'll speak in images. I started writing this in our Bangalore office, which is a
Lawrie Baker structure. It has full credentials of the alternatives - exposed
brick outside, chuna on the walls, red oxide flooring, filler slab roof etc. By
the time I finished, I was in my flat in Mumbai built by the Housing Development
Authority, which is a pre-fabricated structure. I can't even put a nail in the
wall because the siporex brick would crack. And then the images in mind go back
to 1973, when we were young do-gooders. At that time we were rebuilding mud
houses for Rs 4000. We were very excited about it, as we realised that for 4000
rupees, we could rebuild a whole house. Of course we used free labour of the
people, but participation wasn't a buzzword then - nor was sustainability or
traditional architecture. We were just do-gooders. And somehow-we did do good.
There was nothing official about it. We just did what was convenient, cheap, and
common sense. Two decades later when we had to build the CED premises in Bangalore using the Lawrie Baker technology, the main brief by the board was, since you are spending so much money, the structure should be sound. And of course the only way you know whether a building is sound before it actually collapses is to get a structural engineer to say so!
So we called in a structural engineer, and on the other side we had this maverick builder of Lawrie Baker houses called Kumar and his group of masons. We started building and at every step we had this debate about how much steel to put in. We ended up, for various reasons, putting in a lot more steel than Lawrie Baker would have liked. Again, there is nothing official about it!
I go through these images because I am not an expert on architecture or planning or on Lawrie Baker. And because that's the only way I can describe the profound impact that Laurie Baker's ideas have had on me. The impact was not because I read about it, but because the entire building process was a kind of day to day engagement, rather than a modern day project.
Actually my association with this group of masons goes back to almost 20 years. I personally drove these same masons in CED's Tempo Traveler, through Kerala to almost every Lawrie Baker structure. We saw the big houses. We saw the small houses, we saw the multistoried things. We saw the impressive church in Alleppey and the cool fantastic CDS building. Each house, each detailing was different, yet it was basically the same red brick looking structure. Fantastic, what else can I say. I was with these masons and could sense the whole experience through their feelings. I could sense what they were relating to. Not the large grand design, as much as the sense of aesthetics, an aesthetics grounded on the feel of material they relate to -- the mud, the brick, the textures, the colours generated not from a colour catalogue but where the material came from and how the mason would have got to this. They related to the small things, the detailing, always by touching, running their hands over it. When they saw something big, you could feel their eyes look at the base, check out how the whole thing must have come up, how the masons would have worked through it etc. It was like reliving how the mason would have constructed this -- right up to the final jali work.
It was then that I realised that I learnt my most important lesson in aesthetics. I got a notion of aesthetics which is rooted in a kind of pride of workmanship, human scale, relationship with the real around us. I say this because today when I see anything which is modern or big, it is all glass!
So finally we had this CED house with not that much steel but still with a lot of steel. Then I built my own house in Bangalore which is a stone house but not in the way you see sized stone but these huge blocks of stones 6feet by four feet, quite good, impressive but embedded in cement. And that is why I come to say that there is nothing official about using cement or not using cement. You can work with materials and see which the best solution is and you don't get catholic or fixed on any one kind of mud or something like that.
That is why I say there is nothing official about the alternatives. I say that only because some of us do get fixed in these concepts and that is what I learnt from Lawrie Baker. Even though he was basically a mud person he never just stuck to being a mud person. The filler slab roof to me is a symbol of this. He did not merely talk about the traditional. He used whatever modern technology had to offer. He used it in such a way that he could reduce use of cement and steel, to the extent that it became viable and worth it. So that is the kind of difference that I see- the approach to the alternative.
The second important contribution was that he had always engaged with the system, building institutions from where alternatives could emanate. He put in a lot of effort to set up building centres with the help of the government, with the help of NGOs. A lot of small organizations could set these up on their own. But what was important was there was an organization of organizations (OOO), where these experiences were consolidated. The building centres related with each other and setup like HUDCO. I use Vijay Padaki's notion of institution which is an organisation of organization, which relates and share experiences. Because these OOOs are the norming places that set up the general guidelines, norms policies etc.
The most endearing thing about Lawrie Baker which everybody whom he came in contact with appreciated was his ability to work on a human scale -- on a personal contact basis. He would be there in the plot surveying, measuring, and discussing with the mason early in the morning. It was not that he presented a design and it was just sent across.
So every problem like the Garhwal Earthquake came up and he was there. You found Lawrie Baker looking out for solutions. He would give a sketch to demonstrate his idea, but would actually work at the mason level on one or two sites. We had this whole slum situation in Trivandrum where he spoke about recycling the slum. And he actually presented designs and implemented them, some of them officially and some outside office.
I end with saying that if we believe in a decentralised and equitable order particularly one, which can stand up to the juggernaut of globalization, perhaps also the onslaught of climate change, we have to develop on these technologies through an implementation methodology, which can beat the centralised markets at their own game through polycentric autonomous system. Lots of words but it just means that we have to develop our own technology. We can't say lets go back to something, we cant say you know all the systems are already there all the knowledge is already there we just have to discover some old method of doing things. There is some engineering that needs to be worked on the whole value system on which we have to work. But that intervention is required.
Finally I'll end in Walter's words - Policy is located in not merely engaging the state but in a body of practices, which promote the kind of technology that we want. And what we want is structural transformation and this transformation will not be achieved by the state subsidy as much by actual practice with preference on the ground. When this practice achieves a momentum of its own it should force the mainstream and the state to recognise its existence potency and relevance for society as a whole. Such a momentum can be only achieved if these alternative practices are developed in a way that people find it profitable and sensible to adopt. It is important that people should find it profitable for example you go for Lawrie Baker house if you can't afford a house. Thus all our ideas may have to shed the asceticism, Catholicism and may be some kind of fundamentalism.
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