Modernity as whitespace
By: Burte, Himanshu
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BookPublisher: Seminar Description: 750, Feb, 2022: p.57-61.
In:
SeminarSummary: AT first glance, the term ‘modern’ appears to designate a particular moment in time. That moment, however, is experienced most vividly as space in everyday life. A specific palette of conditions and experiences have long embodied the endless pursuit of modern space in India: abstract geometry, cement, compound walls, among other things. We know this broader space through fragments of experience: straight roads and orthogonal intersections in planned urban neighbourhoods, sometimes with drains and street lighting; the lived network of the railway as well as railway colonies in the middle of different nowheres; glass walls bravely, if unwisely, facing the sun in new city business districts; asphalt giving way to concrete on the expressways; elevated water tanks, and so on. Of course, informal settlements, unserviced but ‘pakka’ peri-urban developments, creakily historic urban districts, and bazaars in the open, all trouble the pretensions of these fragments of clean-slate modernity, as do villages without roads, toilets or primary health centres.- Reproduced
| Item type | Current location | Call number | Vol info | Status | Date due | Barcode |
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Articles
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Indian Institute of Public Administration | 750, Feb, 2022: p.57-61 | Available | AR127161 |
AT first glance, the term ‘modern’ appears to designate a particular moment in time. That moment, however, is experienced most vividly as space in everyday life. A specific palette of conditions and experiences have long embodied the endless pursuit of modern space in India: abstract geometry, cement, compound walls, among other things. We know this broader space through fragments of experience: straight roads and orthogonal intersections in planned urban neighbourhoods, sometimes with drains and street lighting; the lived network of the railway as well as railway colonies in the middle of different nowheres; glass walls bravely, if unwisely, facing the sun in new city business districts; asphalt giving way to concrete on the expressways; elevated water tanks, and so on. Of course, informal settlements, unserviced but ‘pakka’ peri-urban developments, creakily historic urban districts, and bazaars in the open, all trouble the pretensions of these fragments of clean-slate modernity, as do villages without roads, toilets or primary health centres.- Reproduced
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