Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Balkrishna V. Doshi: "So, What is Our Heritage?"

Doshi: Chapter 8 - "So, what is our heritage?" from Hinterland Films on Vimeo.

This short clip is very compelling and I believe that it captures a lot of the thoughts that I have towards contemporary building. B.V. Doshi poses the question, "What is our heritage?" Of course it is aimed towards the contemporary Indian architect, but I believe it can be applied to architects the world over. I am constantly amazed at the compromises that we, architects, are willing to make in the pursuit of the dollar; denigrating ourselves to the lowest realms of the professional world. Where is our value? In ancient time, or for that matter, the not too distant past, architects were valued. They were expert builders. They were expert in design. Constantly we are devaluing our position in society and are constantly pushed around. So, what is our heritage? Not just our building heritage, but our professional heritage. I believe that we need to take back our profession and inject ourselves and the public realm with some architectural validity.

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