BOOKREVIEWS

L I B R A R Y ACADEMIC YEAR 2015-2016

Library Assistantship for Reviewing of Books

In recent times, the role of a library has changed drastically. In the past, students used to request for bibliographies on subjects of
interests, either on specific architects and their works related to some particular period in history or a building of interest. In the
more recent digitally connected era, our society is captivated with speed – be fast food, fast money, fast pleasures, fast lifestyle and
fast information. History has established that a few basic principles in life have never changed, and perhaps would not change.
One such principle is the pursuit of knowledge through reading. However, even in this age of easy access to information, from
Wikipedia or Google, at the click of a button, the age - old method of holding a book and reading at leisure can never be replaced.
In order to keep in sync with this idea that a few things must not be forgotten, the reading of some essential books is of prime
importance to CEPT Library.
An initiative was undertaken to encourage students to read, by allowing them to select a book of interest to them and write a
review of it. A student assistantship was created. The students were taught, guided and all their efforts channelized to create this
body of reviews. The purpose was to create awareness of the value of ‘close reading.’ An intended by- product is, that this knowl-
edge and enthusiasm for reading may trickle down as they discuss the books with others. A copy of the review, with due credits,
will be kept in the book for future readers to get a quick idea and a particular interpretation of what the book is about.
This was a unique program and a long process, perhaps the first of its kind in the history of architecture schools. We hope this
continues in subsequent years, giving at least a few students an opportunity and encouragement in acquiring a specific kind of
knowledge through reading. Some found the amount paid (Rs. 2000) to the selected reviewers to be meagre, but where else has
one heard of a student being paid to read! We hope this will encourage them to cultivate the habit of critical reading and realize
its value
CEPT Library would like to thank Dr. Bimal Patel (President) Prof. A.Srivathsan, (academic Director) Prof. Kartik Vora,
Mr. S. Kannan (Editor, Times of India), Ms. Freyaan Anklesaria, Nidhi Sah (Graphic Designer), Ms.Tejaswini Joshi (Librarian) and also
the entire library team. Without their input and help it would not have been possible to take this project to final print.
Enclosed are the reviews by 40 students at CEPT University (out of total 92 selected ) during the last academic year of 2015-16.

Snehal Shah
Director
CEPT Library

The Embodied Image:
Imagination and Imagery
in Architecture
By Juhani Pallasmaa
West Sussex, John Wiley & Sons
Ltd., 2011, 151p.
In this lyrical and altogether
mind-expanding book, Finn-
ish architect and former pro-
fessor Juhani Pallasmaa elo-
quently argues about how
the raging trends of instru-
mentalisation and ‘aestheti-
cisation of the new’, are undermining the power of the ‘poetic
image’, in favour of logic and rationale. Historically, western
philosophy had always favoured thought and verbal reason-
ing over the image, thus relegating the image to the trivial
realm of manipulation. Pallasmaa addresses the pertinent is-
sue of what it means to live today in a ‘civilisation of the im-
age’, as Roland Barthes put it. He expresses his anxiety that an
‘overabundance of images’ is threatening our ‘uniquely human
gift of imagination’ by colonising the mental landscape with
commercialised images. We are living in a fictitious reality to-
day where the poetic image – which has the capacity to evoke
multisensory and emotive perceptions and memories – has
been usurped by the solely ‘retinal image’. The book is a clarion
call to harness the potential of architecture in grounding us
once again in our ‘biological historicity, collective unconscious
and existential consciousness’.
Pallasmaa is an eminent thinker and writer on architectur-
al theory. His books, such as “The Eyes of the Skin” and “The
Thinking Hand”, focus on the experiential and sensorial as-
pects of architecture, through the prism of phenomenology,
environmental psychology and cultural philosophy. His re-
cent works explore the intersection of architecture and neu-
roscience, to explain such previously poetic impressions and
attain a ‘deeper understanding of the mental implications
and impacts of the art of building.’
“The Embodied Image” was first published in 2011 by John
Wiley & Sons Ltd, a global company founded in 1807 in New
York, known widely for publishing the For Dummies series.
Specialising in academic publishing, the publishing house’s
books aim to benefit researchers, students, professionals and

1 BOOKREVIEWS
instructors in higher education.
Pallasmaa draws upon a wealth of research in neuroscience
and biology to explain how the experience of seeing an im-
age is not purely visual, but indeed embodied. By means of the
psychoanalytically proven medium of ‘projective identification’,
by means of neural patterns triggered by mental images, and
by means of empathic reactions triggered by mirror neurons;
we are able to touch upon the world.
The book is a wonderful addition to existing treatises, like
those by Leonard Shlain (“The Alphabet Versus the Goddess”),
that note how the left hemispheric rise of reason in our society
has condemned the holistic and intuitive realm of the brain’s
right hemisphere.
In the process, we have lost much of the connection be-
tween our bodies and minds – and therefore, between our ‘self’
and the world. Ensuing madness has left our world devoid of
life-giving structures – dotting it instead with meaningless, sty-
listic and contextless forms. Arguing that human beings have
evolutionarily benefitted from perceiving the holistic picture
over details, Pallasmaa makes a case for the role of imagination
and metaphor in bridging the gap between these two realms.
The interconnectedness of sensory areas in the brain re-
veals why there is a concealed multisensory experience in vi-
sion – especially of touch.
“Basic architectural experiences have the essence of verbs,
rather than nouns,” he says – through movement and expe-
rience, rather than through solely visual appreciation, we in-
teract with the world around us. The experience is like that
of a ‘collaged image’ – many-layered, with dialogues between
fragments,that evoke a sense of time; thus reinforcing one’s
sense of existence in this vast world.
Pallasmaa expresses his unease about today’s obsession
with novelty that rejects historic ideas and traditions in favour
of marketability and style. He urges us to return to our origins,
to those images that evoke a sense of rootedness in our cul-
Soft City
By Jonathan Raban
Mumbai, Pictor Publishing Pvt. Ltd.,
2008, viii, 292, ip.
Jonathan Raban (born 14
June 1942, Hempton, Nor-
folk, the UK) is a British travel
writer and novelist. He has
received several awards. Ra-
ban’s writings are based on
his travels and observations,
and he is also highly regard-
ed for his detailed descrip-
tions centered on topics of history dealing with his wander-
ing location and immediate surroundings. Despite his harsh
and impartial views of the people he meets during his travels,
he does not shy away from revealing his series of both agree-
able and unfortunate tales with the reader.
Picador is an imprint of Pan Macmillan in the United King-
L I B R A R Y
ture and time – evoking mythic associations and memories –
reminding us that abstraction is not about contextlessness and
meaninglessness, as it is widely made out to be. Abstraction is,
instead, ‘image as condensation’ – wherein a singular distilled
image can evoke multiple memories and associations.
True to his style of writing, Pallasmaa covers various ref-
erences across realms of art, sculpture, literature, psychology
and philosophy to emphasise his concerns about architectural
directions.
This is because he fundamentally believes in intersections
of ideas across disciplines. The most interesting aspect of the
book is 60 paired colourful images, distributed over the course
of its narrative. These enable a deeper understanding of the
power of images. The readers are guided through these im-
ages in a poetic sequence, enabling them to understand the
potential of meaningful visual imagery to evoke profound feel-
ings within themselves. By placing them in pairs, he catalyses
a state in which the reader can contemplate contradictions, or
make associations – which is an underlying theme in this book.
Pallasmaa makes an eloquent case for how ‘embodied im-
ages’ can effectively take us back to that state of experiential
being that has vastly been lost amongst the tide of abstract
and impoverished images that engulf us today. One begins
contemplating the role of professions like architecture, that
stand astride the space between objectivity and subjectivity,
between science and art — in catalysing such a transforma-
tion of the human species into a more emotional and connect-
ed one. “The Embodied Image” is an unmissable read for any-
body looking to understand the internal processes that shape
their perception of the world, and to hone their aptitude for
critically appraising works of art or architecture, and possibly
approaching design.
Niharika Sanyal
Faculty of Architecture
dom and Australia and of Macmillan Publishing in the United
States. Both companies are owned by Georg von Holtzbrinck
Publishing Group. Picador was launched in the UK in 1972 with
the aim of publishing outstanding international writing in pa-
perback. In 1990, Picador started publishing its own hardcovers.
Soft City plunges straight into the belly of the beast, in this
case, the ever-evolving city filled with its actors and ‘urban-
scapes’ covered beautifully in vivid glory and gore, through
the eleven chapters of the book. Raban’s introduction paints
an ominously descriptive scene of a city-dweller inhaling dust
and fumes, and dealing with lights, traffic, a bit of jet lag and
scores of people. He aptly summarizes the city with the fol-
lowing quote, “But this is where you live; it’s your city...the lan-
guage you’ve always known, the language from which being
you, being me, are inseparable.” It is indeed truly difficult to re-
main rooted in a city.
Raban talks of the two sides of the same coin — the soft
city, and the hard city located on maps, in statistics, and in
monographs of social demography and architecture. An indi-
vidual surviving in a city is permitted a certain degree of free-
dom and can willingly choose to participate with his commu-
nity or remain shut indoors away from the public eye and the
public realm. Residential tenements are a feast for the senses
with odd activities such as drug deals, a family brawl or a girl
achieving climax, occurring throughout the day and at night,
which often keep non-participating tenants awake in both fear
and dread.
Through the eyes and words of planners such as Saint Au-
gustine, Geddes, Howard, Campanella and Le Corbusier, the
reader is offered a sound depiction of the evolution of early
towns which were compact, crowded and contained on the
inside, yet completely fortified with barricades, canons and
towers on the outside to keep out invaders and savages.
Charles Dickens’ books highlight his prowess as one of the first
urban flâneurs with his realistic portrayals of city life and city
folk in pre-industrial London. Immigrants often suffer the most
and struggle to make ends meet. In the city, people wear dif-
ferent masks and have different names. In such a field of peo-
ple, one feels immense solitude and loneliness which is both a
boon and a bane. Association is key, with people forming their
own perceptions and “mental maps” as Kevin Lynch puts it, to
better position and orient themselves in the vastly knit city
fabric. In conclusion, Raban glides effortlessly across London,
Europe and North America crossing paths with acquaintances
The Structure of the
Ordinary: Form and
Control in the Built
Environment
By N. J. Habraken, edited by
Jonathan Teicher
Cambridge,MIT Press, 1998,
xxii,359p.
N J Habraken, as an architect
and educator, has contrib-
uted various theories to the
field of mass housing and the
role of users in the process of
designing. His theory of ‘Open Building’ in his book ‘Supports:
An Alternative to Mass Housing’ spurred critical debates and
opened a new field of interest in architecture. In this book, ‘The
Structure of the Ordinary’, he focuses on developing tools for a
new design approach. This approach is based on two govern-
ing factors — change and control. By questioning the current
architectural practice and profession, Habraken strives to put
forward various observations as guidelines, in order to help
one design more sensitively. Deriving examples from building
practices all around the world, he explains different approach-
es of looking at the built environment. By posing the central
question, ‘What must be retained and what must be changed?’
he highlights three orders which play vital roles in addressing
the question. The book has therefore been structured into
these three orders:
1. Form, the Physical Order
2. Place, the Territorial Order
and complete strangers and recounting his trysts and misad-
ventures.
The reader, right from the first chapter, is fully aware of Ra-
ban’s endless search to unravel his identity by scouring any city
he happens to pass through. He is obsessed with this city; this
organism, and his curiosity knows no bounds. In the mess of
the city and city life, Raban hopes to uncover both the truth as
well as the untruth, especially when he converses with people
either verbally or through written communication. He does
not really rely on statistics or numbers to navigate through the
metropolis but instead relies on his instinct and immediate im-
pressions.
Raban adopts a careful and unpredictable style of writing
which is highly engaging and enjoyable. He leaves the reader
begging for more. At times, there is a sense of discontinuity felt
with the progression of each chapter, however, the story tell-
ing has its order and is written well. The readers do not require
pictures, photos or inserted illustrations and are forced to use
their imagination to travel from Medieval Europe to modern
New York and at times stand in two places or countries at once,
without leaving the comfort of their reading room.
Oriana Fernandez
Faculty of Architecture
3. Understanding, the Cultural Order
The first part starts by explaining the concepts of change
and control. It then goes on to describe different agents that
play an important role in the functioning of built environments.
These agents (such as the users of the building) determine
two levels of organization in the building: 1. Horizontal (floors)
and 2. Vertical (walls). The author lays out different types of
hierarchies that work within a building. One is the hierarchy
of enclosure. These hierarchies give rise to levels which can
be understood by referring to Rietveld’s experiments which
highlight three levels: furniture, partitioning and buildings. A
chapter also deals with different levels of enclosures and clas-
sification of dwelling modes. Through diagrams, hierarchies
are explained from the scale of building blocks and streets to
the smaller details like furniture layout. The last chapters of this
part talk about the act and process of building by assembling
of hierarchies.
The second part of the book- Place, the Territorial Order-
focuses on the idea of territory. It outlines different types of
territories such as private, semi-private, semi-public and public.
Territories are directly related to control and the degree of con-
trol ranges from private to public spaces. Territorial hierarchies
are asymmetrical in nature and this has been very skillfully ex-
plained by one’s movement from the bunk bed to bedroom to
house to street to city to countryside. In the journey from bunk
bed to the countryside, one does not have any restrictions but
if the journey was to be made in the reverse order, from the
countryside to the bed, one would be open to scrutiny at all
points. This control can be exercised through control of form
and control of space. After explaining different levels of terri-
torial hierarchy, the author goes on the talk about territories in
3 BOOKREVIEWS
terms of space and function. Drawing from examples ranging
from an Amsterdam house to old Beijing townscape, different
chapters focus on relationships between streets and houses /
building blocks. An entire chapter looks at ‘gates’ as one of the
main building elements used in defining territory. Nine types
of gates are defined of which seven exist. The last chapter
looks at changes in the territorial structures due to factors like
growth in urban population, increasing building density, and
technological innovations.
The last part- Understanding, the Cultural Order- looks at
people’s perception and behaviour towards buildings. This or-
der establishes mutual preference, without hierarchy, based
entirely on human understanding. Referring to ‘A Pattern Lan-
guage’ by Christopher Alexander, Habraken talks about pat-
terns in buildings and relations among its parts, constantly
connecting it back to the principles described in the first two
parts of the book and informs the reader about the application
The Sense of Unity:
The Sufi Tradition in
Persian Architecture.
By Nadar Ardalan & Laleh Bakhtiar
London, University of Chicago
Press, 1973, xviii; 140p.
Nader Ardalan: Nader Ar-
dalan is an Iranian architect,
urban planner and writer. He
studied architecture at the
Carnegie Institute of Tech-
nology, Pittsburgh (BA, 1961)
and at Harvard University, Cambridge (MA, 1962). He worked in
several firms in the USA, including Skidmore, Owings & Merrill,
before returning to Iran to work for the National Iranian Oil
Company (1964-6).
In 1966 he became Design Partner for Iran’s largest archi-
tectural firm, Abdul Aziz Farman Farmaian & Associates, in Teh-
ran, and in 1972 he set up his own practice in Tehran, the Man-
dala Collaborative. Ardalan, whose work ranges from private
residences to master plans for new towns, is one of the most
important architects to emerge from Iran in the recent past.
His work reflects his particular concern for cultural and eco-
logical aspects of architecture; in Iran it is strongly rooted in
an understanding of the traditions and forms of Iranian Islam,
although his buildings are in a totally contemporary idiom.
Laleh Bakhtiar: She has translated and written a combination of
25 books about Islam, many dealing with Sufism. She has also
authored or co-authored a number of biographical works. Her
translation of the Qur’an, first published in 2007 and called The
Sublime Quran, is the first translation of the Qur’an by an Ameri-
can woman. Laleh Bakhtiar’s translation attempts to take a female
perspective, and to admit alternative meanings to many Arabic
terms that are ambiguous or whose meaning scholars have had
to guess because of the antiquity of the language. Her work seeks
to create understanding between non-Muslims and Muslims.
L I B R A R Y
of these patterns. The patterns which lead to a building lan-
guage give rise to systems. Systems are a means to achieve a
variety of results. He talks extensively on the importance of so-
cial structures and how they have governed the way we built;
right from the vernacular to the ‘factory-made’ houses during
industrialization.
The book is devoid of architectural jargon, except wherever
absolutely necessary, hence making it easy for one to under-
stand the concepts and theories. To explain complex ideas, the
author has very skillfully used analogies from daily life. The il-
lustrations and examples span across a large period of time
and cover a wide geographical area, therefore not restricting
the book to a selected audience. It offers a new perspective
of looking at the built environment through which one would
hopefully be able to develop a sensitive approach to design.
Vaissnavi Shukl
Faculty of Architecture
Publisher: Abjad Book Designers & Builders: Is an Indian Press
that has published many books on Islam and Islamic art and
architecture.
Book: The book explains Persian architecture by taking the
most fundamental principle of the Islamic tradition, namely
Unity (tawhid), and trying to understand how Persian archi-
tecture of the Islamic period has sought to integrate all of its
features so as to lead to this unity. The contents of the book
are hence, directly associated with the title ‘The Sense of Unity:
The Sufi Tradition in Persian Architecture’
The present book is the study to be made of the tradition-
al and sacred architecture of Islam in its Persian Setting from
point of view of the traditional principles involved. The Book ex-
pounds the cosmic relationship of Islamic architecture and Man.
It includes not only the views of the author, but also specula-
tions from related literature and scholars from varied fields such
as music. The shapes and spaces discussed as inseparable from
the traditional concept of mathematics, particularly geometry
and its forms are well portrayed through figures and physical
architectural diagrams. One also understands how light and
colours characterize spaces by their intrinsic nature and that
they’ve always been important to Persian architecture.
The book is divided into three major parts:
The Morphology of Concepts
This pertains to aspects of Space, Shape, Surface, Colour and
Matter. Scientific evidence and its congruency in architecture,
understanding and application of basic shapes, role of Callig-
raphy, pallet of seven colours based on philosophical concept,
Ornamentation and its derivation, Concept of light through
spiritual and philosophical theories and the four elements.
Concept of Traditional Forms
This talks of places such as Garden, Porch, Gateway, Room,
Minaret, Dome and Chahar-Taq. Relation between Archetype,
Form and style and Concepts of each element of Persian ar-
chitecture.
Levels of Realization
This part deals with the Synthesis of Forms, City Form, Natu-
ral Order, Geometric Order and Harmonic Order. Microcosmic
conception of universe vs man; Realization of place for city
scale; Scale of city and their orders; Their relationship with ge-
ometry; Bazar; time and place; System of movements of Isfah-
an and Kashan City.
On reading, exploring and reflecting upon the author’s
work, the contents of the book particularly the illustrations,
I was able to discern hidden linkages between his work and
writings. This work will incite interest, among scholars and ar-
chitects alike, in pursuing deeply the study of Islamic art and
architecture in the light of principles rather than merely by his-
torical borrowings or material techniques.
Discourse: It deals with architectural discourse by illustrations
that are explained through photographs, plans of cities – Ba-
zaar, system of movements, encounter points, geometric pat-
Green is Red
By Anil Laul
India, Haryana Academy for
Sustainable Habitat Research and
Action (ASHRA), 2013
The hot topic of the day
for most Architects around
the world is the question of
what is Sustainability or what
is Sustainable Architecture.
Through particular book,
Prof. Anil Laul discusses the
flipside of ‘Green’ Architec-
ture; its marketing and the rating systems that have been im-
plemented.
The book discusses the flipside of green marketing and
rating system and lays emphasis on the re-rationalization of
material and technologies. Green is not a fashion statement,
it is merely the logical and commonsensical way to go, and
common sense, however rare, should require no approval
from specialized agencies. The book ‘Green is Red’ is also Laul’s
journey to ‘common sense’ diluted with the issues and the
CEPT Library offers following Privileges on
Sundays:
• From 01-01-2015, CEPT library remains open on Sundays with following privileges:
• Books are issued for 3 weeks instead of 2 weeks.
• Students get 10 photocopies free if they borrow books on Sundays
tern formation diagrams derived from cosmological doctrines
of Islam and derives morphological concepts - formation of
surfaces ( walls, roof lines, ceilings and other architectural ele-
ments). It includes realization through Persian art and literary
history of Persia. Books also includes principles which gov-
erned Islamic art and architecture; poetic literature between
10th to 13th century. Besides this it also talks about the literary
history of Persia, Persian miniature art and cosmological doc-
trines between 10th to 16th centuries.
The book is part of Iranian Studies, a peer-reviewed journal
devoted to Iranian and Persian history, literature, and society,
published on behalf of the International Society for Iranian
Studies. Its scope includes all areas of the world with a Persian
or Iranian legacy, especially Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia and
the Caucasus, and northern India.
Purvi Tank
Faculty of Architecture
solutions fathomed so far.
Therefore, the book is meant for people across the board.
The Judge at the Supreme Court who enforces the legisla-
tions and laws would want to read this book, the Bureaucrat
who invents the rules needs to take a good hard relook, the
Builder who markets GREEN BUILDING at a premium, the ar-
chitect or the planner who plans the human settlements, the
activist who would slogan for the rights of the people, global
warming and climate change etc., the Professionals who have
hidden agendas such as ratings and specialisations, the Media
that works towards the single objective of TRP ratings only, the
Housewife who is the soul of a home, the Teacher who refus-
es to relearn, and most importantly the Student so as to have
him/her ask the appropriate questions, insist on substantive
and reasoned answers, thus compelling change.
The language used in the book is in the tone of a conver-
sation, a conversation between the author and the reader.
The language is precise and easy to understand, the author
does not make any special attempt to elucidate his stance and
views since they are quite simple and straightforward.
Shreyas Baindur
Faculty of Architecture
5 BOOKREVIEWS
 Cities without Cities: An
Interpretation of the
Zwischenstadt
By Thomas Sieverts
London, Spon press, Routledge,
2003, xviii, 187p.
About the Author
Thomas Sieverts is emeritus
professor of Urban Design
at the Technical University of
Darmstadt, where he taught
for three decades and has
written this book as fellow of
the Institute of Advanced Studies in Berlin. He has also lectured
in planning and urban design both in the UK and the US. He is
currently a partner at SKAT Architects Town Planners in Bonn,
which began operations in 2000, and is an advisor to the Ger-
man Government.
About the book
The book revolves around an interpretation of the term
“Zwischenstadt” or the “in-between” or “intermediate city”. This
term has been taken up by the author to define the correlation
between diffusion and fragmentation of settlements that one
comes across in today’s European cities.
The book, situated in a characteristically European con-
text, explains the new form of urbanity spread across the cities
around the world. The writer lays emphasis on a city not being
a city anymore but group of developed clusters held together
by a web of transport networks. The author argues that the
traditional compact city is being transformed into large conur-
bation. These large conurbations in Europe no longer demon-
strate the traits of community living or social cohesiveness. The
reference to the “intermediate” dimension of an urban form re-
lates to an ongoing change (referring to rural-urban migration)
and the characteristics it exhibits; and the type of built-up area
that exists between the city core and the countryside.
The writer predicts that cities will diffuse, the boundary
lines will disappear, and the urban forms will be classified as
regions of more or less population. In an urban landscape
where agriculture will be carried out, the definition of urban-
ity will diffuse.
The author encourages the acceptance of the urban con-
temporary form of a city (which is evolving all over the world)
and letting go of the notion of a compact city. The city’s urban
landscape is the result of capitalist economy, the new work cul-
ture and technological advancements. The author focuses on
the examples of the Rhine-Main region around Stuttgart but
he suggests the phenomenon is common globally and can be
seen in such places as the Rhur, Holland; Tokyo and Osaka in
Japan, and Boston and Washington DC in the US.
Sieverts concludes with a reference to the problem of
governability. The problems of regional development can be
dealt with by formulating adequate development strategies
keeping in mind the factors molding the urban form. These
strategies can include the realignment of economic oppor-
tunities and the creation of policy frameworks to establish a
path for the emerging city form to prevent any damage to
natural areas. Cities without Cities talks about the new ideolo-
gies of polycentrism of contemporary urban forms, where the
zwischenstadt plays a crucial role in how it will fit into the cur-
rent context of the city’s cultural, social, economic and devel-
opment strategies. One can live as an agonized addict or see a
potential in the concept put forward by the author.
The book has been written with simple and understand-
able vocabulary. However, to appreciate the work, the reader
must have basic knowledge of concepts and terminologies of
urban planning. One may sometimes sense a repetition of cer-
tain concepts. However, it is a comprehensive work.
Pranika Mahajan
Faculty of Planning

