Education 1983' is cast in stone and must be periodically revisited as part of such negotiations. If we do not engage in such negotiations with the State or the regulator, i.e. Council of Architecture, we will have abdicated our right to that freedom. And to that end, I have put forward the concrete proposals, in Chapter six, not because I think them to be the best and only solution but because, now that they are in the public domain, this will provoke and instigate a debate, discussion and negotiation which will result in something we can call a shared belief. But debates, discussions and negotiations are essential; passivity is anathema to progress.

Unlike England or the United States or any European country, India is characterized by her plurality and diversity: Plurality not only in terms of geography and climate but also in terms of social organizations, religious practices, cultural productions and people's traditions of occupation of space. Architectural discourse in India, thus, must break out of the boundaries that came with the 'modernizing' project of the colonial powers which caused a colossal disjunction from epistemologies of our highly pluralistic indigenous practices. The rationalizing processes that the European education system set in motion here seek to flatten the contours of our plural landscape. Architecture being an essentially humanistic discipline is always precariously perched between engineering and art, culture and science and rationality and intuition. The resulting tension is particularly felt in a plural society like India. The temptation to look for a more straightforward, one dimensional and singular educational system that is applied to India as a singular landscape and her people as a homogeneous mass is going to be hard to resist, but it must be. "Fed of feeble critical discourse that glosses over architecture as stylistic overtures in materiality and popular isms, Indian design education remains in colonized condition"18

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Endnote

This book was written before the New Education Policy (NEP 2019) was announced by the Government of India. Unfortunately though, no representative of any of the professions – law, medicine, engineering, architecture, etc.- was included in the Kasturirangan Committee, which prepared the original proposal. And while we cannot expect it to address the architectural education specifically, many of its recommendations have wide-ranging implications on professional education in general and the issues I have raised here in particular. Though the report of the committee which was placed before the Parliament, and is now approved, is a bit diluted version of the original draft document, the essential spirit has survived.

The NEP 2019 is likely to have a far more consequential impact on architectural education. It begins with the fundamental premise that all education must be holistic (Liberal Education) “at the undergraduate level for preparing students to navigate their way into the future with a variety of employment scenarios as well as many other roles they will play in their professions.” And “A liberal education approach will be the basis of undergraduate education in all fields and disciplines at the undergraduate level, including professional education.” This would mean that a college, offering instructions in a single field of architecture (or law or engineering or medicine), will have to re-imagine itself as an institute of Liberal Arts with multiple disciplines such as science – both natural and social – humanities and plastic arts including music. “All higher education will happen in multidisciplinary institutions with teaching programmers across disciplines and fields to ensure optimized resources, integration across disciplines and vibrant, large education communities.”

It envisages a new three-tier institutional architecture across the country; 1) Research universities, 2) Teaching universities, and 3) Colleges. However, there will not be any affiliated colleges nor any affiliating universities: all these three types will be autonomous institutions. Autonomous colleges will also gain the freedom to grant their own degrees. All institutions of education and research, public as well as private, will be allowed to award degrees in their own names, irrespective of whether the word 'university' figures in their name or not. “While each HEI (Higher Education Institution) will have complete autonomy in developing the curricula for its programs, all curricula must respond to the standards of professional practice or learning outcomes or graduate attributes set up by the relevant standards-setting body in that field/discipline.”

This makes Professional education an integral part of higher education ending the present fragmentation of learning with multiple disciplines with their own educational institutes like stand-alone silos.

