A walk to remember : An alternative urban narrative

  • Student GAJJAR AKSHAR SHAILESHKUMAR
  • Code UA0716
  • Faculty Architecture
  • Tutor/s Udayan Mazumdar,Blanca Bravo reyes
  • TA Srushti Shah

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“History provides material for biography while memories provide material for autobiography. Memories begin when history ends. These two are generators of identity in a city. ” - Architecture of the City. With new cities being built and developed at an unimaginable pace one sees genericness in their design and perception. Bopal like many other recently developed city/ peri-urban area is subjected to the same fate. With no history to attach to, what creates memories in such generic city scape. Leisure being defined as “time free of necessity” is introduced in the landscape of Bopal using architectural follies. The current urban scape of Bopal allows for no unexpected encounters or surprises, nor does it have the opportunities of loitering. Follies lead to creation of alternative narratives. These narratives negate the existing and create unexpected, drastic and surprising moments in the city. These narratives generate events hence adding to the memories and identity of the city. In the areas of high density or fragmented land pieces these follies ‘attract’ the parcels of land leading to a perception of a larger whole while in places of chaos they create ‘detraction’ from the surrounding becoming an escape. These points of insertion attempt to create an aversion from the existing leading to an alternate reality of perception different from that of the empirical reality.