Conversations with Frank
Gehry
By Barbara Isenberg
New York, Alfred A. Knopf Inc.,
2009, xviii, 290p.
thored three other books, State of the Arts : California Artists Talk
About Their Work, Making It Big : The Diary of A Broadway Musi-
cal, and her most recent LA Times bestseller, Tradition!: The High-
ly Improbable, Ultimately Triumphant Broadway-to-Hollywood
Story of Fiddler on the Roof, the World’s Most Beloved Musical.

About the Author About the Publishing House

Barbara Isenberg is an
award-winning author and
journalist and possesses over
three decades of experience
in speaking and writing
about art and art personal-
ities, previously working as
the chief arts writer for the Los Angeles Times. A former staff re-
porter for the Wall Street Journal, Isenberg has written several
articles for Time, Esquire, The Huffington Post, London’s Sunday
Times, Talk and The Nation.
Besides Conversations with Frank Gehry, Isenberg has au-
Alfred A. Knopf IN 1915, established a publishing house based
in New York, under his own name, which was later acquired by
Random House in 1960 and is currently known as the Knopf
Doubleday Publishing Group.
The publishing house not only published texts and journals
from the USA, but also countries from Europe, South America
and Asia, thus producing a vast variety of publications.
Since its founding, Alfred A Knopf has paid close attention
to graphic detail and typography, hiring several notable de-
signers. A trademark of the house, the year the book is pub-
lished is printed on the front page of the book, alongside the
name of the house.

L I B R A R Y
About the Book
Frank Gehry, a renowned architect of the current era requested
the author to help him organise his memories through an oral
history, and she agreed, having interviewed Gehry on a few
previous instances. These conversations were later so formally
organised that they resulted in the book.
What later becomes a direct interview begins as a close,
almost personal comment on the architect in the introduction
of the book. The author’s flair is almost scanty -her part later in
the dialogue being only to ask questions.
The print size is 18, and the paper in the book is sized
230mm x 185mm, straining the eye sometimes, and it could
have definitely done with some personal pictures from Gehry’s
life, instead of spreads of his models and sketches everywhere.
If the content isn’t talking about architecture at all times, the
images in the book shouldn’t either.
Isenberg describes Gehry as a man so passionate about
what he does, that she cleverly chooses to begin the intro-
duction with an anecdote-Gehry was required to get an MRI
scan, and while he was in the machine for over 45 minutes,
he had conjured the preliminary design for the Louis Vuitton
Foundation for Creation, a glass sheathed museum meant for
the Bois De Boulogne in Paris. She also goes on to paint a clear
picture of how Gehry Partners’ office, a sprawling one in LA, is
as cluttered as an architecture student’s desk at college- there
are fresh, new ideas mushrooming everywhere, little things
triggering ideas and spontaneous models of material found at
a hand’s detail. So much so that Tiffany’s launched a jewellery
range named after him, the designs credited to none other
than Gehry himself.
A humble but ornery man, Gehry comes across as calcula-
tedly erratic, his reasons being crystal clear to him and now his
colleagues. His sketches, which may seem as mere doodles to
the layman, are a direct reflection of his thoughts and are easily
interpreted by the people he works with. The author empha-
sizes on the doodles he makes, and how he’d rather describe
an image in strokes than words, printing an image of a man
who speaks little, but shows more, much more.
The introduction smoothly sketches the architect’s char-
acter and the environment he works in. However, the author
does ponder too much on the environment, per se. Another
take on this would be all these little things make him the Mas-
ter he is.
Without using an extravagant vocabulary, the interview is
compiled in simple, easy to read words, making it an engaging
read for people lacking an interest in books. Sentences may
have to be re-read, but only to grasp the simplicity a complex
mind functions with. The questions are direct and especially
cleverly asked to the extent of making the author a little un-
comfortable in certain instances.
The conversations cruise from his childhood as a bullied
Jew in a small town near Toronto to amongst the most sought
after architects in the past decade. He speaks with bitter sweet-
ness of how the ‘Star’ clung to him even after he changed his
name for Goldberg to Gehry, just so that his children could
avoid the childhood he had had. Inserts like this one tell you
that his journey has been tough, just as for the best of us. But
the difference is in the way you deal with them.
The facts covered may seem trivial initially, only to later
sum up to a greater picture. His struggles with money, work,
culture, his curiosity for material and the challenges he choos-
es to share with the author paint a reasoned picture of how
his decisions have brought him where he is. You may almost
develop a personal fondness for the architect by the end of
the book.
Another instance I particularly found relatable was when
speaks of playing with leftover wooden blocks-stacking them
as a primitive Lego set. He built buildings and bridges and cit-
ies, later realizing this as his “license to play “. At architecture
school, he claims everything was made “rational, mathematical
and logical,” but when you encounter childish desires-things
you did not think before doing twice; impulsive thoughts- you
cannot reason them out enough to actually execute them.
You question every little instinct, discard whatever that is not
backed by reason. Often, we confuse child-like with childish
and conditioning creativity sometimes leads to losing the vir-
tue all together.It must be noted that the book comes across
as quite revelatory about a public figure whose life isn’t quite
as public. Isenberg has been interviewing Gehry since the
1980s, and thus a sense of familiarity is established.
This book cannot be used as a direct reference to any of his
buildings. It summarizes his life not only as an architect, but
otherwise as a human as well. The conversation in several plac-
es goes back and forth, referring to little incidents from here
and there, compiling little, complete facts from his life mak-
ing him the man he is. I recommend this book first to readers
looking for some leisure reading first, than to those who are
looking for a quick reference to the architect. It can be used as
a very good reference to the architect, definitely-but not one
piece at a time.
The natural flow of conversation gives the trained eye an
insight into Gehry, and offers scope to reading between the
lines. The conversations at certain times play out quite clearly,
and you can imagine his tone and his body language while
answering as well. All in all, the book is a good read, but one
may run out of patience before getting to the end as it is a very
lengthy book. I would suggest the book particularly to those
interested in Gehry’s work first, because for a person who
doesn’t know his work, the book will go under appreciated.
One cannot rely on the book to develop a sudden fondness
for the architect within the reader, but if you have wondered
about the makings of the man more than the buildings itself,
this book is for you.
Heer Mehta
Faculty of Design
7 BOOKREVIEWS
 Charles and ray eames:
designers of the 20th
century
By Pat Kirham
Massachusetts, Cambridge MIT
Press, 1998, x, 486p.
Charles and Ray Eames, re-
ferred to as “The most influ-
ential design partnership” of
the 20th century by many,
were architects not only lit-
erally, but also figuratively of
the century. They ushered in
remarkable advances in furniture design, architecture, exhibi-
tion design, filmmaking, product designs. Innovating not only
in terms of designs and products but also in terms of tools,
ideas and means of communicating them.” The details are de-
tails. They make the product. It will in the end be these details
that give the product its life.”, this Charles Eames credo empha-
sized the importance of details in their design and thus vali-
dated their approach to design. Charles Eames, believed that
to be “written up” implied that one’s work was done , and was
firmly against it, which was the reason no book was published
on them during his lifetime. After their death various books
were written and a biographical movie was also made.
Pat Kirkham having earned PhD. from University of London
and B.A. in history from University of Leeds, had two main areas
of research, furniture and interior design, and issues of gender
and class across a wide range of design and film-related top-
ics; “Charles and Ray Eames :Designers of the Twentieth Cen-
tury” is along the same lines of design and biases of society.
Also she has analysed the Eameses’ output in terms of each
of the main areas of activity, pursued common threads and
highlighted differences. This book is not only an account of
facts gathered by the author but also links established which
guided the events, flow of ideas in the complex partnership of
two talented individuals and also the extraneous forces influ-
encing them, in terms of period, culture, people, associations
.The illustrations, along with quotes from influentials give an
insight into the period which led to so many developments.
Kirkham has divided the book into seven major categories
naming Early lives and works, A lifelong collaboration, Archi-
tecture, Functional Decoration, Furniture, Exhibitions, Films,
Multi-media and Multi screen Presentations. This governs the
flow of the book helping form a background before getting
into the details, thus creating a holistic view of them and their
works. Sanctity has been maintained by not dwelling on per-
sonal relationships till they directly had a role to play in influ-
encing them or their work relationships.
The section “Early lives and works” briefs the readers on the
duo’s upbringing, beliefs, education and early careers before
they moved to California. The gender division is also apparent
in labour and leisure interests “ He was the captain of the foot-
ball team - the active outdoor male - whereas she excelled in
what was seen as womanly sphere of decoration - chairing the
decoration committee for the schools’ annual football dance.”
L I B R A R Y
Their upbringing also impacted the kind of work they did.
Moving to Cranbrook , these two individuals met for the first
time .Charles had already been working and had arrived there
on fellowship while Ray was still a student .Ray looked up to
Charles as a mentor, father figure and eventually a lover and
a partner .Charles left his first wife and child, married Ray and
shifted to California.
A section in the book on this period says: “The creative cul-
tural environment of California and particularly Los Angeles,
offered the Eameses a conducive climate in which their talents
flourished. Their architecture drew on certain Southern Califor-
nian traditions that privileged the new and the individual, but
they repudiated the worst results of commercialism, uncon-
trolled growth, and an obsession with Book novelty and “show-
iness” which they considered had turned Los Angeles into an
“aesthetic nightmare””. The place, the architectural movements
then, and the people played a large part in helping the two
become who they are.
The second chapter, “Lifelong Collaboration” touches upon
the nature of the Eames office and acknowledges the efforts of
the team as a whole. The nature of this field of
design being complicated in terms of ideation is also de-
scribed here citing some examples which led the Eames office
to lose some of its best staff in the absence of due recognitions
for the projects. Also, certain cultural aspects are discussed,
these include the choice of clothes, interpretation of personal
relationships from images, and their beliefs
The third chapter is called “Architecture” and discusses the
pair’s contributions. Eames was greatly influenced by Frank Lly-
od Wright which can be prominently seen in his earlier work.
It is through the understanding of this earlier work that the
Eameses’ contribution to modernism can be understood. The
fourth chapter discusses functional decoration which made
the house a home . Eameses’ love for objects has been dis-
cussed in this part of the book . “What is surprising about the
items that the Eameses used in their interiors is the number
of craft items of the sort admired in the years 1890-1930 and
the fact that the Eameses collected , preserved , and displayed
some objects ‘that normally escaped preservation ‘, “ the book
says. The Eameses were industrial, but that does not mean that
their attitudes toward “folk” and “primitive” crafts were any less
romantic than those held by people completely antagonistic
to the machine, the book elaborates. There was much resis-
tance in accepting that Charles had a role in functional deco-
ration since decoration is seen to be extraneous to modernism
and was believed to be a job of a woman.
“Furniture” chapter is about the field considered to be cen-
tral to their work. Their experiments with forms , materials like
plywood , plastic and metal to produce cheaper furniture and
their deployment of technology made them stand apart from
most of the designers .They not only designed furniture but
also many of the tools were also customised for the making
of their designs. Apart from furniture they also designed toys,
games, and masks which were not that commercially suc-
cessful. Being interested in communicating ideas creatively,
chapter six discusses the exhibition design projects that the
Eameses office took up. Their exhibitions were often hailed as
visual delights. Along with that they played a huge role in giv-
ing computers a more human and user- friendly image.
The last chapter focuses on films multi-media and multi-
screen presentations, contextualising them within the post-
war developments in experimental and business filmmaking
and “communications theory”. They believed that films were a
very strong communication tool since they could control the
perception of the audience to some extent. Each of their proj-
Facing the City – Urban
Mission in 21st Century
By Rod Garner
London, Werrington, Epworth
Press, 2004, xv, 203p.
The book “Facing the city –
Urban Mission in 21st centu-
ry” is published by Epworth
Press, London. The books
published by this press most-
ly pertain to matters of reli-
gious beliefs. Epworth Press
started publishing books in
1949 and is well-known in London. The Press / publishing in-
dustry has also set up an “Interim Reference Group” comprising
of various experts in the field of literature, sociology, theology,
etc. in order to review all its books. The press mainly publishes
books pertaining to religion, theology and related issues and
debates.
About The Author:
Rod Garner is an Anglican priest, writer, and theologian. He has
worked with many different publishing houses. He is vicar of
Holy Trinity, Southport, Diocesan Theologian for the Anglican
Diocese of Liverpool, UK, and Hon. Canon of Liverpool Cathe-
dral, UK. Prior to ordination he was a group personnel manager
in a pharmaceutical company. He has served in urban commu-
nities combining parish ministry with a varied remit as a theo-
logical educator. He seems to have collected huge quantities
of intellectual and spiritual material, which he employs with
eloquence. Each spring, summer, and autumn he organises
short study events based on the topic of theology which are
open to all.
Some other remarkable works of Rod Garner are:
A.The Big Questions: Believing With Heart And Mind – 1995
B.The Torrington And Marland Light Railway – 2006
Special Purchase by CEPT Library:
• All issues of El Croquis journal.
• Complete set of Pamphlet Architecture journal
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ects have been discussed here briefly.
The photographs accompanying the text are informative
and helpful for the reader’s reference and understanding .The
author has been successful in establishing the intended con-
text and linkages in order to give an understanding of the larg-
er picture.
Priyanka Shah
Faculty of Design
C. Like A Bottle In The Smoke:
D. Meditations On Mystery – 2006
E.Josephine Butler: A Guide To Her Life, Faith, And Social Ac-
tions – 2009
F.On Being Saved - 2011
G.How To Be Wise: Growing In Discernment And Love – 2013
About The Book:
One may say that any city, irrespective of it location and con-
text, is known primarily by its tradition and values. Rod Garner
being a theologian and a priest in a religious city, examines
prostitution in “Facing the city: Urban Mission in the 21st cen-
tury.”, He relates his observation of the decline in the member-
ship and people’s involvement in religious places like churches
through his 20 years of service as a priest in England. His book
is a fine combination of appreciation as well as criticism of the
church as religious place, and also talks about its loss of identi-
ty as a social space. The author records some of his own expe-
riences of living in the city. He describes many different ways
to promote the role of the church in today’s urban envivtron-
ment. He scrutinizes the wide-ranging functions of the urban
environment in relation to religious spaces (here the church),
bound by the walls of tradition and values. The book is writ-
ten in the author’s own unique way of expression making it
capable of truly touching ones heart as it includes many short
stories, illustrations and poems.
The fascinating aspect of the book is that it not only states
the reasons for the failure of churches in cities but it also gives
some of the best examples of big cities to explain to us strate-
gies coming out of the current situation. Though the book fo-
cuses on London, I feel its toughts apply to Indian cities as well,
because religion is part of Indian life. Varanasi, Dwarka, Mathu-
ra, for example are now experiencing the urban influence of
the cities around them. This can be a guide to ameliorate these
Indian cities, as well as similar places around the world.
Shrujal Patel
Faculty of Planning
9 BOOKREVIEWS
 Housing by People:
Towards autonomy in
Building Environments
By John Turner
New York, Pantheon Books, 1977,
169p.
This book is written by John
Turner, a British architect
who has written extensively
on housing and communi-
ty organization. He studied
and advised on a number
of reconstruction and slum
upgrading programmes which were part of a nation-wide
community development initiative. He main focus has been
on housing. He also wrote another book called Urban Dwell-
ing Environments. This is a book about the problems created
by humans hankering after modernization and how the au-
thor, John Turner helped people in Peru by providing them
houses and facilities. The central question is: “who decides
what for whom”. The author studied several slums upgrading
programmes and self-help projects. By referring to them, he
helped slums and encouraged slum dwellers to fight for their
rights. In the end, what people do for themselves is more effi-
cient and more enduring. Housing, education and health are
important for all. But centralizied technology is more suited to
be used by the rich. It has become a personal and local matter
to choose between heteronomy and autonomy. Government
housing and private development are the same.
The author finds that dispersed capital and non-renewable
resources are expended without providing satisfactory and
economical housing. An example that exemplifies this failure is
the destruction of the Pruitt-Igoe project. The result of export-
ing industrial expertise and central planning to low-income
countries is extremely devastating. In Mexico City, “some of the
poorest dwellings, materially speaking, were clearly the best,
socially speaking, and some, but not all of the highest standard
dwellings, were the most socially oppressive.” For any common
person, their house is the best. Even in huts, people can serve
their families better than in modern houses - due to a num-
ber of variables that measure value like location and access to
people and places, security of tenure and transferability, priva-
cy and comfort. This suggests that greater economy is to be
derived from community resourcefulness than from industrial
productivity. People argue for “loose-fit” local housing systems
i.e. the system of investment of expensive construction and ex-
pansion. In sum, the book suggests that effective control over
housing should be in personal and local hands. The author
follows through with guiding principles and step by step pro-
grammes. The book will help readers focus on key questions
about housing. One such question is: why is it that “so many
houses over 400 years old are in a good condition, while so
many less than 40 years old are ready to be demolished?”
Krupal Sharma
Faculty of Planning