The proposed policy also deals with the regulatory system. “The various distinct functions of funding, standard-setting, accreditation, and regulation will be separated and will be conducted by independent bodies, eliminating concentration of power and conflicts of interest. Private and public institutions will be treated on par by the regulatory regime. Commercialization of education will be stopped and philanthropic efforts will be highly encouraged”. Thus the Council of Architecture, as we know it today with functions of standard-setting, accreditation, and regulation, all concentrated will have to be revamped. The approved NEP 2019, though, envisages a single national regulator for all higher education; the Higher Education Commission (HEC) replacing both UGC and AICTE, on the basic premise of “eliminating concentration of power and conflicts of interest,”. It recommends the regulation to be “light but tight”. There cannot be any disagreement on this premise. Still, regulation of at least two professions, law and medicine, are likely to be outside the domain of the HEC and continue to remain with the respective Council of each professional discipline; i.e. Bar Council and Medical Council. Architectural education, unless the CoA makes a strong representation to remain independent of the HEC, may be regulated by a large bureaucracy with consequences difficult to anticipate.

On the other hand, if CoA succeeds in retaining the regulatory function for architectural education, this makes the Council of Architecture legally and officially responsible for the regulation of Architectural education in addition to the profession. As I have said in chapter 4, the original mandate of the CoA was to regulate the profession by instituting a mechanism for registration of architects. This is professional regulation and not pedagogical regulation. Now the CoA may be expected to be given a much broader mandate to include both. This opens up an opportunity to recast the “Architect's Act, 1972” in this changed context and address all the issues I have raised in this book. The Council will have to attend to both the vocation and the discipline of architecture. The architectural community in India will have to recognize that architecture is essentially a liberal and humanistic discipline in addition to being a vocation.

In the end, what is far more critical is the realization that the state of education in India in general and architectural education, in particular, has begun to concern many more minds, and there seems to be a congruence of opinions and directions to take. There is bound to exist divergences on details. Still, we must seize this moment to initiate and engage in a debate to manage differences and arrive at a shared vision genuinely rooted in the Indian soil and suited to our aspirations to be a modern society on our own terms.

Passivity is not an option.

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Appendix 1: Brief notes on the proposed 'Board of Architectural Education' and the 'Elders'.

These notes provide the salient features, with rationale, of both proposals which will have to be appropriately drafted in legal terms if and when they are incorporated within the 'The Architect's Act, 1972' as amended.

