Book Briefs #47: Three Altrim Titles
Here is the next installment of "Book Briefs," the series of occasional posts featuring short first-hand descriptions of some of the numerous books that publishers send to me for consideration on this blog. Obviously, these briefs are not full-blown reviews, but they are a way to share more books worthy of attention than those that end up as long reviews. This installment features three books put out by Altrim Publishers: one case study and two travel guides.
Hāthigaon: A Settlement of Elephants and Mahouts by Sanjeev Vidyarthi, Megha Bhatnagar, Gaurav Bhatnagar and Rajan Bhatt | Altrim Publishers | 2022 | 10 x 10 inches | 124 pages | €32 | Amazon
A couple of years ago I learned about RMA Architects' Hāthigaon Housing in Working in Mumbai, the 2020 monograph on Rahul Mehrotra's firm. In that book the housing project for elephants and their caretakers (mahouts) near Jaipur, India, is documented across fourteen pages. While that length is sufficient for conveying the important aspects of RMA's design and presenting it in charts, drawings, and photographs, the unique nature of the project — how many other architects, except perhaps Boonserm Premthada, can boast they designed housing ... for elephants?! — a book-length case study on Hāthigaon is understandable. Written by Sanjeev Vidyarthi, Megha Bhatnagar, and Gaurav Bhatnagar, with photographs by Rajan Bhatt, and featuring an interview with Mehrotra and an epilogue by him, the book is as thorough as any other case study.
A couple of years ago I learned about RMA Architects' Hāthigaon Housing in Working in Mumbai, the 2020 monograph on Rahul Mehrotra's firm. In that book the housing project for elephants and their caretakers (mahouts) near Jaipur, India, is documented across fourteen pages. While that length is sufficient for conveying the important aspects of RMA's design and presenting it in charts, drawings, and photographs, the unique nature of the project — how many other architects, except perhaps Boonserm Premthada, can boast they designed housing ... for elephants?! — a book-length case study on Hāthigaon is understandable. Written by Sanjeev Vidyarthi, Megha Bhatnagar, and Gaurav Bhatnagar, with photographs by Rajan Bhatt, and featuring an interview with Mehrotra and an epilogue by him, the book is as thorough as any other case study.
The book has four chapters that are aligned with the main themes of the project: "Comprehending the Regional Landscape," about the provision of water in the dry landscape, especially important for the welfare of the elephants and their relationships with their mahouts; "Conceptual Approach and Design Development," a lengthy chapter by Ela Singhal of RMA/Architecture Foundation that goes into detail on every aspect of the design, both built and unrealized components; "Reading Beyond the Craft," on the interdisciplinary nature of the project, done in a series of interviews with key players; and "Learning from Hāthigaon," where Bhatt's photographs, like the cover, capture the placed as it's lived in. While the rarity of such a project makes this book-length case study less applicable as a direct reference for other architects, in India or elsewhere, its thorough documentation of the design process and articulation of the way building and landscape are integrated should make it of interest to architects working on all sorts of projects.
AMD-Ahmedabad: Architectural Travel Guide of Ahmedabad by Riyaz Tayyibji | Altrim Publishers | 2017 | 5 x 7-1/4 inches | 232 pages | €27 | Amazon
Many of the books put out by Altrim, the Barcelona-based publisher started by architect and writer Ariadna Alvarez Garreta, are travel guides to cities in India and other parts of South Asia. Two recent guides are featured here. First is a guide to Ahmedabad written by architect Riyaz Tayyibji, resident of Ahmedabad and partner at Anthill Design, and edited by Garreta. Ideally, this review would involve me using the book in Ahmedabad, but circumstances dictate an armchair-architourist's take with the book. In either case, getting one's bearing is a good start, aided by numerous maps throughout, but starting with a general map on the inside of the front cover and another with the five itineraries on the inside of the back cover. The itineraries move from the Old City, where two tours are found, and move westward toward more modern and contemporary buildings, including the four Corbusier works in the city.