Why loiter? : Women and on women’s right to access public spaces. Though this sounds
risk on Mumbai streets easy on the face of it, as public space is accessible to every-
By Shilpa Phadke, Sameera Khan, one and there is no authority that needs to be approached
Shilpa Ranade for permission, however with a deeper understanding of the
New Delhi : Penguin Books, 2011, situation one realizes it is not as easy.
xiv,280p. The fact is that women are not able to access the space as
easily as men do, since public space for women is considered
Why loiter is a book to be necessary only when commuting from one place to other and
read by every citizen in ur- not for “loitering”. In order to feel more connected to public
ban India. It gives the read- space, they take alternate routes hence incurring risks. Factors
ers an insight into what it such as caste, modernity, and safety come into play in the sim-
takes for a woman to have ple act of strolling. In Mumbai, each space has a unique social,
fun and the different types cultural and political milieu.
of encounters she has to The stories and experiences shared by the people in the
face in order to overcome constraints, just to have fun. With its book make the reader question whether or not public spaces
lively style of writing, the book ushers readers into the world are truly safe. If they aren’t, then why are there no measures
of women who constantly make an effort to balance person- being taken to make them safer and why are women being
al and professional life with the maximum level of dedication ordered to stay home. If women rebel and take risks to access
and at the same time try to squeeze in activities that engage public spaces, why is it the character of woman that is ques-
their minds pleasantly. Society doesn’t approve of that fun and tioned, and not that of the society?
stipulates it as unnecessary. The book focuses on global cities Chapter 1, “City Limits”, talks about the broader aspect in
in India which aim to be more inclusive, yet even within these terms of understanding the current situation of the 21st cen-
cities women face problems. tury in Mumbai and in India in terms of gender, safety and re-
A simple thing like safe access to public spaces is not being lationship with the city.The chapter describes why of all plac-
given to women thus making women feel excluded from their es in India, Mumbai is chosen as an example to portray the
own city to the extent of feeling alienated from the very city relationship of spaces with women. Further describing why
they live in. With the example of Mumbai, the authors focus women are called “unbelongers” in contrast to men considered

L I B R A R Y
‘belongers’. It explores the importance of safety, women’s view
of safety, the notions behind the safety which is hidden in con-
servative sections of society and how it relates to the sexual
endogamy and the sexual relations within certain groups.
The next target is the parameters of value judgement used
to label a woman as “good” or “bad”. based on terms prescribed
by society. It shows how a place such as a bar can act as good
or bad based on what they do there. For a middle-class family
the parameters of a good girl are rooted in “Indian woman-
hood” followed by other virtues. From her very childhood a
woman is taught how to groom herself so that she creates the
image of a “good girl” in society and this leads to the virtue of
respectability which is the raison d’etre of Indian families. This
needs an almost perfect balancing between the inner world
of tradition and continuity and the outside world which is the
professional sphere and involves men. Therefore, there are in-
stances and demonstrations which are constantly shown by
women in order to prove “respectability” in the present times.
The next chapter, dealing with the “Lines of Control”, is very well
written in terms of exposition of how an Indian woman, right
from her birth, is taught to behave in a very conditioned way in
order to create a “good girl” image in the society. The examples
are well demonstrated to show the nervousness and the anxi-
ety in which she moves and holds herself. Even touching other
male by mistake is often taken as an enormous blunder. On the
other hand, by creating a “women’s only” compartment, free-
dom is restricted to a tiny and temporary capsule. These lines
of control are often manipulated by using excuses of religion
A place that women can access without worrying about
too many perils is the modern shopping mall. These malls give
women their freedom to shop the way they want to, while
avoiding what they call as “those men”. These places have
safety and security features which invite and attract women.
However the author goes on to explain how even these spac-
es become unsafe for women (or at least for her reputation) if
frequented during the night.
The daily stories from ordinary women from different walks
of life make an interesting reading. The chapter “In search of
pleasure”, contrary to what the name suggests, gives an insight
into women’s fears and anxieties and how they manage to find
some place and time to have fun and to loiter in the city in
A Place in the shade: The
new Landscape & Other
Essays
By Charles Correa
New Delhi, Penguin Books, 2010,
ix, 246p.
Cities are the centres of pow-
er; they mark the growth of
a country. Humans come to
cities with hopes and aspi-
rations, not only due to the
‘pull’ of their lights but also
spite of these fears and how they badly want to be a part of the
city and feel connected.
The book highlights a few ways in which women have
fun without breaching societal boundaries shaped by caste,
area, and family norms. The very word “pleasure” holds differ-
ent meanings for different women across the country. For a
long time, “pleasure” was a taboo word – and the pursuit of it
was as regulated as was the movement of women. Even today
the ease with which women can be themselves is determined
by space. In Bandra, for example, mini-skirts will not be con-
sidered inappropriate but in the conservative Chembur, they
might. The book considers the dress code of Muslim women as
well, and speculates on how women who wear such religious
attire deal with their need to have fun.
As for class and public places, the book suggests that girls of
all strata face difficulties. If the middle-class girls battle crowds,
the rich girls have the burden of appearances and status. On
the other hand, slum girls undergo another sort of mental tor-
ture: they are not allowed to go out unaccompanied; they are
usually minded by an escort, father or brother in most cases. In
the next section, two most sensitive matters are discussed: the
city at night and women who work at night. Even if working
for a respectable company in a respectable position, late hours
automatically attribute a bad impression to the woman, in the
eyes of her society.
The authors suggest that in spite of the confines and vari-
ous restrictions women still find their own little ways of finding
a pleasant release and their own ways of having fun. This how-
ever, is often achieved by them finding their own little world
inside the larger world of societal pressures and ultimately
leads to them moving inward instead of moving outward and
hence confining themselves to safer options and curbing their
sense of adventure/ exploration.
Finally, the book asks the readers these questions: What can
be done to make women feel safe in the outside world? What
can be done to make public spaces more inclusive? What can
politicians, designers and planners do to make women feel
welcome and secure in public spaces?
Pallavi M. Vishwanath
Faculty of Planning
because rural areas no longer support marginal earners. This im-
age of the city and the influx of people have led to quick devel-
opments, increase in density and therefore in urban problems.
This book is a collection of essays and lectures delivered
by the author and collated in various papers and journals. This
array of texts brings forth the author’s ideas about cities, their
architecture and ways of looking at them.
Correa’s understanding of the different elements that make
a city and his knowledge of the existence of multiple ideas of
urban development and the experiences of on-ground cir-
cumstances elevate the text much beyond its intent. He talks
not only about cities, their planning, their people but also ef-
fectively connects individual buildings to their settings, phi-
11 BOOKREVIEWS
losophy with politics, spirituality with practice, religion with
image, architecture with the perceptions of citizens and all
together with the making and functioning of an urban system.
The use of familiar examples like toy trains, the Sri Yantra,
Rangoli, temples of Ayodhya, palaces in Agra, historical caves
of Ajanta, the Mercedes, the hippies, the cyclists, figures from
history, mythology and the fables, help the reader easily relate
to the message being conveyed. Further, the illustrations with
photographs, architectural and conceptual drawings amplify
the analogies and the metaphors, and allow visual relief.
The reader — an architect, a planner, or a practitioner —
shall find in here multiple perspectives on Correa’s work and its
impact at different strata of a city.
Thirty-two essays are categorized under four titles: Architec-
ture, Planning, Education and Ideas, and The New Landscape.
Architecture:
The idea of forming new tracks of a train is as exciting to a
child as is a walk through a garden for an observant person.
The use of the same props to create different processes and
experiences is delightful. Correa astutely correlates this to the
various attitudes to architecture. The manifestation of archi-
tecture from religion, philosophy, society and a way of life is
explained through the idea of spatial pluralism that exists in
the Indian context.
The texts project the need to read a habitat as pragmatic,
functional and metaphysical implications of architecture; com-
prising of a hierarchy of spaces which are sometimes an extract
from memory.
The text explains a pluralistic construct of systems and
spaces. It mentions Emperor Akbar’s Durbar Hall; the court-
yard, the various spaces, transition through them, blurring
boundaries between the zones, light and air; the beauty of
Chandigarh and the daring step towards a new order, the con-
cept, the language of the buildings and its image; the need
for the museum as a separate typology in order to establish a
different connection. It ventures into the idea of energy and
humankind’s belief systems; its implications in our life as art
forms or as the principles of Vastu.
The text recognizes the changes in the public realm made
by the British interventions, the different typologies of build-
ings, the concept for a place, the use of right language and
the need to establish linkages between the past and future,
continuity and invention for growth.
This part also references the learnings from Corbusier and
from Kahn. The author discusses many projects and their logic
in an attempt to open the ‘volume-zero’
Planning:
This section discusses a Utopian scenario with a balance to
be attained between conservation and development and our
lives, supported by examples. It compares old buildings of Goa
to the new monstrous ones, the situation of the marine drive
in Bombay and the growth patterns in Delhi and Calcutta. It
interprets the interrelation between transport, tourism and the
scale of urban growth. Citing the examples of Srirangam and
Jerusalem, Correa acknowledges the importance of planning
L I B R A R Y
to suit the dreams and aspirations of a city which have reflec-
tions in its form.
These articles raise questions about the influence of po-
litical will towards the development of cities. The author also
mentions his concerns over the condition of urban centres
and management of our cities and towns.
The author reiterates his belief in the cities of India as cen-
tres of hope, economic growth and development.
Education and Ideas:
‘We don’t know if architecture can be taught, but we know
that it can be learnt’ says Correa that learning is to do with in-
dividual attitude. He talks of the different methodologies in
teaching and the role of experiential learning.
He uses many examples from the past centuries to explain
the character of a space and how architecture and planning re-
flect the social, cultural and the economic process amid which
they are set.
He annotates how generations of Indians learn stories of
Gandhi’s encounter with the moral dilemmas in life, as lessons;
illustrates the attitude we keep towards our landscape, and
the implications of religion and culture in them. Correa also
deciphers Corbusier’s insightful statement to make sure it’s the
right train!
Supported by examples of New York, Japan and Ayod-
hya, Correa explains the characteristics of homogenization
versus the identity of a place. His message that architecture
can unite us and enable acceptance of fellow beings comes
across with clarity.
The New Landscape:
Indian cities are mechanisms for social engineering that will
transform the country. This section explores the importance of
learning from the past to build an appropriate future.
With the increasing number of migrants in a city, the den-
sity, the distribution of resources and the political will play vital
roles in shaping a city. The job of a professional is to under-
stand the system and to fine-tune it. Correa explains this with
examples of different urban forms drawing connections be-
tween Amsterdam and Udaipur.
While moving to a city for a living, the will to survive has
forever dominated other requirements, amongst common
people. The major problem in urban centres is the accommo-
dation of the growing population. Here, space becomes the
key resource and transport, an important spine for growth.
Thus arises the need to develop context-specific strategies
as an approach to the issues involving the rich, the poor and
the middle class. The author, with his vast experience in the
realm of urban design and development perceives the avail-
ably of hope in the Indian subcontinent.
Initially, while flipping through the pages, the flow of
thoughts might seem discontinuous as the essays are ordered
in a linear manner. In the end, these pieces coalesce into a
clear picture.
As ones reads through the book, the stories, the message,
their relevance and the open-ended interpretation keep the
mind occupied until one flips to the last page to learn when
the text dates back to. From here on, the beauty of the book is
revealed as wisdom bloomed over half a century. This collec-
tion from over a period of 50 years, tests its relevance in the
present situation and its appropriateness for timelessness.
The essays bring forth ideas from different disciplines and
weave them seamlessly, as a continuation of ideas. While se-
quencing these articles, the author’s ability to correlate to an
article written way back in 1985 exhibits his experience and
expertise in this domain. The author, an architect, a planner
and a theoretician, demonstrates his abilities to understand a
Landscape of Man:
Shaping the Environment
from Prehistory to the
Present Day.
By Geoffrey Jellicoe and Susan
Jellicoe
London, Thames & Hudson, 1975,
400p.
“The world is moving into a
phase when landscape de-
sign may well be recognized
as the most comprehen-
sive of the arts. Man creates
around him an environment that is a projection into nature
of his abstract ideas. It is only in the present century that the
collective landscape has emerged as a social necessity. We are
promoting a landscape art on a scale never conceived of in
history.”
The Landscape of Man
Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe was an English architect, town planner,
landscape architect, garden designer and author. He believed
landscape architecture to be the “mother of all arts”. He has
carried out various projects which demonstrated his sensitivity
and keen sense of design, such as the grounds of the Royal
Lodge at Windsor, the Kennedy Memorial at Runnymede, and
Sutton Place, near Guildford, Surrey. He has written a number
of books like “Baroque Gardens of Austria” (1932), “Studies in
Landscape Design” (1960), “The Oxford Companion to Gar-
dens” (1986), and “The Landscape of Civilisation” (1989). He has
co-written the book under review with his wife, Susan Jellicoe,
who was a plant enthusiast, writer, editor and photographer.
This book is published by Thames and Hudson, one of the
leading publishing houses in the world for architecture and
art-related books. It was founded in 1949. It was the publishing
house’s mission to make “museums without walls”, and make
art more accessible to people, at affordable prices.
city in its pluralistic form, from perceiving its architecture to
understanding its politics.
The title provides a common ground to the range of ar-
ticles compiled here. To Correa, it also serves to give a sense
of a great banyan tree that shelters the diversities for viewing,
understanding and learning contextually in a country like ours.
Befittingly, he dedicates this ‘Place in the Shade’ to Ekalavya,
the learner, in all of us!
Arunima Shankar
Faculty of Architecture
The book is a concise study of designed landscape spaces
from both the past and the present. The book includes small-
scale gardens as well as urban and regional landscapes. These
topics have been dealt with in an objective fashion, and the
authors almost seems like they are looking at the planet as a
separate entity from outer space.
The book is divided into two major parts, Part I covers the
period from prehistory to 1700 AD (the year marks the death
of the great French landscape architect, Andre Le Notre). And
Part II deals with the period from 1700 AD to 1975, the latter
being the year of the book’s publication. The book has more
than 700 detailed illustrations and photographs.
The natural timeline of events in history is not linear and
hence for easier comprehension, the book has been classified
into three groups of civilisations:
• Central – from Mesopotamia
• Eastern – India, China, pre-Columbian America
• Western – From Egypt and on wards
The book comprises 25 sections. Each section in Part I is
further divided into six broad categories: environment, social
history, philosophy and more physical categories like archi-
tecture, expression and landscape. The sections in Part II also
cover topics like economics.This book is a comprehensive look
at the history and evolution from natural prehistoric forests to
more designed landscapes within a set framework.
This book is a must read for all students of architecture and
landscape architecture. The book is really easy to use and is
very concise. It is packed with information and illustrations,
making the history and the evolution of humans’ relationship
with landscape much simpler to learn. The division of history
into parts helps in breaking down complex ideas of human in-
teraction with nature. The book sums up the nuances of each
period very briefly, but thoroughly, making it a effective for
quick referencing.
Sreedevi Mohan
Faculty of Architecture
13 BOOKREVIEWS
 Knoll design
By Eric Larrabee and Massino
Vignelli
New York, Harry N. Abrams Inc.,
1981, 307p.
In the book Knoll design by
Eric Larrabee published by
Harry N. Abrams Inc is an ac-
count of Knoll, a design firm,
which was established in
1938 by Hans Knoll.
Abrams Books is dedi-
cated to publishing visually
stunning illustrated books on the subjects of art, architecture,
photography, graphic design, interior and garden design, fash-
ion, comic arts and graphic novels, sports, and general interest.
This book stands as an amalgamation of information collected
by not only Larrabee but many others such as Richard Saul Wil-
liam, who gave the original concept on a book on the history
of Knoll; Christian Rae; and Massino Vignelli.
Larrabee was a magazine editor, author, arts administrator,
teacher and champion of the arts. He was an effective public
speaker and that is reflected in how he has tried to provide a
tremendous amount of data in such an effective way by show-
ing methods of working of different designers with large sized
pictures of their work. The data was collected by different peo-
ple and the Knoll’s research staff along with Larrabee .Research
on the beginnings and the history of Knoll was collected in the
form of taped interviews with some of the designers of the hun-
dreds who contributed their designs to Knoll at many intervals.
Knoll is a design firm that produces office systems, seating,
files and storage, tables and desks, textiles (Knoll Textiles), and
accessories for office, home, and higher education settings. In
its initial chapters the book focuses on the people associated
with the firm who enriched its identity. Background, percep-
tions and methods of working of individuals like Hans Knoll,
Mies Van Der Rohe, Charles Eames, Eero Saarinen, Jens Risom,
Franco Albini, Florence Knoll and many others have been dis-
cussed substantially.
The spotlight is this book is on furniture design. Furniture
elements are described from aspects like material, the period
they were made in, their form and the process of designing.
The book also has chapters on production that helps the read-
er learn about furniture elements. The latter part of the book
covers the other aspects of design such as graphics, textiles,
and exhibitions. Here, data delineates the aim of different
departments in Knoll such as the textile department which
not only provided textiles to the furniture made in Knoll but
also enrolled many designers to improve its own dignity and
stood as an independent operating entity even as the graphics
department had to merge with the furniture unit in order to
advertise. The graphics chapter also displays lots of images of
effective advertisements of its own products. But the DNA of
the content of the book would be the “designers”.
Misari Patel
Faculty of Design

