75. AITC: The Poetics of Transgression with Nisha Mathew and Soumitro Ghosh

Original drawing by Tori Haynes

“I feel a sense of great accountability and stewardship to manage the resources […] that we have. This allows one to really pull back and to reflect on current structures to see, how much does one really need to build?”

-Nisha Mathew

How do we re-think what is essential? How does the spiritual influence design thinking? How can we understand the poetics of transgression in the design world? This week we continue our ongoing miniseries Architecture in the Time of Coronavirus with architects and Nisha Mathew and Soumitro Ghosh of Mathew and Ghosh Architects.

Timestamp Outline 

5:30    MGA described as carrying the torch of Modernism

6:00    CEPT in Ahmedabad

15:25    Discussion of the pedagogy in the 90s of CEPT

24:00    How has your interest in the spiritual affected your design philosophy and design thinking?    VP

24:20    “I feel a sense of great accountability and stewardship to manage the resources […] that we have. This allows one to really pull back and to reflect on current structures to see, how much does one really need to build and how do you critique things?”    NM

26:36    Aesthetics and Form 

28:00    Coronavirus as a force of imposed borders and boundaries - a new inner and outer

28:11    “How does architecture express relationship? How does architecture express freedom of relationship? How do we break these things [the walls that coronavirus invites] in a way that doesn’t hinder safety?”    NM

29:45    On the poetics of transgression, what does this look like and feel like to you?    VP

30:00    “Architecture has been serving capital and architects are the tool to make that happen. Powers that control have found new ways to make friends with capital. Where architecture comes in...I’m hoping that this realization of a large number of people in society will put pressure on capital to be more humane and generous.”    SG

34:00    confinement, separation, structure, control

36:00    “The unknown has the capacity to have unknowable horizons.”    SG

40:48    “The best architecture is in your head.”    NM

41:00    design as a kind of faith

43:00    On the one hand it [architecture] is about understanding the people and the culture, on the other hand it is about understanding the materials and the structure.