WAAA - Maastricht

Check out some images of the Studio where I’m doing my two month summer internship.

The building itself is shared by Wiel Arets’ house and studio and was designed by him. Have a look at our website (www.wielarets.nl) to see what sort of work we do.

(ps. WAAA stands for Wiel Arets Architect and Associates)

Living in Maastricht.

For the next two months I’m going to be living in Maastricht. This city in the extreme south of the Netherlands is sandwiched between Belgium and Germany was built by the Romans, making it by far the oldest city in the country.

The city has a very nice Medieval touch with a few reminiscence of its past in the form of pieces of its city walls. The river Maas (the same river running through Rotterdam) cuts the city in two. On one side is the historical core of the city which is today reduced to a pedestrianized shopping mall and on the other city is some interesting new development called ‘Ceramique’.

The master plan for ‘Ceramique’ was drawn out by Jo Coenen (of NAI fame) and has an impressive collection of architects building there (Jo Coenen, Alvaro Siza, Aldo Rossi, Wiel Arets to name a few). Check out a few buildings from here –

Anyways, what brings me to this small town is a summer internship at Wiel Arets Architect and Associates. Wiel Arets is the ex-Dean of the Berlage Institute, Rotterdam and is considered to be one of the major figures in contemporary architecture here the Netherlands. I will soon post some images of the studio.

Short trips to Dubai

To and Back from my trip to India I stopped over in Dubai for a few days each time to meet my parents and some old friends. The city hasn’t changed much sine my last visit here in February and the city’s Absurdification project is still on. (Though many of my friends seem to have heard about discussion to cut back on some of the very large projects like the Palm Deira and DubaiLand – but like everything else in Dubai there is no way to verify this till then actually finish building these projects)

I clicked these images (above) to explain the magnitude to the madness that we call Dubai. Huge chunks of the most barren deserts in the world are being conquered by Disneyland like themed areas (areas as huge as small towns). The above billboards demarcated and give passerby’s insights into how the scaled version of the different continents might look like in the future.

So like I was saying from the Deserts and her sea huge monstro‘cities’ are appearing. Above the construction cranes of the Palm Island as seen from the natural coast line of the city.

(and the First images from on top of the Palm itself – remember you never saw them here)

Though I find myself distancing from this city and it’s ‘Fakeness’ I wonder is this not a new reality. A reality based on copies and copies of copies. Probably that’s where Dubai’s legacy lays – its apparent playfulness in a world of problems. The city seems to have found an Absurd but in fact successful way to sustain the attention it is crabbing for herself; though she is in a region (Middle-East) that has been plagued by wars and completely hostility to anything new (anything that’s not the norm).

The Protestant reformists of the 1500s believed “That Absurd meaninglessness can become the source of Salvation”. Similarly probably the rulers of Dubai seem to believe in an Absurd meaninglessness through excessiveness that could help them Salvage a city that is suppose to be dying out (because of fast depleting oil resources) much faster than all her competitors in the region.

As I ponder about these the rest of family who still reside here gets ever more sucked in and consumed into the whirlwind created by the absurdification. My parents recently moved into a themed gated community where everyone of the over 7,000 houses look exactly the same, full with its own Golf course, Polo ground and not to mention shopping mall – The Arabian Ranches (even the name is cheesy).

Anyways, I shall leave that at that for now. Here’s a picture of all my dudes in Dubai for all my other dudes how weren’t there this time around.

Bombay visit (more like a Bombay Dream)

As I land in Mumbai after more than a year and looked out my flight window it struck me – How much I really missed this amazing city!

Though the image what I saw could be simply explained as Horrific by someone who is visiting the city for the first time, but for me in all the informal mess lay a city like none other.

A few hours later once it sunk in and I was over the emotional high, I felt I like I had never been away. In my two days there I observed very few chances - hideous walls and security barricades around the famous Sidhivinayak Temple; few new shopping malls here and there –mostly the city was exactly the way I left it.

Since I was there for only the weekend the most primary aim was to meet as many people as possible and to use that excuse to visit as many places in the city as possible. So from the time I arrived till I left I was meeting people.

And I also managed to sneak in my favourite Sunday pastime when I lived here – Bird watching in the National Park – with a few friends from BNHS.

(Check out a fresh Leopard Pug Mark that I saw inside the Park on the Film city side.)

After which I met up with a few KRVIA people at the Kanheri Caves. Later met more people and before long it was time for me to bid farewell to the one place I truly feel is home beyond all other.

Mumbai – I’ll miss you.

I’ll also miss you guys and gals – Was great meeting you. Can’t wait to be back.

Kerala Clichés

Spend the last week in Kerala. I find it very difficult to help my friends in Europe visualise what Kerala looks like and its is all about without the use of Clichés. In fact more and more I believe though we always criticize the cliché as reducing complex situations into highly simplistic images it is a very important tool to introduce people to new things. So at the risk of many fun of my self and my roots I have this time selected only the most clichéd images I took during my trip.

What better (or rather worse) image that the elephant along the road carrying stuff around?

(By the way to all those who don’t know - this is not a common sight in Kerala anymore, the expense of maintaining these beautiful beasts and ever increasing pressure from environmentalist are making this a rarity).

Actually I should have started with the lower image. Any highway in Kerala looks like this. The whole state sits on the extreme southern tip of India on what can be considered its more fertile side (the west side). Because of the amazing rainfall it gets and its fertility the entire landscape is made up mainly of shades of green no matter when you go there. And as you can see Coconut trees really make up for a large majority of the greenery.

Because of this beautiful and rich landscape the distinction of cities versus countryside doesn’t clearly exists in the traditional sense of it. In fact the whole state can be seen as a sprawling city or you could say that here there is neither an idea of Rural nor Urban. But whatever little Urbanity there is exists in typical Indian small town chaotic Urbanity. Largely made of highly fractured or unplanned settlement growing around some kind of infrastructural hub.

To explain this phenomenon below is an image from a small town just outside Cochin. But as far as this argument goes this could be anywhere in Kerala.

And then ofcourse there is the image that the tourism industry wants to sell – that of pristine beauty, man co-existing with Nature – as the tag line of Kerala says as ‘God’s own Country’. Though I wonder which God would actually be happy here, I have to say that the state has its own charm and is definitely worthy of its place in the National Geographic ‘10 place you must see before you die’ list.

Here’s to this spirit of Kerala – the Arabian Sea / Indian Ocean as seen from the coast of Kannur.

And for the end I save the picture that I would show if somebody asked me to ‘Explain contemporary Kerala in ONE image’.

The image is of the Cochin Airport [Probably the busiest airport in Kerala]. It show glimpses of some her main source of income – Agriculture [the vast fields (generally its paddy) and coconut plantation in the backdrop], Tourism [people from all over the world fly into Cochin] and last but not the least Kerala’s dependence on what we call ‘Gulf-Money*’ in this case coming straight from Dubai on an Emirates Airlines sitting between the beautiful greenery.

*- Money flowing in from expatriates working in the Middle East, a huge percentage of the people here either have some relatives there or indirectly benefit from the large presence of Keralites in the Arabian Gulf. Including yours truly – born in Kerala, bought up and spoiled in Dubai.