The Fundamentals of The Publishers-

Interior Architecture
By John Coles and Naomi House
Switzerland, AVA Publishing SA,
2007, 176p.
The Authors-
John Coles, Diploma in Ar-
chitecture from the Oxford
School of Architecture,
worked as Art Director at
BBC Television. He is current-
ly the programme leader for
the MA Interior Architecture
and Joint Programme Leader for the BA Honors Interior Archi-
tecture and Design course at the Middlesex University. Apart
from design, he has pioneered work in computers for visualiza-
tion and programme production.
Naomi House, the co-author, studied interior design at
Middlesex University and earned an MSc in the History of
Modern Architecture from the Bartlett School of Architec-
ture, University of College London. Since 2001, she has been
working as a university lecturer, now practicing as a Joint Pro-
gram Leader of Interior Architecture and Design at Middlesex
University.
AVA Publications, located in Switzerland, now publishes books
under Fairchild Books imprints under Bloomsbury Publications.
The initial thought was to break the notion of textbooks and
rethink for a visually literate audience. The publication offers
a wide range of books in various fields like applied visual arts,
graphics, design, illustration, animation, advertising, photogra-
phy, fashion and architecture.
The Book-
The Fundamentals of Interior Architecture, published in 2007,
has been revised 14 times between 2007 and 2015. As the
name suggests, the book gives a basic outline of what one
would define as the fundamentals when Interior Architecture
is thought about. The book is divided into five chapters, each
one in close relation with the other. Full of illustrations, this
book encapsulates basic knowledge and skills that are em-
ployed for taking spatial decisions. It’s like a list of steps on how
to go about designing interiors and architecture. Prime focus
is laid on how to deal with interiors taking care of all the other
factors such as form, light, materials and textures, and so on.
The book also provides alternatives on how to present ideas to
oneself and the audience for visual clarity and hence develop
design easily and more efficiently.
The first chapter, Space/Form, discusses the importance of
correlation between elements and their composition in space.

