87. Architectural Pedagogy Then and Now with Neelkanth Chhaya
Original Drawing by Tori Haynes
“If the 20th century was about mass culture, this will be the century, perhaps, of small group culture.”
Neelkanth Chhaya
This week, we gain new perspectives on architectural pedagogy today in the time of Zoom University and Coronavirus as we speak with long-time educator and architectural practitioner Neelkanth Chhaya. Fresh off the success of a fully online studio titled Poche, Neelkanth reflects on studio culture and pedagogy today and in the past.
Timestamp Outline
1:00 Poché: Online Studio
1:30 Introductions: Centerpiece at School of Architecture CEPT
4:15 Pedagogy of Poché
5:10 “Half the learning is peer learning.” NC
6:15 “The studio had to create an environment of thought in which many different kinds of people could participate” - Creating an online cross disciplinary NC
7:25 Collective wisdom
8:10 Reducing the idea of ownership
9:40 Circular motion of thought
10:45 Reducing the pyramidic/hierarchical design system
12:05 Other ways of organizing the studio - model of governing thought
13:10 Critique of the ‘Architecture Master’
14:45 “There was a systematic decimation of other modes of thought.” NC
“Modernism wiped out all kinds of other epistemologies.” VP
15:10 Architecture as crowdsourcing
16:00 Dialogue by David Bohm
17:40 “The notion of democracy activates collective listening” VP
19:00 Different scales of groups
20:00 Hannah Arendt and the public square
20:30 Local self governance Kutch Sandeep Vermani
23:10 Jawaharlal Nehru
24:50 John Turner
25:05 Doshi
25:40 Chandigarh
26:25 The grid vs the informality of an old city
28:30 Dharavi - the setting of the streets
29:40 Life in Nairobi, a colonized Kenya
30:15 Mau Mau Insurgency
33:15 Jaimini Mehta at CEPT
33:30 CEPT between 1969 - 1974
36:45 The state of architecture education in India today
41:20 The flavor of discourse in India
44:45 Discussion on sustainability