The Board of Architectural Education

1. The task of the BAE should be a) to articulate a broad statement of values and concerns (see The Enlightened Anchor) that the architectural education should aim to fulfill. It will not lay down specific 'minimum standards' which should be the responsibility of the individual schools to evolve (see 7 below) from time to time.
2. Council's now mandatory requirement of affiliation with a university should be made voluntary. Schools should have a choice to affiliate or not. One of the reasons for mandatory affiliation was to ensure objectivity and fairness in performance evaluation (examinations). It is believed that in a competition to attract students, private schools may be lenient in evaluation, resulting in the lowering of standards. But, as we have seen above, universities have not necessarily helped in this matter. Instead, the BAE should conduct an exit examination of those graduates who want to enter the profession anytime after their graduation. This will ensure a common pan-India standard of professional competence while still allowing the schools to align their programs to the social, cultural, environmental and technological specificities of the region they are situated in. It recognizes the essential plurality of India while the colonial model saw the nation as a 'melting pot'.
3. The schools, who disaffiliate themselves will lose the right to offer a 'degree' and the students will have to settle for a 'diploma'. However, if these schools offer a sufficient liberal component in their program, through the ranking system (see below) the BAE may declare diploma of schools placed above a certain rank – say 200 – to be equivalent to a degree. This will impart an element of competition among the schools.
4. At the same time, schools which find it difficult to find faculty skilled enough to offer the full liberal program may deliberately decide not to affiliate with a university and offer a program well designed for technical competency only. These schools also should benefit from the Council's accreditation and advice. Graduates from such schools will be able to join an accelerated program of two years later, leading to a degree of Master in Architecture (see Appendix 2) and enter the mainstream profession if they so desire.
5. All schools will be encouraged to form a National Association of the Schools of Architecture in India (NASAI). The actual regulation of the content and structure of the educational programs of the schools will be the responsibility of NASAI. Thus the schools will regulate themselves. This will allow the schools to determine their pedagogical directions tailored to the intellectual capital available among the faculty and to the specificity of their locations. This will ensure that the schools can be different from each other in their approach and interpretation of architecture so long as they remain 'anchored' to the values and concerns articulated by the BAE. This will also give students a real choice among schools to match their own interests.
6. The BAE will conduct periodic inspection of schools not as an exercise to ensure adherence to the “minimum standards” but to help and mentor the schools to overcome their weaknesses and reach for higher standards. And to challenge the better performing schools to set higher goals for themselves. It is the collective duty of the entire profession to support and strengthen the schools, even though they sometime may take outlandish positions. After all, “A school's most precious gift is its generosity towards the thoughts that the next generation has yet to have”19
7. The BAE will put in place an annual ranking system of all schools. The members will evolve appropriate criteria and methodology for an objective ranking. The CoA will work with the Union and State governments to arrive at appropriate legislation to declare those schools who maintain their ranking in the top ten for consecutive five years, as 'National School'. These will be free to admit students from any State as well as abroad. This list will be reviewed every five years, and some schools may fall out while others may be included for the new cycle of five years. This will add an element of competition among schools at the top and prevent them from becoming complacent.
8. The BAE will evolve, and conduct, in consultation with leading educationalists and psychologists, an appropriate online aptitude test for admission to an undergraduate program in architecture. This may involve fine-tuning the present NATA. This aptitude test should not be confused with academic merit list. An aptitude test should ideally evaluate a student's spatial intelligence (as opposed to logical intelligence, which most science graduates will have), critical thinking and ability to represent in three-dimensional form an abstract idea. These are the essential qualities one requires to pursue a career in architecture successfully. This test will be a prerequisite for admission and will merely say whether a student has or does not have the required aptitude. And if you do not have the necessary minimum quantum of these qualities, you are not eligible to apply.
9. This test will be available to students once they clear their secondary (Std. 10) level even though they qualify for the actual admission to an architectural program only after the Higher Secondary level. Thus if a student is recognized to have the required aptitude, she can pursue even humanities in the 'plus 2' level with the necessary mathematics and English subjects.
10. The schools will follow the necessary admission criteria mandated by their respective states, but NATA will be the prerequisite for all.

The Elders: I propose the additional category of 'Elders' as members of the Council of Architecture. This would be as follow:

1. Ten architects NOMINATED from among all architects registered with the Council for at least 25 years. These will be known as the 'Elders'. Their term will have no time limit, and they will remain members until they either resign or depart naturally through death.
2. The criteria for selection of an Elder shall be outstanding and significant contributions to the profession of architecture either through built work and/or academic and scholarly writings having recognized nationally and internationally through publications.
3. The first such group of Elders will be nominated by the Hon. Minister of Human Resources in consultation with the Council of Architecture and the Indian Institute of Architects. Subsequently, as and when any vacancy arises, the new member shall be selected unanimously by the group of Elders themselves, which shall be ratified by the Council.
4. Every organization needs an element as the 'conscience keeper'. This is not only in line with the Indian traditions (Rajguru) but also required as necessary checks and balances in democratic practice. By nature, these elders are not likely to be subjected to the electoral procedures and most likely will refuse to contest if required to be elected. But we need them. Their lifetime tenure is to ensure that they will always render advice without any uncertainty of tenure and always in the best interest of the profession.
5. None of the Elders will occupy any executive position except at the unlikely time of untimely vacancy of the President, at which time the senior-most Elder or his/her nominee will assume the responsibility until the new President is elected.

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Appendix 2: Academic Sequence

Throughout this book, I have stressed that students do not constitute a monolithic body and vary vastly in terms of their intellectual capacities, skills and the pace at which they are able to accomplish assigned tasks. They also differ in terms of their aspirations, about the way they each see their future role as architects. Some may aspire to innovate new iconic forms representing our time while others may just want to assist other architects, in various capacities. A few may wish to pursue academic careers as also to manage large corporate or multidisciplinary practices. In other words, architecture, as a profession today, offers a wide range of possibilities to practice the skills and knowledge students acquire in schools.