L I B R A R Y
With appropriate examples, the chapter focuses mainly on ex-
ploring ways in which existing buildings and structures affect
minds of designers and clients. It throws light on important
factors like proportions, movement, scale, vista, transitions and
accessibility which together help in providing meaning to the
design process.
The second chapter, Site/Function explains the relation-
ship between what we design for and the design itself. Be it
the clients, their needs or the building or the site- everything
has to fall in place, in a specific rhythm. With this basic learning,
the chapter covers topics like position and orientation of the
built form, its typology, structure and the services required for
the built form to serve its purpose successfully and as efficient-
ly as possible. It also includes the importance of basic utility
services and their effects on the entire function of the building.
It also discusses the different types of spaces and categorizes
them in broad groups, describing the purpose and function of
each space.
The third chapter, Materials/Texture, is about how materials
play an inseparable and unavoidable part in a design process.
It gives an overview of different materials and their natural tex-
tures, as well as different finishes that can be used to either hide
or enhance the physical appearance of any particular material.
It discusses the importance of both, the integral and the intro-
duced parts of any building and the correlations of the two. It
further describes how one could, as an interior architect, select
appropriate materials, based on different functions and needs.
The fourth chapter, Light/Mood, talks about the most im-
Mumbai fables
By Gyan Prakash
New Delhi, Harper Collins Pub. India
Pvt. Ltd., 2011, xi, 396p, 17plates.
Justifying its title “Mumbai
Fables” ,the book gives the
reader a verbal and un-
declared historical break-
through that the fascinat-
ing metropolis Mumbai has
phased through, tracing its
linage of what ‘Bombay” was
and what ‘Mumbai” is.
The author, Gyan Prakash is a historian of modern India
and the Dayton-Stockton Professor of History at Princeton Uni-
versity. Although he was not born in the city, his attention to
and liking for it developed later, owing to which he weaves
a stimulating storyline about Bombay, leading the reader
through an engrossing mix of events, presented through var-
ied genres, gripping true stories, familiar strands of history run-
ning through the narrative and constructing a kaleidoscope of
a mesmerizing legend.
The book is recommended to readers who live in the great
metro and have always been fascinated by it. The book provides
a quirky insight as a guide, bringing to light the cultural fusion
that informs the spirit of the city and is thematically structured
portant factor affecting any space, i.e. light. It discusses how
important it is for a designer to develop sensitivity and sensi-
bility towards light to create eloquent spaces and everlasting
experiences. It talks about the importance of artificial as well as
natural light and their effects on the space as a whole as well
as in bits and pieces. The chapter provides basic knowledge as
to how one can control and manipulate light and shadows to
create dramatic effects and enhance the quality of the space
and materials used.
The fifth chapter, Presentation/Representation, throws
light on the most important part of the design process. Spaces
need to be felt by clients in a virtual world, even before they
can actually get to see and experience them in reality. This is
where presentation techniques play the most crucial role in a
design process. The chapter highlights techniques that can be
used to express a design clearly. It discusses the key stages in a
design process and the importance of each and every stage in
the design process, be it scribbling down a hazy image of your
design or managing the project.
With ample examples from around the world, the book
provides basic information about design and different aspects
in relevance to it and the spell it can cast on the client or the
viewer. The book, written in simple language, also consists of a
few important definitions, which make it easier for the reader
to understand the technical terms in design and construction.
Priyanka Kapoor
Faculty of Design
and well segregated into different chapters addressing varied
topics and historical events like the portrayal of major figures
in the opium and cotton trades, the sensational reporting of
the Blitz tabloid, and the horrific monsoons of the past decade,
with different narratives of the City, which are discussed under
nine chapters.
The Mythic City:
The book begins with a striking passage from an unpublished
book by a Parsi. Then follows his account of fascination with
the city, which has always been identical with Hindi cinema.
He states that for Indians “New Delhi was just a just a dull seat
of government, heavily laden with a bureaucratic ethos, and
Madras was too culturally and linguistically remote. Although
far away, it was Bombay that held the promise of exciting new-
ness and unlimited possibilities.”(pg 5)
But the frame of mind changes when the author elabo-
rates on the current dreadful dilemma of the city by citing the
‘Outlook’ report on Mumbai in 2002, which had striking statis-
tics and facts of the ever growing population and slums that
have brought the city to a breaking point.
The Colonial Gothic:
This chapter reaches back to the 16th century Portuguese and
British administration to disclose the stories behind Mumbai’s
historic journey. It explores Mumbai’s role as the symbol of
prospects and reinvention.
15 BOOKREVIEWS
 The author goes on to narrate the catastrophic Mumbai
floods, bomb blasts, the terrorist attacks and proceedings that
“brought forward the frame of ‘crisis’ to represent Mumbai’s
condition”.
The City on the Sea:
A splendid urban vision had become the new picture for the
City, eyeing the Backbay as a source of profit with grand plans
for parks, avenues, and public buildings, to paint a modern
visual urban scape. Spurred by technological improvements,
it lead to aestheticization, blowing with the winds of cultural
change, inviting writers, musicians, and actors a like. But there
was a downside to this fascinating city, where women, chil-
dren and coolies slept on sidewalks and in gutters, highlight-
ing burning streets and sweating people who survive, building
a huge contrast between the elite and the poor.
The Cosmopolitan and the Nation
With constant migration, people were inhabiting, exploring
and surviving Bombay’s modern life. The seeming cosmopoli-
tan character of the City was lost when the British government
sent a cabinet mission to transfer power, leading to loss of
identity of the inhabitants of Bombay torn apart by partition.
As a distraught Jan Nisar Akhtar revealed:
“The flower lost its colour the moment it was touched
The garland had yet to be braided when it came undone...
It’s not only my dreams that have been looted and pillaged, it’s
me”... (pg 147)
The Tabloid and the City
The tabloid Blitz covered the sensational story of Abuja’s mur-
der, with ingredients of drama, extramarital affair, jealousy and
fatal rage. The focus of the drama was decidedly upscale re-
ceiving relentless press attention. Such a ‘crime of passion’ as
it was termed, was unusual, especially in the upper stratum of
the society, setting the stage for influence of Bal Thackeray and
his Shiv sena.
From Red to Saffron
This movement was ‘dreaming Marathi’, a phase in which Bom-
bay is rocked by linguistic regionalism. This chapter gives the
reader a brief examination of Bal Thackeray’s captivating po-
litical personality, and his party’s methods of operation and
controversial role in attacks (verbal and physical) on the non-
Marathis.
As stated by the author, “The chief architect of this funda-
mental change in Bombay’s political landscape was Thacker-
ay...he was the original ‘angry young man’...and a defiant voice
of the people” (pg 250)
Planning and Dreaming
As India underwent rapid urbanization, with people flocking
to cities, Bombay was considered as an apple of the country’s
L I B R A R Y
eye, with immense economic opportunities. This mass influx
had led to maturity of urban crisis. Hence there was a sense
of urgent need to shift towards urban planning, brought to
attention by three young professionals, Charles Correa, Pravina
Mehta and Shirish Patel who proposed the development of a
twin city for Bombay. The New Bombay plan received the full
approval of Mulkraj Anand. But Modak and Mayer, the new age
planners envisioned Bombay as a city in motion and suggest-
ed the expansion of the East-West transportation links to fos-
ter orderly development ,even thought this was not their final
blueprint. The idea was to build organic urban spaces to meet
the needs of capitalist industrialization.
This dream had gone sour; New Bombay never became
a counter magnet to Bombay, but struggled (and still strug-
gles) to find takers, other than the constant poor migrants
who came in large number, while Bombay still reeled under
the burgeoning population, inappropriate management and
expensive infrastructure.
Avenger on the Street:
The popular comic series on ‘Doga’, a superhero who is devot-
ed to defend the city of Bombay by defying authority to blow
criminals away, does not deploy his personal rule and brings
the reader to understand the invariable threat posed to the
rule of law.
“Mumbai’s society is diverse...but it has no foundational
structure, no primordial ties of kin, caste, or religion...the thread
that holds together Mumbai’s disparate social, cultural, and
political fabric is the everyday practice of human interactions...”
(pg 324)
Dream Worlds:
If escalating struggles produce despair, they also generate
grand visions. Even in the biggest slum of Asia, Dharavi, there
is a flourishing economy.
The author states that, “This myth of the modern city was
once powerful, globally influential saga...colonialism gave birth
to this dream world” (pg 347).The everyday practices of today’s
Mumbai life reject history.
In the author’s words, “My goal is not to strip fact from fic-
tion, not to oppose the ‘real’ to the myth, but to reveal the his-
torical circumstances portrayed and hidden by the stories and
images produced in the past and the present.”(pg 23)
The book is written in a linear fashion with a smooth flow
of history, facts, events, experiences, imaginations, desires and
society, all enriching the mythic of the city, illustrated through
graphics and stories. The author has had encounters which
help the reader to rationalize and understand the city’s biogra-
phy for which “The World is watching, and Mumbai is Waiting”
(pg 329)
Noelene Yesudas
Faculty of Planning
 Small Is Beautiful: A Study
Of Economics As If People
Mattered
By E.F. Schumacher London, New
York, Vintage books, 1993, xi, 259p.
About author:
Ernst friedrich “fritz” schum-
acher was born in bonn, ger-
many, on 16th august 1911.
His father was a professor
of political economy. He at-
tended school in bonn and
berlin, then went to england
in 1930 as a rhodes scholar at new college, oxford, to study ec-
nonomics.later at the age of 22,he started teaching econom-
ics at columbia university. Schumacher wrote on economics
for london’s the times and became one of the paper’s chief
writers and for ‘the economist and resurgence’. He served as
adviser to the indian planning commission, as well as to the
governments of zambia and burma – experiences that led to
his much-read essay “buddhist economics”.
He was the first of the ‘holistic thinkers’ of the modern
green movement. The 1973 publication of small is beautiful:
a study of economics as if people mattered, a collection of es-
says, brought his ideas to a wider audience. The phrase “small
is beautiful” came from a phrase by his teacher leopold kohr.
Dr. E. F. Schumacher was awarded the cbe in 1974.in 1976, he
received the prestigious award prix européen de l’essai charles
veillon for “small is beautiful”. He died on 4th september 1977.
About the publisher
Vintage first published the “small is beautiful” book in 1993.vin-
tage is the publishing imprint established in 1954 by alfred a.
Knopf in the united state and in the united kingdom. Its head-
quarters is located in new york. Other imprints of the group
are knopf, doubleday, pantheon, schocken, anchor, vintage
espanol, weekly lizard, nan a. Talese and everyman’s library. Al-
fred a. Knopf was founded in 1915 and has been known as the
publisher of distinguished hardcover fiction and nonfiction.
The company was purchased by random house in april 1960.
Content of book: Book is divided into four different parts:
1. The modern world has essays on sustainability and scale.
Modern humans don’t think as a part of nature but as an out-
side force always wanting to conquer it. The illusion of unlim-
ited powers, nourished by astonishing scientific and techno-
logical achievements, have produced the concurrent illusion
of having solved the problem of production. There is universal
agreement on the fact that a fundamental source of wealth
is human labour. Production by the masses, rather than mass
production should be the key.
2. Resources discuss land, education, energy and technology.
We have enough money to be able to afford products which
have been organically grown, without the use of production.
Humans whether civilized or savage, are the children of nature.
It is irrational for humans to treat things that they have not
made( and cannot make cannot recreate once they are spoilt
in the same manner and spirit) as humans are entitled to treat
the things of their own making. The trouble stems from what
technology has enabled us to do: reduction in amount of time
spent on production.
3. The third world gets deep into the similarities and differ-
ences between economic systems in “our world” and a poor
village. A key point of the chapter is that workplaces have to
be created in the areas where people live. An irony is also re-
vealed: we continue to go to the poor and demonstrate to
them all the marvelous things that they could do if they were
rich. To restore the proper balance between the city and rural
life is perhaps the greatest task for society. As of now, the role
of the poor is to be gap-fillers for society’s requirements.
4. Organisation and ownership discusses different types of
ownership structures and how their incentives serve society.
An organization’s fundamental task is to achieve smallness
within large. The essence of private enterprise is the private
ownership of the means of production, distribution and ex-
change. Human can only have knowledge of the past but fu-
ture is always in the making. But it is being made largely out of
the existing material , about which a great deal can be known.
The denial of freedom, of course, is the denial of responsibility:
there are no acts, but only events. Future can’t be forecast but
it can be explored. So large organization will consist of many
semi-autonomous units. The author has described all the fac-
tors that can affect our environment and resources. He sug-
gests minimum and optimum utilization of our resources. He
wants the future generations to be aware of the amount of
natural resources available on Earth. It is interesting to see the
way he has taken into consideration the different issues - de-
velopment, technology, unemployment, land and ownership
- which he says will pose problems in the future.
Kinjal B. Prajapati
Faculty of Planning
17 BOOKREVIEWS
 Indian Architecture: Hindu,
Buddhist and Jain
By Surendra Sahai
New Delhi,
Prakash Books, 2006, 235, vip.
“Indian architecture: Hin-
du Buddhist Jain “by author
Surendra Sahai is a book that
gives us a glimpse of the rich
and kaleidoscopic architec-
ture that India possesses.
The book is a tribute to the
inexhaustible and glorious
cultural heritage of India.
It takes you along the pages of history beginning from the
Mauryan Period in the third century B.C.E. The genesis of Indian
architecture can be traced back to the monumental architec-
tural remains of the Harappan civilization. The main chapter
helps understand of the evolution of Indian history from the
highly advanced Indus Valley civilization to the glorious Bud-
dhist construction. The deciline of Mauryan power is followed
by the emergence of Gupta rulers in the fourth and fifth cen-
turies and the materialization of rock-cut architecture which is
exemplified by the Ajanta and Ellora caves. Each cave is por-
trayed from a descriptive architectural point of view empha-
sizing its proportion, its religious basis, what it epitomizes and
highlighting its architectural features.
The Chalukyas rise to power in the sixth and seventh cen-
tury and their reign was the cradle of different architectural
styles like the rock-cut temples at Badami, northern and south-
ern Shikara styles at Pattadakal and stone temples recreating in
stone the wooden prototype at Lad Khan and other temples in
Aihole like the sculptural ornament of the Virupaksha temple.
Chalukyas were credited with experimentation in various styles
which later evolved to maturity at different regional centers.
Subsequently came the rule of Pallavas and the begin-
nings of the Dravidian Temples in south India which brought
the monolithic form and the first ever splendid structural tem-
ples on the seashore: Mamallapuram(Mahabalipuram). All the
rathas are described in detail: the main notion from where
their roots emerge, the intricate facade of the cave temples
among other aspects. Along with them, the temples such as
the ones located in Kanchipuram i.e. Kailasanatha and Vaikun-
tha Perumal are mentioned in detail.
After 800 C .E comes the Karnata- Dravida order which
displays the rich heritage of the lands of Tamil Nadu , Karna-
taka and Andhra Pradesh. Here were dynasties like the Cholas
who built modest temples with plain exterior like the Brihad-
isvara temple, Chalukyas who provided grounds for develop-
ing diverse forms of temple architecture in the Nagara, Dra-
vida and also the mixed or the Vesara style , Hoysalas tribal
leaders who showed maturity in style and built temples at
Bellur, Halebid and Somnathpura. They relied heavily on mul-
tiplication and elaboration rather than on experiments and
innovations. Vijaynagara dynasty had superb engineering
L I B R A R Y
skills and built temples with modest proportions; and Pan-
dyas and Chandellas are identified with temples patronized
by royalty and supported by the merchant community and
individual donors. During this age, many great temples were
built as a subtle statement of political power and prosperi-
ty of the state legitimizing the rulers authority and ensuring
support of the religious group. This led to the construction
of many temple towns. A shift from the architecture of South
India to the architecture of west India is seen in the book. The
varied heritage of Gujarat and Rajasthan is now brought out
termed as the Gurjara- Maru and Bhumija order. The author
takes us through the rule of Solanki dynasty and showcas-
es structures at Palitana, Modhera, Jaisalmer among others.
Central India exhibits the Chandella architecture though -
Khajurao temple portraying religion, faith and philosophy.
The architecture of the Himalayan States like Kashmir hous-
ing Buddhist architecture and Himachal Pradesh having tim-
ber architecture is also talked about. The last chapter gives us
a peek into the heritage housed by the land of Orissa like the
Lingaraja temple and Konarak sun temple
The book gives us compact yet descriptive information
about the architectural construction in India. The readers are
guided step by step with crisp facts and figures and evocative
writing which can only be achieved through analysis and a lot
of research. Supporting the book’s theme are varied pictures
which help readers get a better grasp on what they are reading
and also help them visualize. Although informative, had they
been linked and referenced with the text, it would have given a
better understanding especially to the general readers. There is
also an informative bibliography (chapter wise) which enables
readers to gain more information and refer to more books on
the subject. At the beginning of each chapter, background
knowledge regarding a dynasty or a ruler is given which helps
readers gain better perspective. The importance of materials
and design patterns and methodology of construction is also
analyzed in few chapters. A point is highlighted by emphasiz-
ing on a variety of examples exhibiting the same feature. For
example, a particular style of Shikara seen in a variety of tem-
ples brings out the similarities. Also, a comparison between
various types of architecture is undertaken; for example, be-
tween south and north architectural style of Shikara, entrance
gateways or Gopura or Prakaras.
Apart from architecture brief descriptions of the Vedic sys-
tem, history and life of Gautama Buddha and Mahavir Jain,
Puranic Brahmanism and Bhakti movement as well as Vastu-
shastra are presented, giving us the basis of architecture, its
influences and its symbolism.
The book has been segregated into different time zones.
Hence a parallels between different types of architecture can
be drawn. Each era has been given significant space and a lot
of details have been furnished. It also provides a detailed study
of the three types of architecture on which the book is based.
It is a well-researched book.
Aakanksha Rebello
Faculty of Technology
 The Eyes of the Skin:
Architecture and the
Senses
By Juhani Pallasmaa
Great Britain, Wiley-Academy,
2005, 80p.
Juhani Pallasmaa brings in
the concept of architecture
and the senses through his
writing titled ‘The Eyes of The
Skin’. The book deals with the
notion that architecture is
now put forth as a visual ex-
perience, lacking design that
caters the other human senses. One can see the author’s urge
and desperation to open the eyes of architects and designers
to go beyond design- that is only meant to be seen, to de-
sign- that is felt, smelt and touched too. He presents this with
strong references of other’s works where the concept has been
manifested.
The book seems applicable to an audience of all age
groups and also cuts across the design-field barrier to an ex-
tent, making it readable for anyone interested in experiencing
architecture. Students and young architects could have been
the main focus, as this book shows potential in changing the
face of architecture as it is emerging today.
Though the point noted here seems easy to imbibe, it is
presented in a philosophical manner. But all this comes within
a slim 70 page book. It is easy to carry along and could be a
very fruitful weekend read. The book definitely enters a num-
ber of student readers’ wish lists, though actually reading this
might be a serious task.
The cover page comes with Caravaggio’s painting The In-
credulity of Saint Thomas, an abstraction of ‘doubting Thomas’-
someone who believes only on seeing. The illustrations and
pictures used in the book are complex yet intriguing. They all
seem to be well planned and placed as a part of the narrative
that this book tries to create. They aren’t mere images to ex-
plain literally, but are indeed thought-provoking hints to grasp
the concept.
The book comes from the Wiley Academy, a highly regard-
ed publisher. Charles Wiley, a 25 year old American opened
a small printing shop near Manhattan in 1807. This shop has
now grown into one of world’s largest publishing houses. In 50
years of its opening, they broadened their focus from literature
to agriculture, design, construction and even works of great
Nobel laureates. Hence, this tag adds to the authenticity that
this book carries within it.
Haripriya Vellodi
Faculty of Design

How buildings learn, what The pictures in the book are most interesting to see. The
happens after they are ‘before-after’ photographs of the famous buildings show
built whether the designs manage to stand the test of time and use.
by stewart brand I was particularly interested in the bibliography of the book,
Penguin Books India pvt. Ltd., New where the author reviews each of the books he referred to and
Delhi, 1995, viii,243p. the theories and arguments he personally liked about each
book. It makes his research more believable and interesting.
About the Author “The building is a not what you finish, it is what you start.”
STEWART BRAND born in All buildings change over time but very few buildings age
1938, (Illinois) is a biologist, gracefully, so it is necessary to accept these changes to let
writer and socialist. He is buildings last longer, argues Brand.
also the editor of the famous The research in the book is immense and has many dif-
‘Whole Earth Catalogue’. ferent views, ideas on the buildings, changes, construction
techniques, market values, money and architectural practices,
About the Publisher users and old buildings.
The first Edition was under the ‘Viking publishers’, a part of ‘Pen- The Main argument of the book is about the approach of
guin publishers’ then. The later editions were published under architects towards their buildings, how they design, execute
‘Penguin books’, one of the most recognised publishers. The and then forget about them.
book was also made into a television series by BBC in 1977, The sub-arguments of the book are:
with the author as the Presenter. Adaptive building or why and how buildings should allow
their users to adapt by appropriating spaces their own way.
About the Book Brand validates his arguments by saying ‘function’ of a building
The title of the book, ‘How Buildings Learn: What Happens is not predictable and it varies based on the users. A building
After They Are Built’ very well suggests what to expect from should be strong and have all possibility to change. For this,
the book. The first look of the book (‘before- after’ picture of a he suggests examples from the older & traditional methods
building in New Orleans, United States) is as interesting as its ti- of building a house, how they changed, also how there was
tle. The book doesn’t have an introduction but the first chapter an active involvement of the users at different stages of the
of the book clearly expresses author’s idea of research through building construction. “User-friendly buildings encourage the
the book. In fact, at ‘page 11’ of the book, each chapter of the user to love the space and feel it of their own.”
book is briefly introduced. The second sub-arguement is that buildings should be

