09 July 2015

Vikram Iyengar on Adda at Ranan with Anubha Fatehpuria

ADDA AT RANAN - July 2015

Vikram Iyengar responds to the Adda at Ranan with architect and actress
Anubha Fatehpuria

How many times have we walked or driven down a road and been brought up short by a building that seems to have no business to be there? It has nothing to do with its location, its surroundings, its neighbours – its incongruous in every way. “Who built that, and why”, we wonder as we move on.

Or worse, still, how many times have we walked or driven down streets in our cities where every house looks like the next, every street looks like the next, and every neighbourhood looks like a generic urban landscape. Nothing to tell us visually which city we are in, what makes it unique, what its culture is, who its people are. Faceless four walls enclosing in, leaving out, without a trace of the personalities individuals who live or work there. Functional buildings, soul-less buildings, buildings without surprises, buildings without delight, buildings of brick, mortar and cement… and precious little else.
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How can the art of architecture work to humanise spaces? This is what drives architect Anubha Fatehpuria’s work and vision. How do you approach a space, listen to it, hear what it has to say, accordingly conceive of a design and choose appropriate building materials and methods to deliver something unique for that spot and that client? Something that cannot be replicated with a different set of variables in a different location. Something that works with the clients specifications and also reflects and responds to the locale, the culture, the surroundings.