To accommodate and facilitate this variety, schools must organize their delivery of education in a more student-centric way. To this end, I want to advance the following proposal. There may be other ways to achieve the same goal, but I want to place this in the public domain to provoke others to think on the matter and come up with other, possibly better solutions. What I propose allows students to move through the program in multiple ways, each suited to their specific interest without causing significant disruption to the management structure of the institution.

The entire ten-semester program will be structured in three levels as follows

1. Foundation (Bridge) level – 2 semesters.
2. Technical (Basic) level – 4 semesters.
3. Academic (Advanced) level- 4 semesters.

Upon entering the school of architecture, a student will have several alternative paths to move through and complete his/her education. This will depend upon the academic interest, financial affordability and career priorities of each student. The two-semester foundation level and the following four-semester technical level are mandatory for all students, though the former is more structured with less flexibility to students than the latter. The first level, Foundation, is designed as a bridge between the highly structured and focused high school education at one end and the more open-ended and self-learning phase of the university on the other.

The structure and content of the curriculum will be the responsibility of each school, but generally, these two levels aim for the following;

Foundation level

• Instil in the young minds Design as a way of Knowing and Being,
• Develop the knowledge and skills of Design concepts and tools,
• Sensitize and enrich the visual and spatial perception,
• Re-arouse and nurture student's creative faculties,
• Develop an eye for quality, and intolerance for lack of it.
• Develop an awareness of the environment and to relate the learning to real-life situations,
• Enhance the values in humanities, ecology as well as in ethics and self conduct,
• § Achieve a balance between rational and logical training and emotional and intuitive,
• Develop an understanding of design as a problem-solving process while at the same time, develop an awareness of the factors that help define the problem in the first place.
• Build up competence, sense of responsibility and confidence with an ability to choose career options in design and
• Attain a wholesome development as a potential design graduate and/or a sensitive citizen.

Even though the thrust areas of the Foundation program will be Visualization, students at this level will be required to take a course in either mathematics or humanities depending upon the higher secondary stream they come from.

The passage from here onward, during technical and academic levels, is more flexible. This flexibility is achieved by making two crucial distinctions. First, we distinguish between a semester and a stage. A semester is a quantitative unit of time of say, 16 weeks, during which students are expected to reach a certain level of competency. The total undergraduate program is of ten semesters duration interspersed with breaks of either four (winter) or eight (summer) weeks. A stage, on the other hand, is a qualitative index of a course of study a student has to reach before s/he moves on the next stage. Let me illustrate this with an example. In the course of study in Construction Technology, the teacher introduces the entire course briefly in the first two weeks and gives a list of books or sources from which students can augment their understanding by self-learning as elaborated in chapter 6. A few students may take all 15 weeks to arrive at the necessary level of competency while some, more inclined towards this area of architecture may spend more time and reach that level by 12 weeks. They declare themselves available for a test and if cleared would have cleared that stage and can devote the remaining time, four weeks on say, design studio without having to worry about Construction Technology. A student may complete a stage in a minimum of 12 weeks or may take a maximum of 20 weeks. A student more inclined towards humanities, history and theory may complete the stage in 12 weeks complete her design studio in 15 weeks and clear that through the jury and then, forgoing the winter break of 4 weeks, complete the stage in Construction Technology having spent a total of 20 weeks. A student will still be required to complete the required number of stages for every course, i.e. eight stages of the studio sequence from semester three to semester ten. But she may take less than eight semesters to do so if say, for example, she wants to become an architectural critic and wants to spend more time and focus on history, theory and humanities. She may complete her studio assignments in 12 weeks with necessary satisfactory design resolutions enough to complete a stage and earn a 'pass' grade and the required credits and devote the remaining time of the semester to pursue an area of her interests in humanities.