19 BOOKREVIEWS
able to last longer. More importance should be given to the
structure of the buildings than to the exterior facade. This is
expalined with the help of lessons from old buildings, since
he believes they have lasted so long and anything new can-
not replace them better. “Age plus adaptivity is what makes a
building come to be loved.”
Third, Brand strongly criticises the modern theories and
practices of celebrated architects. He discusses the buildings
and forms that don’t work. According to him, this should be
a part of architectural education because people learn faster
from others’ mistakes.
Further, giving a brief of each chapter since every chapter
discusses different issues and approach on changing building
and techniques.
Chapter 1 – Flow :
Introduces us to the author’s idea about the book. Gives an un-
derstanding of how the commercial, institutional and domes-
tic building all change differently because of their use type.
The three forces changing the Buildings: Technology, Money
and Fashion.
Chapter 2- Shearing Layers :
Defines layers of buildings, with an interesting diagram (in-
spired by Frank Duffy, a well-known architect) explaining their
sequence, for changing buildings. These layers are ‘site, struc-
ture, skin, services, space plan and stuff’, discussed in detail
how they change.
The next two chapters are mostly about the examples of
this chapter. It discusses inhabitant, building and changes.
Chapter 3 – Nobody Cares What You Do In There: The Low Roads :
This chapter discusses buildings that are overlooked and not
celebrated but nevertheless have been existing for longer and
the people inside are happy and satisfied. Such buildings he
claims are more empowering and active.
He also discusses the basic idea of the need of storage
space which modern houses lack.
Chapter 4- Houseproud: The High Road:
Discusses the buildings of the rich, which were hard to main-
tain during lean times. Changes in Domestic and Institutional
building of high road of are compared through photographs
and sketches, which is very engaging.
Chapter5 – Magazine Architecture: No Road
This chapter criticises architectural practices, modernism,
awards and education.
Extremely critical of the works of Sir James Stirlings build-
ing at Cambridge(1967), Richard Roger’s Pompidou Centre,
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water and Buck Minister, Fuller’s
Geodesic Domes.
The author criticises magazines and awards, where the
buildings are appreciated with only the looks stating that for
them architecture is based on image not based on process.
They should instead, consider the reliability, life cycle be-
haviour, environmental impact, user acceptance, compatibility
L I B R A R Y
and ease of disassembly of a building.
“We need to honour buildings that are loved rather than
merely admired.”
The author argues that architects seldom revisit their build-
ings, to check if the buildings work properly or if the organic
changes in the building over time are appropriate for the users.
Chapter 6 - Unreal Estate :
This chapter mainly discusses market trends, money and cities.
Understanding of ”market value” and the “use value”.
“There should be more [money] in basic structure, less in
furnishes, more in maintenance and adaptation.”C.Alexander
Chapter 7 – Preservation: A Quite, Populist, Conservative,
Victorious Revolution
Old buildings were built to last and show age well. The efforts
and methods, by various organisations, towards preserving
buildings are discussed. Like the Victorian Gothic Revival, Na-
tional Trust, English Heritage in the UK. National Trust for His-
toric Preservation in the US and The Secretary of the Interior’s
Standards for Rehabilitation.
Chapter 8- The Romance Of Maintenance :
Speaks of the need and use of maintenance of a building. The
cost of high and low maintenance buildings.
Chapter 9 - Vernacular: How Buildings Learn To Form Each
Other :
This chapter is about a vernacular approach to new buildings.
Vernacular building historians concentrate less on the style of
buildings and more on when it was built, how it’s changed,
how it was used, the technology used to build it, etc. Giving ex-
amples of Extremely successful house forms: Cape Cod house,
bungalow and mobile home.
Chapter 10 – Function Melts Form: Satisficing Home And Office:
The main ideas in this chapter are on appropriation of spaces
like Porches & Garages.
Space for which users could find a ‘Satisficing’ appropria-
tion better than that assigned by the interior designers.
The chapter also discusses the idea of the open office, and
issues related to it, describing it as “Cave and commons” offices
— small office per person opening onto a communal space —
balancing privacy and interactivity.
Chapter 11 – The Scenario- Buffered Building:
Discusses spaces and basic Thumb Rules for strategic building
designers.
“All buildings are predictions. All predictions are wrong.”
Chapter 12- Built For Change :
This chapter is a summary of the book and explains what our
priorities should be when designing a building. The designer
needs to choose between taking the High or Low Road either
way the structure should be built to last 300 years.
Apurwa Agarwal
Faculty of Design
 Exploring Architecture
Building Meaning &
Making
By Eleanor Gawne
V & A Publications , London, 2004,
192p.
Authors :
Eleanor Gawne is a creator
of Manuscripts & Archives
in the British Architectural
Library, Royal institute of Brit-
ish Architects. She is a mem-
ber of the V&A+RIBA Archi-
tectural Gallery team & archivist at the Royal Institute of British
Architects. Michael Snodin is Head of the Design Section of the
V&A’s Word & Image Department and senior curator in the V&A
+ RIBA architecture partnership. He has written and lectured
extensively on design.
Publisher :
V&A Publishing makes beautiful, highly illustrated, innovative
and popular books on art and design, generating profit for
the V&A museum. Types of publication include collection cat-
alogues, guide books, picture books, topical studies, mono-
graphs, periodical articles, leaflets and catalogues of exhibitions
organized by or held at the Museum or any of its branches.
RIBA Publishing is owned by the Royal Institute of British
Architects (RIBA) & provides high quality information for archi-
tects.
In the book “Exploring Architecture”, buildings of different
era are described along with illustrations luring the reader to
explore further. The images shown (150 color, 75 black and
white illustrations) help to understand the design. The book
encompasses buildings from ancient and modern architecture
from across the world. The buildings undertaken are described
in terms of their structural and social aspects, describing the
design from its conceptualization to the end use. It looks at
architecture as an art, at architectural meaning and at how and
why architectural styles have changed over the centuries.
¬¬In the past, several publications have used the themat-
ic approach to deal with functions, meanings, structure, and
social aspects of buildings. However ‘Exploring Architecture’
differs and provides a new approach to understand built envi-
ronment. It introduces the conceptual underpinnings of archi-
tecture and helps to comprehend the essence of built space
by unraveling what lies behind the design of a building. It has
used examples of buildings taken from different cultures and
centuries. It is a comprehensive study of multifaceted aspects
of architecture.
The book caters to a diverse audience, allowing even a
general reader a better understanding of buildings with the
help of the insights presented within the book, thus making
the reader demand higher standards in his/her built environ-
ment. For better comprehensibility the book is divided into
four chapters and each chapter is further sorted into sections.
A well thought out classification of topics makes it easier for
the readers to grasp the core of the subject. Also, each chapter
is supplied with exceptional illustrations covering ancient and
modern architecture from across the world. It is a collection
of stunning images and rare drawings taken from RIBA library
The first chapter, titled ‘Building for function’, helps readers
acquaint themselves with a number of techniques used for the
construction of buildings in different climates. Material, design
and use of mechanical devices are also discussed.
The following chapter, ‘The Art of Architecture’, highlights
important buildings and the work of prominent architects. For
instance the Pantheon in Rome by Giovanni Paolo Pannini,
The Parthenon, Athens (447-432 BCE) by Iktinos & Kallicrates,
The Sulimaniye Mosque, Istanbul (1551-8) by Koca Sinan, The
Founding hospital, Florence,1421 by Filippo Brunelleschi, The
Tempietto, Sans Pietro in Montorio, 1502 by Donato Barmante,
Rotunda, Vicenza, 1565-9 by Andrea Palladio, The Scala Regia,
The Vatican Rome, 1663-6 by Giovanni Lorenzo Bermini, San
Carlo alle Quattro Frontane, 1638-77 by Francesco Borromini.
The chapter also discusses at length other significant works
produced in antiquity such as ‘the primitive hut’. The authors
have also mentioned the works of modern architects like Mies
Van Der Rohe, Robert Venturi, Rennie Mackintosh, Norman
Foster, Richard Roger, Renzo Piano and Oscar Nieymer.
Chapter three, ‘Creating Buildings’, discusses how one judg-
es buildings by their outer ¬¬¬-appeal and unconsciously ig-
nores other materials or structural elements as they are hidden
from sight. The authors have debated the repercussions of
buildings which are highly efficient, expensive and function-
ally specific.
The last chapter, ‘Building Together’, deals with the distinc-
tive features of cities and how they emerge from their location,
their history and local culture. It clarifies how cities have land-
mark buildings that provide unique ‘Sense of Place’. To quote
the author, “Paris would not be Paris without its Eiffel tower”.
It is a wonderful work of description and criticism, quali-
fying every argument it raises. Those yearning to understand
architecture holistically should go through this book. For stu-
dents, it is like a revision and for amateurs, it is an overview of
what they do as well as do not know.
This book explores the aesthetics and techniques of archi-
tecture, tracing its response to new ways of living, new devel-
opments in technology & new environmental concerns. The
result is an original, stimulating and refreshingly contemporary
approach for the new century.
Agarwal Lipi A.
Faculty of Design
21 BOOKREVIEWS
 Builder’s guide to change
of use properties.
By Dodge Woodson
McGraw Hill Pub, Berkley,P.A,New
York,Tokyo, 1995,
xii,340p.
To be a Good contractor or
builder it is very important to
investigate the lucrative mar-
ket of conversion projects.
The book contains 25 chap-
ters and it shares a wealth of
knowledge with those want-
ing to become competent conversion contractors.
The first Chapter describes the selection process of a suit-
able conversion project. Author R. Dodge Woodson tells a
story about his 20 years’ experience in selecting a profitable
conversion project. It doesn’t matter if you plan to sell or rent
a building after conversion, the selection process is crucial to
the project. The choices we make can mean the difference be-
tween a successful project and the one that ends with bank-
ruptcy. Many factors play an important role in determining the
profit potential of the project, but durability and management
are the key ones.
The second chapter deals with the preliminary legwork to
be done before purchasing a property for conversion. The leg-
work costs time, but it could save us from a financial fiasco. The
physical condition of the building can also be very important
while making a decision to buy. Then, there is the issue of ti-
tle work; if the title is clouded or encumbered in any way, the
property might be worth only a fraction of its normal value.
Other factors like zoning (earthquake/flood) can also affect the
value of a property.
The third chapter explains the pre-purchase inspection
process .It is a process vital to success as a conversion con-
tractor. If you are a savvy buyer, you should inspect a potential
property at least three times. The first inspection shows if you
are interested in the property. The second is normally much
more detailed than the first. Results from the second inspec-
tion are going to be the catalyst that moves you towards the
final decision. When it’s time to inspect properties, you have
a choice of three options: do carry out the inspections your-
self or call trade professionals to help you in certain areas of
inspections; or hire an independent inspector to take care of
the entire process.
Chapter four describes the process of putting plans on pa-
per. The author states that you don’t have to be an architect,
engineer, or a draftsperson to start putting your plans on pa-
per. By the time you reach the point of putting your plans on
paper, you are very close to making your dreams come true.
This is the point in time when all action begins. The drawing
will however, have to be drawn to scale prior to actual con-
struction by an architect or engineer.
The fifth chapter gives details of soliciting bids. When you
are ready to begin soliciting bids, you are getting close to see-
ing the project get off the ground. This is an exciting time, but
L I B R A R Y
it is also a period when one must be cautious. Sometimes, bids
can even burn an experienced contractor badly.
The sixth chapter explains that creating a budget and pro-
duction schedule that a contractor can adhere to is not as easy
as it might seem. The budget is often easier to control than the
production schedule; staying on budget is no piece of cake,
until one gets into a full-blown conversion project. One cannot
understand how much time and attention it takes to stay on
time and within the budget. In conversion projects, most of the
work requires remodeling rather than a lot of new construc-
tion. For this reason, it takes a contractor with a well-rounded
background to stay on track.
The seventh chapter explains the process of financing a
project. Financing a project depends on a number of circum-
stances. Rarely are any two conversion projects exactly alike,
so each requires different approaches to financing. Many of
the basic elements of obtaining a loan are going to remain the
same, but some key elements might be changed and even a
minor change can still create a major impact.
Chapter eight deals with the strategies to be followed at
site. Many contractors fail to think when assessing the value
of a potential project and that becomes an expensive mistake.
However if one is making a substantial change of use of prop-
erty, one could be looking at heavy earning in site work.
Chapter nine to twenty-four explain the importance of
construction material/element and their installation in a new
building. A conversion project is like foundation work: the first
step is to improve the physical condition of the building tar-
geted for conversion. Then comes framing work which gen-
erally accounts for labour that goes into a conversion project,
this is followed by roofing which needs a lot of attention, lack
of thoroughness can prove costly. Siding and exterior trim on
a building can affect selling or renting rate of the property. A
number of buildings can benefit from a fresh coat of paint or a
new siding, but they might not be necessary. Windows, doors,
and skylight can turn a dull property into a bright, cheerful
place to live, work, and play.
Plumbing is a phase of conversion work that strikes fear
into general/new contractors. The book suggests ways to beat
the fear and save money. Heating and air-conditioning can
create serious problems if poorly handled, even if these system
don’t fail, they may still not perform at a level that’s satisfactory.
Even the electrical systems in older building can represent a
major expense. Also the insulation has a lot to do with the op-
erating cost of a rental property. A well insulated building costs
less to cool than one that is poorly insulated and the money
saved directly goes into the pocket of the landlord. Wall and
ceiling coverings, interior trims, floor coverings, cabinets and
countertops, decks porches and balconies laundry and stor-
age facilities: these are areas to which a contractor/builder has
to be attentive while making decisions.
In the end, the chapter twenty-five explains security mea-
sures. In many places like India, systems of safety and security
continue to be an area of concern. It’s unfortunate, but many
people even today don’t feel safe in their homes as crime is a
fact of modern life. The book describes approaches that can
help allay people’s fear. Some of them are expensive, like add-
ing some exterior lighting, alarm systems, door and window
bars, fences in the open, security personnel and emergency
lighting, but these features can make a difference. However,
security equipment and measures help to reduce risks for sure,
but they don’t eliminate them.
The book, ends with a moral lesson: that mistakes are a part
Louis-I-Kahn
By Vincent J. Scully
New York Prentice-Hall
International London George
Braziller, Inc., 1962, 128p.
This book is important for
those who want to under-
stand Kahn’s methodology. He said “Order does not imply the beauty.” And he was
This is a small collection of
works of Kahn both academ-
ic and relating to practice.
The works have been col-
lected from Yale University,
Philadelphia, where he worked.
The book will take you through Kahn’s journey which starts
from the late nineteen twenties. It was the time when most
designers concentrated on lightness, maximum slenderness in
the solids and the fluid spaces which were defined by non-
structural planes and the skin of the walls. For him, a building
from past is like a friend rather than an enemy, from which he
can borrow something freely. Even his early sketches show the
understanding of mass and void in historical buildings. That
understanding is clearly reflected in his academic projects as
well. He also tried to find answers to many questions while
designing: such as what is a space, a wall, a window, a drain.
How does the building begin? How does it end? What is form?
And what is Order? Etc. He has also succeeded in getting his
answers. Some parts of this journey have been captured in this
book. Buildings of the past always inspired his designs. Initial-
ly, he used shapes from historic buildings to understand form,
order and space. He also used to imagine old buildings con-
structed with pre-cast concrete. The author has described the
adaption of those plans (of historic buildings) and their eval-
Concrete Technology
By Adam M. Neville and J.J. Brooks
Harlow, Longman, 1994, xiii, 438p.
A.M. Neville is a Civil Engi-
neering Consultant. He was
the Past Vice-President of
the Royal Academy of Engi-
neering and a former Prin-
cipal and Vice Chancellor of
the University of Dundee.
He has many years of expe-
rience in teaching, research
of life, and what might seem at the time to be a major head-
ache can turn into a good experience. But, the book urges one
to, pay attention to one’s mistakes and avoid repeating them,
reminding us that, after all, experience is the best teacher.
Choudhary Sudarshan M
Faculty of Technology
uation in Kahn’s early design according to their function. By
looking at the designs, one can start relating his philosophy to
his building.
A feature seen prominently in his project is symmetry. He
has always treated the service and storage rooms as separate
structures. He believed that “The nature of space is character-
ized by the minor space that serves it.” He always gave impor-
tance to service spaces.
clearly looking for something more than skin deep, and his
search for intrinsic order was dogged. It is clear that form is
symmetry, as it was for the Romans; however he has learned
how to use it wholly afresh.
For Kahn, Design comes from functionalism. He wanted to
derive meaningful new shapes from functional processes. He
always tried to use those processes to achieve articulation
of specificity and a new vision of order instead of sentimental-
izing them.
Another notable achievement of this book is that the au-
thor has also compared the work of Kahn with that of his con-
temporaries. One can find astute comparisons between the
works of Kahn and Frank Lloyd Wright, for instance. Kahn has
also tried to bridge the gap between the artist and the archi-
tects just as he has been filling the gap between the present
and the distant past.
The book ends with an article by Kahn taken from the Voice
of America Forum Lectures, a series on Modern American Ar-
chitecture in 1960, originally titled FORM AND STRUCTURE. In
that, Kahn has written about concepts like measurable, im-
measurable, discipline, order, dream and desire. He has also
talked about the difference between form and design, limita-
tion of architects.
Maitri Shah
Faculty of Architecture
and consultancy in the field of Civil and Structural Engineering
in Europe, North America, and the Far East. He has numerous