Standouts in the early itineraries include small insertions squeezed into the dense city's urban fabric, including the numerous historic stepwells, or Vav (narrow ones, unlike the more famous and photogenic examples); the many Jain temples, or Durasar, and other religious structures that are tiny but beautiful; and the book market tucked underneath Fernandes Bridge. (These italicized terms indicate a glossary would be a welcome addition in future updates.) As noted, modern and contemporary buildings are in abundance in the three other itineraries, with a lot by B. V. Doshi and numerous ones by Louis Kahn, RMA Architects, Matharoo Associates, and HCP Design Planning & Management, among others. Not all buildings are open to the public, so the guide — complete with practical advice for travelers and suggestions for excursions outside of the city — functions as a survey of the great architecture in Ahmedabad as much as it does a guidebook for exploring the same.
AVPNY-Auroville & Pondicherry: Architectural Travel Guide of Auroville & Pondicherry by Anupama Kundoo and Yashoda Joshi | Altrim Publishers | 2019 | 5 x 7-1/4 inches | 156 pages | €27 | Amazon
The second guide looks at two cities in southeastern India: Auroville, a planned city laid out in 1968 by French architect Roger Anger and named for sage and philosopher Sri Aurobindo; and the nearby Pondicherry, the coastal city now known as Puducherry and sometimes referred to as "The French Riviera of the East" due to it being under French rule until 1954. While it's not clear how the writing duties were split between the two authors, it makes sense that architect Anupama Kundoo is involved, given that she has designed a few buildings in and around Auroville and is also the author of the forthcoming Auroville. The City the Earth Needs: Roger Anger’s Visions for Urbanism. The section on Auroville, which takes up the majority of the book, consists of five itineraries, four within the city proper and the last just outside of it. Anger laid out Auroville, a model city for 50,000 inhabitants, as a spiral with the circular Peace Zone in its center. Although little has been carried out from the original plan (yet), the central Matrimandir, designed by Anger, exists, anchoring the city and ensuring The Mother's idea of divine harmony find expression. Most interesting to this reviewer is the fifth itinerary, where most of Anger's and Kundoo's buildings are found, the former consisting of four sculpturally striking schools (one is on the book's cover).
The second guide looks at two cities in southeastern India: Auroville, a planned city laid out in 1968 by French architect Roger Anger and named for sage and philosopher Sri Aurobindo; and the nearby Pondicherry, the coastal city now known as Puducherry and sometimes referred to as "The French Riviera of the East" due to it being under French rule until 1954. While it's not clear how the writing duties were split between the two authors, it makes sense that architect Anupama Kundoo is involved, given that she has designed a few buildings in and around Auroville and is also the author of the forthcoming Auroville. The City the Earth Needs: Roger Anger’s Visions for Urbanism. The section on Auroville, which takes up the majority of the book, consists of five itineraries, four within the city proper and the last just outside of it. Anger laid out Auroville, a model city for 50,000 inhabitants, as a spiral with the circular Peace Zone in its center. Although little has been carried out from the original plan (yet), the central Matrimandir, designed by Anger, exists, anchoring the city and ensuring The Mother's idea of divine harmony find expression. Most interesting to this reviewer is the fifth itinerary, where most of Anger's and Kundoo's buildings are found, the former consisting of four sculpturally striking schools (one is on the book's cover).
Linking Auroville and Pondicherry, besides geographical proximity, is Mirra Alfassa, better known as The Mother, the spiritual partner of yoga practitioner Sri Aurobindo Ghosh, and Golconde, the building Antonin Raymond designed for The Mother in Pondicherry. Considered the first work of modern architecture in India, the 1945 building is the first of the roughly three-dozen buildings in the three Pondicherry itineraries. Most of the buildings are considerably different — historic buildings in the French Quarter, for instance, and ornate temples in the Tamil Quarter. Unlike the Auroville itineraries, the buildings in the Pondicherry itineraries are free of descriptions, with just photographs and the occasional drawings provided. In this sense, the guide seems to be saying that, while Auroville is the main draw for architects in this region of India, Pondicherry should be part of any visitor's itinerary.