Similarly, if a student desires to undertake a more in-depth investigation in the area of design or construction, or he may be slow in coming to a decisive resolution, may finish up his other requirements in the other courses and concentrate and give more time, up to 20 weeks, to design or construction. The semester will continue as before to be of 16 weeks duration, but if a student wants to extend it s/he may do so by giving up whole or part of the break up to a maximum of 4 weeks. A stage is completed when the student earns the necessary credits in that course. Thus individual students may complete eight stages of the design sequence or the four stages of History of Architecture sequence at different times but still remain within the semester schedule. At worst, some may extend the stage to include the mid-semester break. Thus a group of students entering the school at the same time may move through the program at a different rhythm without significantly affecting the institutional schedule.

The second distinction is between learning and teaching (see chapter 6 for details). This system places more responsibilities on students to pace their passage through the next eight semesters besides liberating the teachers to pursue their own academic interests. Both these alternatives kick in with the next level.

Technical level

During this period, the emphasis will be to acquire the necessary vocational skills of representation and knowledge of construction techniques and practices to be able to assist a professional organization gainfully. The thrust would be on design, construction and detailing of buildings of various complexities including their service components and their correct representations. Students will be offered and exposed to several digital platforms. After completing this level, the students will have much more flexibility in choosing their career path and direction.

Academic level

After completing these initial two levels, students will have several alternative paths to choose from to reach the next Academic level and complete their education. The alternative sequences after this stage may be as follows:

1. The first alternative offered to students will require no change from the present five years, ten-semester course. After the sixth semester, the student may take up an internship of 20 weeks during the summer break and rejoin the program at the third level and complete it successfully in five years to earn a degree of 'Bachelor of Architecture'. This degree will entitle her to employment in a professional office but not for a license to practice on her own. For this, she will be required to clear the Qualifying Examination after at least two years of continuous employment as an architectural assistant.
   This alternative will be suitable for a person for whom acquiring a professional qualification is a milestone to be reached as soon as possible and to get on with the productive economic life as an employee in an organization, maybe for the rest of his/her life (or before taking up another vocation or business). Over the years, these graduates may even grow and shoulder more responsibilities. But their aspirations do not include independent practice. The profession does need a workforce of this kind, and this should not be looked down upon.
2. The second alternative sequence entails a far more radical departure from the present and is aimed at providing more options to students in terms of pacing and the duration of learning and, at the same time, offering a viable avenue for those who need to combine learning with earning. It also addresses the acute need now felt by the profession for architectural assistants but without the expectation of emoluments as fully qualified architects. After the first six semesters, this system allows a student to exit the school with a certificate of necessary basic abilities to be an architectural assistant, with which s/he may take up employment for a minimum period of two years or up to a maximum ten years, before rejoining the school to complete the professional education if s/he so desires.

There are three crucial differences between these two alternatives. One, the students have a choice of taking a significant break (two to ten years) between the two stages of schooling; the two stages of the program are now effectively discontinuous with a minimum of two years (which may extend to ten years) gap. This not only helps students in augmenting their financial capacity to pay for their education but it also means that the time they spend in a professional organization is long and meaningful enough for both the employer and the employee. Schools will be obliged to accept a returning student if s/he returns after a minimum of two years of continuous vocational training/employment but before the expiry of the ten years limit.

Two, the degree awarded to the candidate who has gone through the second alternative (total minimum of seven years) will be 'B. Arch. (Hon.) 'to distinguish them from the first alternative candidates. Employers will immediately know that the candidates with such a degree have more vocational training and may be eligible for better pay.