awards and medals, and is an Honorary Member of the Amer-
ican Concrete Institute, the British Concrete Society and the
Brazilian Concrete Institute.
J. J. Brooks is a Consultant and was formerly a Senior Lectur-
er in Civil Engineering Materials and Director of Postgraduate
Studies in the School of Civil Engineering at the University of
Leeds. He is a member of the American Concrete Institute and
a Fellow of the International Masonry Society.
Review: Concrete, the word itself has a world in it. We can
consider the infrastructural development all around the globe.
From bridges connecting two places to buildings providing
23 BOOKREVIEWS
shelter, simple pavements to the modified runways, all con-
structions have concrete at the core of development. Struc-
tural development taking place constantly testifies to the mas-
sive usage of concrete. In one day, thousands of cubic meter
of concrete are placed for converting projects into reality. This
fact urges us to question whether or not the use of concrete
for the construction of a particular structure is suitable.This
book aims at guiding both, structural designers and engineers
about concrete technology. While preparing the concrete mix,
care is to be taken that the ingredients used confirm to the
prescribed standards. There are specifications for the same,
based on the use and topography of the region. The book is as
an overview about the technologies used in the professional
world including new machines, tools and equipments. It suc-
cessfully portrays them very specifically along with their use
and functions respectively. Perhaps it is different from other
works of its kind because of its comparison between ancient
machinery and modern equipment and methods.
The author’s main objective is to offer insights into con-
crete, the constituents of concrete and the proper propor-
tioning of ingredients used in concrete. These are vital points
because most structural failures are caused by the improper
proportioning of the constituents in the mixture. Generally,
structural detailing is based on sound understanding of how
concrete behaves under load, temperature humidity changes,
and other relevant conditions of environmental and industrial
exposure. These factors are explained very well in the book.
The authors commence this book by giving us a beauti-
ful explanation of concrete, followed by the demarcating the
difference between good and bad concrete, emphasising
the role of composite materials and interfaces. This book also
highlights the different approaches to the study of concrete.
Various materials which are the ingredients of concrete are
described in detail. Along with it, the problems encountered
during the whole process are also dealt with. Concrete is pro-
duced with accuracy and precision in batching and uniformity
in mixing which is clearly better in large and automated plants
compared to manual production. The reason for this is not the
technical quality of the batching and mixing system. Many a
times, concrete produced on a smaller scale in laboratories is
better than the one which is produced on sites.
The book then deals with the properties of freshly made
Looking and Seeing No.1:
Pattern and Shape
By Kurt Rowland
London, Ginn and Company Ltd.,
1965, 131p.
The book starts with a
question ‘How are patterns
formed?’ A pattern should be
highly suitable for the mate-
rial with which or on which
it is made. Patterns that are
closely linked to the surfaces
L I B R A R Y
concrete, thus answering the questions about its properties in
the beginning when it is prepared, its workability, factors af-
fecting it, various workability tests, density and the problems
of fresh concrete. Slowly and gradually concrete develops
strength. The strength of concrete depends on various param-
eters like the water cement ratio, aggregate cement-ratio, de-
gree of compaction, and age and temperature. Among all the
main factors, the most important one is porosity and the sizes
of the voids. There is also a description about microcracking
and stress-strain relation and the behaviour of concrete un-
der tensile and compressive stress. The main problem lies in
achieving strength of concrete.
The book does not end here. It also concerns itself with the
care to be taken after the preparation of concrete. Precautions
and care should be taken to avoid segregation and uniformity
in the mix should be maintained. The handling, transporting
and placing depends on the quality of the work and the su-
pervisors. The wastage of material, quick meeting of deadlines
and other factors can be dealt with well properly dealt with
if the supervisor has the necessary expertise. The timing be-
tween the production of concrete and its usage is very import-
ant because it starts setting swiftly. Many a times concrete is
produced far away from the site and has to be carried at a large
distance .In order to increase the setting time retarders are
used. Thus according to the need admixtures are used. While
placing concrete, heat is released in the atmosphere as the hy-
dration process takes place inside. If mass concreting is done
than the amount of heat release is very high, which makes the
water evaporate. This water was to be used in the process of
hydration and thus pores and thermal cracks are generated
which decrease the strength of the structure. Once concrete
is placed, the development of strength takes place which can
be aided by different curing methods like steam curing, pond
curing, normal curing and special curing as required.
The brilliance of the book lies in its excellent formatting.
The book is enriched with the citations and bibliography
which are provided along with the reference of American stan-
dards. A proper index and intelligent division of chapters aids
the readers.
Vyoma Patel
Faculty of Technology
of an object are usually the best patterns, if you had to remove
any of the patterns you would have to destroy the object built
on it. You can find patterns in the most unlikely places if you
look for them. The author gives an example of a fabric pattern
on a carpet which was produced from a photograph of sun-
dried cracked mud. Pattern is something you sense when you
see it, even if it’s irregular and there is no exact repetition. The
author discusses how the idea of creating a pattern came to
the early men using the example of how before the potter’s
wheel was invented clay vessels were built up from long strips
of soft clay. To prevent such a vessel from sagging or losing
shape while drying, the potter would wind a rope around it to
hold it together. This created a ring like decoration on the sur-
face of the vessel and served to provide better grip. The houses
from different parts of the world show how a man’s choice of
building material is governed by his surroundings. Some con-
structions may look strange to us but their patterns are the
result of the efficient use of materials for a particular purpose
e.g. Mexican house are made of branches, clay and straw; with
flat roofs and few windows for a life in the hot dry lands. In Su-
matra, an Indonesian island prone to earthquakes and down-
pours, houses are made of cane and wood with steep roofs.
The author also discusses how man’s eyes are likely to find
familiarity in things that look more or less similar, which we rec-
ognise as a pattern. We like order but we need a variation with-
in that order. We would think there is something wrong if all
the leaves and petals of a flower on the tree were identical but
we would think something is equally wrong if we could not
recognise the family likeness of the leaves and petals. Nature
repeats its construction but she never repeats a shape exactly.
Every object has its own character. The more the object varies
from the average, the more character it has. Character helps
us to recognise things. If the character of a thing or a person is
exaggerated it becomes a caricature. A form, a solid one, will
have much more meaning to us if we experience it through
touch as well as sight. Even the smallest detail of everything
that we make must be taken seriously. What if an object does
Looking and Seeing No.2:
Development of Shape
By Kurt Rowland
London, Ginn and Company Ltd.,
1965, 128p.
The book talks about how
there is a strong relationship
between the shape, materi-
als used, process of making
and the function of an ob-
ject. It begins by introducing
the readers to the idea that
a form is an outcome of the
forces acting on it these maybe the forces by nature or those
exerted by human hands or even tools. Each shape is the re-
sult of applying one particular method to one particular ma-
terial which can’t be applied on another material e.g. During
the Stone Age, when man reached the peak of efficiency in
making stone tools, he discovered bronze metal and tried to
copy in the new material, the shapes that until then had been
made in stone. However, he realised that with the change in
material it was necessary to change the shape of the object
accordingly. In an ideal shape there is a perfect relationship
between the shape on one hand and the material and the
method of manufacture on the other. The shapes of nature
as well as those created by all living things have a purpose;
if no purpose is fulfilled the shape becomes redundant and
obsolete with time. The author gives an example of the de-
velopment of bones and limbs in the human body explain-
ing how their form evolves with the changing needs of the
not have a definite form? Form moves and flows. A single pic-
ture can’t describe a form. The flint shown in the picture below
does not have a regular geometric form.
When certain shapes such as the above ones are related
to each other they give us a pleasant feeling as if they are re-
lated to one another. We can say that the shapes harmonise.
Buildings too should be looked at as form. Objects should be
made as a unified whole only then would they make sense.
An object has value or meaning with respect to its relation
to other things. A pattern can be described as a series of rela-
tionships. Although we are often unable to discern the exact
relationships which make the pattern we are able to sense its
presence.
The author introduces the readers to what patterns are.
Giving examples of how patterns become a part of the ob-
ject which they are inscribed on, he helps develop the skill of
judging the appropriate pattern for an object. He makes the
readers develop an eye for looking at the patterns in nature
surrounding us and understand that the buildings too are in-
spired by nature’s laws of making. There are many suitable ex-
amples given which help the reader to understand and relate
to what the author intends to explain.
Vaidehi Shah
Faculty of Architecture
body as it ages. Thus explaining that in nature, with change
in purpose, the form evolves. The Notre Dame du Haut, near
Ron champ in France designed by Le Corbusier is in fact quite
logical in shape. The old stones from the chapel which stood
on the same hilltop and was destroyed in the Second World
War provided much of the building material. The curved walls
added strength without extra thickness so there was no need
for buttresses. The contrast between the white rendered walls
and the rough concrete roof helps give the whole building a
character. When a designer works without real understanding
of his materials and of their relation to purpose he makes bad
shapes or imitates other shapes.
A good man-made shape is the one in which the designer
has used his knowledge and skill to produce the most efficient
shape for its purpose. The author compared the Roman, Nor-
man and Gothic vaults and explained how the flying buttress-
es, clerestory and pinnacles played a structural part in the mak-
ing of the churches .The surface of a shape should enhance it
not conflict with it. It will only do this if it is related to the shape,
for instance by a common process or a common purpose or a
common character.
The author also talks about how patterns and colours are
used to describe the object other than its shape. Natural pat-
terns grow with their forms. Because form and pattern grow at
the same time there is a definite relationship between them.
The pattern expresses the shape. Most manmade patterns exist
because of its usefulness and not for decoration. Patterns that
are too small to be perceived as patterns are called textures, the
difference being just that of size. Such relationships always exist
in natural forms, and if we learn to look at these and recognise
them we shall be better able to judge man-made things.
25 BOOKREVIEWS
 The book helps in generating a sense of questioning and
understanding the reason behind any form. It helps the read-
er start to think about the usefulness of every element of the
shape which they previously might have looked upon as a
mere decoration. It helps create a sense of perceiving the true
shape of an object which comes about from an understanding
Looking and Seeing No.3:
Shapes We Need
By Kurt Rowland
London, Ginn and Company Ltd.,
1965, 128p
What is a visual language?
What do proportions and
mathematics have to do
with a good design?
This book can be divid-
ed into two parts. In the first
part, the author talks about
the mechanical and mathe-
matical aspect of designing any object. In the second part, he
talks about a revolutionary movement in the field of art from
the medieval to the renaissance to the modern times. Before
the rise of modern technology there were limited examples
of efficient man-made shapes. Today, however, we can cal-
culate the forces of nature and their likely effect, and we can
design our shapes accordingly. The bridges made by Robert
Malliart or the roof of the Commonwealth Institute in London
use mathematical calculations to resist nature’s forces. Mathe-
matics allows us to understand certain aspects of nature and
helps in giving something of nature’s efficiency to man-made
objects. All parts of the human anatomy which come into con-
tact with man-made things are now measured, observed and
considered and the object is shaped accordingly. We can look
at things which we make from two points of view: the purely
mechanical and mathematical, and the human. The two must
not conflict; rather they must be complementary. Visual com-
munications play an important role in understanding human
design. Some of the biggest and perhaps the most important
visual communications are to be found on the streets and
along the roadside.
The author discusses how roadside signs or the signs on
the shops if erected randomly can bring a sense of ugliness to
a town. Earlier in the medieval period, humans tried to solve
their doubts and problems by seeking enlightenment in the
scriptures. Anything derived from observation of nature was
L I B R A R Y
of the material and understanding the function of the object.
The examples given by the author help the reader understand
how a simple shape can be modified and be used to its fullest.
Vaidehi Shah
Faculty of Architecture
not trusted. The author talks about how during the Renais-
sance period, sculptures and paintings adopted a new visual
language and began drawing inspiration from real-life charac-
ters. Pictures were full of life as it was seen around them. There
was one major change in visual language; the observation and
discovery of the laws of nature. That is why artists from the Re-
naissance period were often scientists and mathematicians at
the same time. The author then comes to the modern times
and introduces the readers to Impressionism, the first analytical
painting of the modern times. The impressionists had shown
us a world which depended more on the nature of light than
on the character of objects. There was another kind of artist as
well, the surrealists. They were not interested in the superficial
appearance of things, or in people’s superficial behaviour. They
tried to find out what really moved us to behave in the way we
do being more interested in what had given rise to a certain
form rather than the image which it projected. They sought to
explore the life of the mind and emotions. They enriched our
vocabulary of visual language beyond measure.
A visual language is an unconscious attempt to weave
many strands into one fabric; the strands of experience, sci-
ence, philosophy, religion and emotion. When each individual
understands the visual language of his or her age, it becomes
an important influence not only on the individuals themselves
but on the entire society.
For any town, any public service or any utility to function
effectively, all aspects of human needs, measurements, shapes,
and habits must be considered. The author has made his above
idea clear by giving a lot of examples by making the readers
understand what the correct proportions for an object are. He
also proposes that the construction, design and appearance
of our towns, buildings, machines, books and films will come
together harmoniously only if we learn to understand the spirit
of our time and find a visual language to express it. He talks
about Impressionism and Surrealism to make the readers un-
derstand how analytical sketching can help understand the
laws of nature correctly.
Vaidehi Shah
Faculty of Architecture
 The Discovery of India
By Jawaharlal Nehru
India, The Signet Press, 1946, 582p.
Author:
The Discovery of India was
written by Jawaharlal Nehru
during his imprisonment in
1942-46 at Ahmednagar fort.
The book encompasses vari-
ous aspects that have helped
Nehru shape his personali-
ty and the events that have
helped India affirm its glory.
Publisher:
Signet Press in Calcutta, West Bengal, India, is a publishing
house established in 1943. The press has printed the works
of many famous Bengali authors, including Jawaharlal Nehru,
Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay, Jibanananda Das, Abanindra
Nath Tagore and Satyajit Ray. It has been at the forefront of
technological innovations in publishing and printing since its
foundation.
The Indian antiquity is condensed into 582 pages of the
book which gives readers an insight into the social, political
and economic background of India before independence. It
is divided into 10 chapters and each chapter deals with diver-
gent themes. Though it is devoid of any graphic elements, the
message is conveyed in an approachable way. The book is in-
tended for a general audience and not for an exclusive group.
The introduction talks about Nehru’s life experiences and
how jail was transforming him into a writer. The next chapter,
‘BADENWEILER, LAUSANNE’, is about his relationship with his
wife and her death, giving a glance into aspects of his person-
ality beyond just what is known of him as a political activist
participating in the Indian struggle for independence.
The following chapters shed light on the bygone times of
immigrants. Starting with the arrival of Aryans, the noble peo-
ple who were considered the indigenous inhabitants of India.
The author brings to the reader’s attention the less discussed
but great epics of India, such as the Vedas, the Upanishads, the
Mahabharata and the Ramayana, and the life of personalities
like Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi. The writer particularized
the birth of Buddhism and its spread around the world. He has
also spoken about the development of Hinduism, the influ-
ence of Muslim culture and impact of other religions which
reflect upon the authentication of ‘Unity in diversity’.
The subsequent sections talked about intruders who
played significant roles in the making of Indian history. He dis-
cusses at length the invasion and control of India by various
regimes and the impact it had on the country.
The last phase of the book talks about the ‘national move-
ment’ and struggles like the Mutiny of 1857. The author con-
templates the ideas and principles of Mahatma Gandhi, which
served as the guidelines for the followers of the Congress for
attaining freedom.
Apart from narrating India’s past, the author unabashedly
presents his rather rational views on the inadequacy of the
rulers otherwise praised for their actions. Many satirical com-
ments are made on British law for its unfairness to Indians.
However, the book applauds the Hindu organization, the
Congress but nowhere is the struggle of ‘extremists’ during the
Quit India movement mentioned. It seems to be unfair to all
who lost their lives while fighting for independence.
Nonetheless, from the dawn of the Indus Valley civilization
to the last years of the British regime, the book examines the
nation’s relationships outside its political boundary. The vol-
ume is a perfect example of lucid writing. At places, it seems
someone is explaining India’s past through narratives. For read-
ers in the quest of India’s essence, it is one of the most concise
literary works. The author has cited several references from the
books written by other great scholars both Indian & foreign.
The cycle of events can be understood through the chaptal-
ization where the parts dealing with the past of India unravel
palimpsests of Indian culture and philosophy.
Lipi Agrawal
Faculty of design