And three, candidates with two or more years of continuous vocational experience, will be eligible to return to a school of their choice including the 'National Schools' (see 'ranking', Appendix 1) either to complete their two years of undergraduate study or to pursue an accelerated program of two years leading to a degree of Master in Architecture in a graduate specialization such as Urban Design, Landscape Architecture, Conservation, etc. They still will have to compete with other applicants and meet any other admission criteria that may be in force. Apart from opening up more choices to students, in terms of the schools they want to go to, it also places another element of competition. Besides ranking as discussed earlier, among the schools, as those schools which fail to offer a robust academic program with excellent faculty to attract bright students will face the prospect of losing students after the first three years of the basic program. At present, with the chances of a student getting admission to a school outside one's own State being limited, schools have an assured pool of students and little incentive to improve. A bright student may recognize her school's calibre by the time she completes the first phase of six semesters, but lateral transfer to another school during the undergraduate programs is impossible. This offers a useful tool in the hands of the younger generation to regulate both the number of schools as well as the quality and intensity of the programs they may offer. After all, students are the beneficiaries, or victims, of the educational programs we offer, and it is time we give them a role in regulating the quality of education.

It is evident that for this idea to be successfully implemented, and to derive the maximum benefit from it, it must be applied as a whole, which includes both distinctions – between a semester and a stage and between learning and teaching. Both these distinctions are aimed at liberating the students as well as the teachers: students to exercise their uniqueness and teachers to be academically productive: granted that it requires the administration to be more open and flexible. But then, academic institutions are for the academic community and the administrative bureaucracy is there to aid the academic activities and not the other way round. This is one of the fundamental ideas that we seem to have forgotten in our march towards institutionalized education. It is in the nature of bureaucracy to prefer uniformity as it makes administration more 'efficient'. But when we are dealing with academic institutions and when our goal is the production of ideas, the idea of 'efficiency' must be seen with institutional imagination.

• 1. Charles and Ray Eames, The India Report. 19
• 2. Prof. Mark Wigley, Back to School, Architectural Design, Vol. 74, No 5, Sept/Oct. 2004. P. 14
• 3. Giancarlo de Carlo. Legitimizing Architecture: The Revolt and the Frustration of the School of Architecture, Dutch Forum, Vol. XXIII, 1972, Amsterdam.
• 4. Anthony Vidler, Back to School, Architectural Design, Vol. 74, No 5, Sept/Oct. 2004. P. 15
• 5. John Henry Cardinal Newman, The Idea of University, Discourse 5&7, (Longmans, Green & Co. London, 1929) P. 152.
• 6. Henry Nichols Cobb, Walter Gropius Memorial Lecture, Harvard University,1985.
• 7. When I was a student of architecture from 1958-63, at M.S. University of Baroda, I was fortunate to be able to attend lectures on Marxist economics by Prof. Kohlatkar, on English literature by Prof. Kantak and Profs. K.G. Subramanyan and Shankho Choudhry honed in my aesthetic sensibilities by allowing me to sit and work in their studios. But this was not official. Prof. M.B. Dave, Head of Architecture, chose to look the other way when occasionally, I arrived late for his studio; he knew what I was up to.
• 8. Peter Cook, in conversation with Christine Hawley. Back to School, Architectural Design, Vol 74, No 5, Sept/Oct 2004, p. 6
• 9. Prof. Mark Wigley, Back to School, Architectural Design, Vol. 74, No 5, Sept/Oct. 2004. P. 17
• 10. Terry Wilson Vaughn, in a lecture delivered in 1991.
• 11. William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming, January 1919.
• 12. Oxford Dictionary
• 13. Habib Rehman is a singular exception.
• 14. Board of Architectural Education and National Association of Schools of Architecture in India. See Appendix 1 and 2 for details.
• 15. Paul Ricoeur, "Universal Civilization and National Cultures ". in History and Truth. Northwestern University Press. Evanston, Ill. 2007. P. 283.
• 16. Jaimini Mehta, Rethinking Modernity, Towards Post Rational Architecture, Niyogi Books, New Delhi, 2011. pp. 31-38.
• 17. Bruno Dagens, (Ed. & Trans.) Mayamatam, IGNCA, New Delhi, 1994, pp.24-25.
• 18. K.T. Ravindran, Forword, Jaimini Mehta, Rethinking Modernity, Niyogi Books, New Delhi, 2011. p. 10.
• 19. Mark Wigley. Back to School, AD, Vol. 74 No 5, Sept/Oct. 2004.p. 15.