Managing Projects
Large and Small: The
Fundamental Skills for
Delivering on Budget and
on Time
By Richard Luecke and Harvard
Business School
Boston, Harvard Business School
Press, 2004, xviii, 179p.
Rapid change and the pres-
sures of intense competition
have caused more and more
organizational task to be-
come project work. So, naturally, delivering a project on time
and within the budget requires good management.
This book addresses the two essential aspects of the sub-
ject: (1) the techniques of project management (design, plan-
ning, execution, and so forth) and (2) the many team-specific
issues that are absolutely necessary for success. The team com-
ponent of project management is of critical importance, yet is
overlooked in many books.
Chapter 1 will introduce you to the big picture, briefly de-
scribing the four processes involved in project work: defining
and organizing the project, planning, managing project ex-
ecution, and closing down the project once the job is done.
Subsequent chapters describe those processes in detail.
Chapter 2 reveals the cast of characters typically involved in
project work: the sponsor, project manager, team leaders, and
team members. Each player has roles and responsibilities, and
they are spelled out here.
The next chapter, chapter 3, takes a leaf from the operating

27 BOOKREVIEWS
manual for team-based work. Like every team, a project needs
a charter that states what it will do, the timeframe over which it
will operate, the resources at its disposal, and the deliverables
expected by the sponsor and other key stakeholders. In the ab-
sence of a signed charter, the project team cannot be certain
of its objectives or the expectation of stakeholders.
In chapter 4, there is a discussion about internal operating
issues related to a project. These include how decisions will be
made, a method of keeping track of unsolved questions, a plan
for communicating with project members and stakeholders,
and so forth.
Chapter 5 introduces one of the foundational techniques
of project management: work breakdown structure (WBS). You
cannot plan a project if you don’t have a firm grasp on this
technique.WBS divides the project into a set of manageable,
bite-sized tasks, with an estimate of the time and money need-
ed to complete each.
In chapter 6, you’ll learn about task dependencies and will
also read about how you can use that knowledge to sched¬ule
tasks using project tools such as Gantt and PERT charts. The
im¬portant issue of the critical path is also explained.
In chapter 7, the emphasis is on various adjustments and
tradeoffs to be made when a project cannot meet all the expec-
tations of the sponsor and other stakeholders. You will learn about
challenging assumptions to be made, deadlines, resources alloca-
tions and deliverables. It also includes thoughts on reevaluating
the schedule, its underlying tasks and task assignments.
Chapter 8 is about managing risk. Project planning involves
the future, which is bound to contain surprises and setbacks.
What are the major risks facing your project? Will the scientific
staff fail to produce a working prototype on schedule? What
will happen if a key supplier went out of business or deliv-
ered substandard materials? This chapter will show you how
to identify your risks, take actions to avoid or minimize their
impact, and develop contingency plans.
The subject of risk is continued in chapter 9, but here the
focus is on the risks that you cannot reasonably identify or antic-
ipate. It proposes an adaptive project management approach as
a solution. That approach emphasizes small incremental steps
followed by evaluation and adjustment, fast cycles, early value
delivery, and rapid learning by project team members.
The tenth chapter is about two preparatory details that
Partnership: Issues and
Strategies
Editorial version by Lucknow
Management Association
India, Lucknow Management
Association, 2007, viii, 236p.
About Publication:
The Lucknow Management
association was formed in
1976 to propagate manage-
ment knowledge. The LMA
has hosted a number of dis-
L I B R A R Y
must be addressed. These are the all-important project launch
and team-based work. The launch section explains the why and
how of project launches meetings. This meeting must signal,
the beginning of an important endeavor one that is aligned
with the organization’s highest goals and from which all par-
ticipants will benefit. It should also provide clear evidence that
top management supports the project and its people.
The next section of chapter 10 is a primer on the basics of
team-based work. It explains how the project leadership must
establish norms of behavior, such as meeting attendance, how
to give and receive feedback, the importance of confidential-
ity, and so forth. Unless people understand how to work as a
team, success is unlikely.
Chapter 11 tells project managers and team leaders how
they can maintain control and keep people’s work on track.
When resources are finite and deadlines are fixed, they cannot
allow individuals and work teams to operate with and without
coordination. Everyone must work toward the same goals. Four
means of maintaining project control are offered in this chapter:
budgets that pace spending, turning time-wasting conflict to
collaboration, communication, and clearing away problems.
Chapter 12 addresses the fourth and final phase of project
management: the closedown. Closedown is almost as import-
ant as the project launch. It is the point at which the team de-
livers its results to the sponsor and stakeholders, thanks people
for their contributions, documents and then attempts to learn
from its experience.
Subject advisor: Robert D. Austin:
Robert D. Austin is member of the technology and operation
management faculty at Harvard Business School. He acquired
extensive practical experience in project management from
his position as an executive in a new business being created
by a prominent technology firm and from his 10 years at the
Ford Motor Company.
The book emphasizes project management which includes
planning and budgeting, motivating teams, developing pipe-
lines and relevant definition of success, creating project prog-
ress reports and monitoring budgets.
Kishan Mistry
Faculty of Management
tinguished management speakers. The LMA Annual Conven-
tion is its flagship event has become one of the largest and
most prestigious management events in north part of the
country. The convention has been organized without a break
since 2002 and has addressed a variety of public policy issues.
This book is the result of one such program held in 2006.
In current times there is an overwhelming need to utilize
public resources with far greater efficiency. There is an equally
pressing need to draw private capital in creating and main-
taining physical and social infrastructure projects. Public-pri-
vate partnership is emerging as a viable model to achieve
these two objectives. Over the past decade or so, private-sec-
tor financing through public-private partnerships (PPPs) has
become increasingly popular around the world as a way of
procuring and maintaining public-sector infrastructure, such
as transportation (roads, bridges, tunnels, railways, ports and
airports), social infrastructure (hospitals, schools, prisons and
social housing), public utilities (water supply, waste water
treatment and waste disposal), government offices ,accom-
modation, and other specialized services (communications
networks or defense equipment).
In this book, a number of experts and academics have elu-
cidated the PPP model as a powerful tool for sustainable trans-
formation with case studies from Uttar Pradesh, India.
The Initial part of the book deals with various concepts of PPP.
The book is divided into six sub themes
1. Structures, Models and process
In this section, the focus is on various situations that call for
PPP, and structure and types of PPP.
Authors: Mr. Shailesh Pathak (Head, PPP Initiative IDFC), Mr.
D.K. Mittal (Managing Director IL&FS), Dr. S. Narayayan (Profes-
sor, NITIE)
2. Creating sustainable infrastructure
This section deals with options for PPP enabled environment,
various reforms needed for PPP in the Indian context, and the
scope and opportunities of PPP in Uttarpradesh.
Authors: Mr.R.S. Ramasubrmaniam Vice Chairman, Feedback
Ventures), Dr. Binayak Rath (Professor of Economics, IIT Kanpur)
3. Improving education and health delivery systems
This section focuses on the scope and need for PPP in the pub-
lic health sector and education sector with specific focus on
Uttar Pradesh.
Authors: Professor K. Sreenath Reddy (President, Public
Health Foundation of India), Prof. Yashpal (Former Chairman,
Urban Planning In India
By Amiya Kumar Das
India, Rawat Publishers &
Distributors, 2007, x, 254p.
The book is authored by
Amiya Kumar Das, who grad-
uated in architecture and
city planning. He started
his career as assistant town
planner (1967-1969) with the
Town Planning Organization,
the Government of Assam.
During his stay in Assam the
author witnessed the missed opportunities to plan and im-
prove Guwahati, prevalent corruption and the tales of missing
files and staff in government office; all these leading to inef-
ficient and incomplete work. This experience led the author
to write a story on it. He believes that planning will improve
if citizens, legislators, administrators, technocrats and planners
acquire a better understanding of it. This book perfectly serves
the purpose of imparting information on urban planning and
is written with the intention of helping readers understand the
process of ‘Urban Planning in India’.
UGC), Mr. Aseem Chauhan (Additional President Ritnand
Balved Education Foundation)
4. Transforming agriculture for rural prosperity
In this section, the book deals with PPP in agriculture and out-
lines some case studies.
Authors: Mr. Gokul Patnaik (Chairman Global Agri-system
& Former Chairman APEDA), Dr. R.D. Singh (Vice President,
Agri-business & Food Supply Chain, RIL)
5. Making service delivery people-friendly
This section focuses on service improvements with the help
of various e-government initiatives and PPP for IT services and
e-gov.
Authors: Dr. Ashok Jhunjhunwala (Professor, IIT Madras),
Mr.J.Satyanarayana (CEO, National Institute for Smart Gover-
nance), Mr. Tushar Pandey (Head, Strategic Initiatives-Gover-
nance, Yes Bank)
6. Transforming tourism and hospitality into a vibrant business
This section concentrates on current issues relating to the
tourism sector and the scope of PPP in the tourism & hospi-
tality sector.
Authors: Mr. B.K. Goswami (Former Secretary Tourism, Govt.
of India), Mr.B.S. Rathore (Chairman All India Resort Develop-
ment Authority)
Overall the book tries to capture the thoughts of various
authors and experts on various sub themes. This study in it-
self is a unique one in the field of Private-public-partenerships.
The book presents a number of recognized advantages for the
public sector which range from rural to urban, health to hospi-
tality and agriculture to tourism.
Kishan Mistry
Faculty of Management
The information in the book is presented in such a manner
that good practices of the past and present are acknowledged
and the lessons are noted from failed efforts. The author takes
readers across the world and does not concentrate merely on
India (for a few aspects like history and housing). Lessons are
taken from experiences from other countries indicating im-
provements we need to make in our planning decisions.
The contents of the book are divided into thirteen chapters
where chapter 10 to 13 are specific to Assam.
The author starts the book with ‘Brief History of City Build-
ing’ which introduces six periods of city development and the
inventions and transitions witnessed in urban planning with
each of these development periods, in the context of Western
countries and India. The development period in this chapter
starts from 5th century BC and ends with 20th century BC. In-
deed an extensive look back!
The second chapter focuses on ‘Development of Modern
Urban Planning’, emphasizing on scientific and technological
advancement which influenced urban planning. He shows
how our emphasis changed for planning cities from public
health and safety to public welfare, and how sustainable living
and sustainable development concepts are adopted in pres-
ent day planning decisions.
After learning the history and planning tools developed till
29 BOOKREVIEWS
the present time in India, the third chapter explains ‘The Gen-
eral Plan Preparation’, how physical planning and community
development take place. The planning elements discussed in
this chapter are sufficient for the reader to understand what
are the elements which a city should be concerned about. The
planning elements categorized in the book include environ-
ment protection, historic preservation, housing, office, whole-
sale and retail business, industries, transportation and other
infrastructural elements. Through these elements, the policies
needed to achieve the intended results have been stated.
While explaining the elements the author has been critical
about some aspects. For example, regarding inter-governmen-
tal coordination, the author writes “The plan should address
how different governmental units shall coordinate.”
The fourth chapter of the book ‘The Planning Agency: Or-
ganization and Structure’, explains the role of the planning
agency, its organization and structure. It also describes how
plans are implemented, how budgeting and financing are ac-
complished, which agency has what role to play, from where
finance is procured for implementation, and the legal provi-
sions India has for planning.
The fifth chapter ‘Plan Implementation’ is about the com-
ponents through which plans are implemented on the
ground. The success of building a beautiful and functional city
depends on the formulation and implementation of major
components: zoning ordinance, subdivision regulation, build-
ing codes, urban renewal and infrastructure development.
From plan implementation, the author moves to ‘Budget-
ing and Finance’ and ‘Planning law’ in chapter 6 and 7 respec-
tively. These chapters give readers an understanding of the
administrative provisions and constraints in the planning pro-
cess. Some aspects require immediate attention. As the author
Housing Legislation
in India: Policies and
Performance
By Girish K. Misra and P.S.N. Rao
New Delhi, Kanishka Publishers
Distributors, xii, 180p.
The book, ‘Housing Legis-
lation in India’, focuses on
various housing and real es-
tate policies India has come
across since its inception in
1882 which was the transfer
of property act levied by the
British. The book is very well written with the great expertise
from Supreme Court judges and professors of renowned col-
leges in India.
The first chapter of the book is about housing rights in
the Indian Constitution, which gives the reader a background
about rights which the Indian Constitution prescribes for its
citizens and also about the International rights of a human
being by the United Nations. It also focuses on housing for
people who are not into corporate businesses but are very es-
L I B R A R Y
says, “If planning law is inadequate, the planning approach will
fail. It needs to be reviewed periodically, say every five years, to
adjust to the latest planning concepts and needs.”
Chapter 8 is about ‘India’s housing crises’. Using certain
statistics, Das has tried to highlight the frightening condition
of the housing crises in India, the reasons for it, obstacles in
housing efforts and possible technological innovations which
can be adopted for rapid, durable and cheaper construction
to overcome the crises. The author has directly pointed out a
few flaws the country makes by discussing and comparing the
housing process in the United States.
In chapter 9 the author has discussed ‘The Future of Ur-
banization in India’. He ends the general section of the book
by discussing how economic opportunities need distribution
and how opportunities arising due to economic boom in India
should be captured.
All the remaining chapters (10-13) discuss the case study:
Assam where the author worked for two years in planning. The
author was Assistant Town Planner in Guwahati from 1967-
1969. He gives an account of failures in planning and imple-
mentation. Some suggestions are made on drainage and flood
control. The last chapters about Assam serve the purpose
beautifully of enabling readers to understand the challenges
and practical processes yielded during plan-making and im-
plementation processes.
The author, throughout the book, stresses that the responsi-
bility of creating a beautiful and well planned city, falls not only
on the government but also on citizens. The public must pro-
vide their opinions, cooperation and efforts in building cities.
Bansari Prajapati
Faculty of Planning
sential for the corporates to maintain their standard of living.
These people include security personnel, drivers, maids, and
servants etc. Towards the end the book suggests that the Indi-
an parliament should pass a bill for affordable and good hous-
ing to be available for all strata of society alike.
The second chapter focuses on tenancy acts, majorly the
Rent Control Act in India. The Act was implemented to pro-
tect the rights of tenants. The major provisions were control on
rents, rent revisions, restriction on eviction etc. The act levied
lengthy procedures on eviction of tenants from the property
and each time one wanted to remove a tenant from property,
one had to take legal recourse be proved against the law. This
hurt the sentiments of the landlords and people started with-
drawing investments from the rental housing stock which lead
to declining numbers of investors in the same.
The third chapter deals with the apartment legislation in
1960, and states the necessity of bringing the legislation to
force, also describing its features and shortcomings. It focuses
on housing finance in India and the need to bring in regula-
tions to address the shortage in the housing sector.
The fifth chapter deals with ongoing land transactions in
India, inadequacies in the existing system with suggestions to
overcome the same.
 The sixth chapter of the book may be considered the most
valuable chapter, which is focusing on the ULCR Act of 1976.
It encompasses a detailed view of the Act and how the act
changed from a good decision to a bad one.
The seventh and eighth chapters deal with legislations and
regulations in cooperative societies and slums and ways in
which the government can improve the existing laws.
Chapters nine to twelve focus on the regulations intro-
duced in individual cities in the Indian states of Karnataka, Pun-
jab, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh. The regulations were
introduced in order to make the cities better to live in with
good planning. However, it was seen clearly that too many
cooks spoil the broth.
The Just City
By Susan S. Fainstein
Ithaca, Cornell University Press,
2010, xi, 212p.
Just as it is not easy to bring
“justice” to our cities, it is not
easy to grasp this book in
a single read. It is indeed a
heavy read for a student. It is,
however, an erudite compila-
tion, remarkable for its depth
of research and thoughtful-
ness of its arguments. This
book is a guide to evaluate urban institutions and the process
of policy-making through a fresh lens of “Justice” for promoting
the concept of ‘the (more) just city’, by studying the growth
of three Western Metropolitan Cities (New York, London and
Amsterdam) each having different context, approach, culture,
economics and political stand in their recent (last 30 years) re-
development strategies.
The book is written by Susan S Fainstein. She is a Senior
Research Fellow in Harvard Graduate School of Design, where
she was a faculty of Urban Planning from 2006-2012.She has
earned her graduate degree in government from Harvard, has
an M.A in African studies from Boston University and a Ph.D.
in political science. Hence, most of her books and publications
are on topics related to government, restructuring cities, urban
political movements, urban redevelopment, tourism and com-
parative policy focusing on the US, Europe and East Asia. The
influence of these interests are clearly seen in this book when
she criticizes and draws conclusions from the theories relat-
ed to the above subjects, simultaneously inter-linking them.
Given that she was a faculty in the US and a visiting faculty at
the University of Amsterdam and London, her choice of case
studies are appropriate.
This book is published by Cornell University Press which
started publishing from 1869 and is the first University pub-
lishing enterprise in the United States. Today, the press is one
of the country’s largest university presses and is known for
publishing works on various disciplines such as anthropology,
The book ends with rights assigned to the consumers in
relation to the Indian construction industry and provisions in
Indian Constitution.
To sum up the book is too outdated a source to use to
gather information for constitutional rights and legislation in
the Indian construction Industry. This book is largely beneficial
for the people looking for research and analysis. The data con-
tained in this book is not recent and would not be particularly
suited to those looking for fresh insights in the construction
industry.
Shyam J. Tanna
Faculty of Technology
Asian studies, literary criticism and theory, politics and interna-
tional relations, classics, biological science, and history.
This book is best recommended for anybody who is pas-
sionate about making a social change in the way cities are
planned. And also for those who are interested in understand-
ing how a city functions and where the layer of justice lies in
our planning approaches.
The book is systematically organized and well segregated
into six different chapters. The first two chapters (which are
theoretical) introduce the reader to the sensitive issues of jus-
tice (with its components of democracy, diversity and equity).
This discussion is followed by the next three chapters devoted
to case studies of revitalization efforts in New York, London and
Amsterdam. The last chapter 6 examines a number of issues
raised by the case studies, including commoditisation of urban
life, impact of tourism on leading industries, relation between
urban sub-areas and issues of public participation. Finally, the
book concludes with a series of principles to govern policy
with the aim of furthering the goal of ‘the (more) just city’.
Each theory chapter begins with a paragraph stating the
questions which are later addressed in the chapter in the form
of sub-headings. Every case-study chapter begins with an
introductory paragraph highlighting the issue with the pre-
viously discussed theories. At the end of each chapter is the
concluding paragraph which links the issues discussed with
the next chapter.
While the case-study chapters have a few photos and maps
to keep the reader going. The theory chapters have text, with
many references and sub-references, which make this book a
strong compilation and analysis of different theorists and re-
searchers work under a single bind. Thus, necessitating mul-
tiple reads to completely understand the subject. Along with
being a self-sufficient book it will make the reader inquisitive
about several related topics along with the one discussed in
this book. Thus, this book has more knowledge to share than
just what is in its 184 pages.
At the end of your reading journey it will give you a new
dimension and a new lens to see from and act as a planner to
shape growth towards greater justice.
Mayuri Raichur
Faculty of Planning
31 BOOKREVIEWS
 Collage City
By Colin Rowe and Prof Fred Koetter
United States, Cambridge, The MIT
Press, 1978, vi, 186p.
About the authors:
Colin Rowe (27 March 1920-
5 November 1999), was a
British-born, naturalized
American architectural histo-
rian, critic, theoretician, and
teacher. He is acknowledged
as a major intellectual influ-
ence on world architecture
and urbanism in the second half of the twentieth century and
beyond, particularly in the fields of city planning, regeneration,
and urban design.
Fred Koetter is a founding principal of Koetter, Kim and As-
sociates in Boston. He is the author of numerous articles and
has co-authored the book ‘Collage city’ with Rowe.
About the book:
The book is a critique of the utopian vision of modern archi-
tecture which involved total planning and singular ideas.
The author introduces and analyzes different attempts made
to address the grievances of the world after the World War II
through utopian visions of cities, and the impact they had on
the image of the future city. The book discusses the reason for
their failure and suggests a solution by introducing the con-
cept of ‘Collage city-‘a city that takes inspiration from various
references but the final configuration is devoid of their original
meaning and based on the new context.
The central argument reflects the authors’ concern over
the lack of flexibility and multiplicity in the mere conception of
the future city that modern architecture has had, which they
describe through interesting comparisons between contradic-
tory lines of thought that were prevalent among the eminent
people in the history of various fields such as philosophy, art
and architecture.
They present the argument by debating among the two
extremes or contradictory theories (traditional vs. scientific,
culturalist vs. progressivist, hedgehog vs. fox) that took shape
as a utopian fantasy. Then the need is stressed for establishing
a common ground that amalgamates the best of both worlds,
a collision between the two approaches.
“Modern architecture presented the architect with two
desperate obligations-on the one hand to science and on the
other to people.”
The introductory chapter begins with the argument that
the city of modern architecture has not been built and has re-
mained just a project in thoughts because modern architecture
faces the challenge of obligation to science and humanity. And
asserting the failure of modern city, the authors evoke hope by
proposing a constructive dis-illusion, an appeal for order and
L I B R A R Y
disorder for the joint existence of permanent reference and ran-
dom happenings-in short an appeal for a ‘Collage City’.
In the first chapter, named ‘Utopia-Decline and Fall?’ the au-
thors introduce the history of utopian vision, its different forms
and its protagonists. The legacy of great thinkers is recalled
and their ideas of the world are compared to prepare a base
for the later utopian city ideas that followed.
The second chapter, ’After the millennium’, puts forward
the concerns regarding modern architecture .The authors dis-
cuss the major utopian protagonists like the Futurist, Team X ,
and Archigram, their breakthroughs and their failures. They also
bring about a classification in terms of townscape and scientific
approach, concluding that both the approaches in singularity
lack conviction and hope for future. Through the example of the
Disney World and the Super-studio, they discuss the role of the
‘Scaffold’ and the ‘Exhibit’ in the experience of a city.
The third chapter, ’Crisis of the Object: Predicament of Tex-
ture’ questions the effect of modern architecture that has left
buildings as detached objects in space with little response to
the context. The authors also discuss the aspects of solid and
void in generating the texture of a city and creating public and
private spaces by doing ground comparisons. They suggest a
look at a different interpretation of building as texture by de-
forming, degenerating an ideal model on different sites, which
is not possible with the strictly ‘functionalist’ building, thus
suggesting a common ground between two different theories
of objectification and de-objectification of buildings.
The chapter, ‘Collision City and the Politics of ‘Bricolage’’,
sets an interesting contrast of architecture and architects with-
in two types of personalities- hedgehog and the fox, one fo-
cussed on a singular idea and the other preoccupied with mul-
tiplicity of stimuli. It is concluded that modern architecture has
mostly hedgehogs and no foxes who can simultaneously work
on multiple ideas. In this view, there is a need for a ‘bricoleur’
who allows for collision of interests in theory and in practise.
Imperial Rome is held up as an ‘alternative to disastrous urban-
ism of social engineering and total design’.
The last chapter,’ Collage City and the Reconquest of Time’
suggests envisioning the city as a museum with scaffold and
the exhibits, maintaining the balance between the structure
and the event or the internal and the external, the answers to
which may probably reside in using of collage as a technique
and collage as a state of mind.
‘Collage City’-the title itself effectively defines the subject
of the book. Though its language is difficult, readers who are
aware of architectural history, especially modernism, will enjoy
the book.
The book cannot be used as a quick reference tool, it must
be reflected on to understand the nuances of the develop-
ment of the idea of utopia and its implications. It is an inspi-
rational book for people interested in urban design/planning.
Sejal Vasani
Faculty of Architecture
 Location-based
management for
construction: planning,
scheduling and control
By Russell Kenley and Olli
Seppanen
London, Spon Press, 2010, xxx, 554p.
Section 1: Introduction
The authors (Russell Kenley
and Ollie Seppänen) intro-
duce the background of plan-
ning and control by compar-
ing two planning system viz.
activity-based (dominant) methodology and location-based
(alternative) methodology. How location-based planning came
into the picture is explained by citing the example of the effi-
cient production of the Empire State Building, its application in
Finland and its recent international developments.
The authors discuss the development of activity-based
planning and scheduling systems by explaining that these
methods concentrate on the unit of work to be done and work
is treated as a series of packages which share a time-based re-
lationship with each other; there is no location-based relation-
ship between the activities. The authors explain the develop-
ment of a location-based planning and scheduling system by
discussing line-of-balance scheduling, flow-line methods, and
integrated location-based methods.
Section 2: Location-based planning
This section contains an analysis of the growth of activi-
ty-based planning methods, including CPM and PERT. It pres-
ents a new methodology for preconstruction planning. This
includes some discussions of the mathematics of CPM. The
location-based planning method explains the theoretical dis-
cussion on unit and production system cost, quality and learn-
ing process, production risk, procurement, design schedule
within the situation of location-based schedule.
It also discusses product resource modeling, measure-
ment of quantities, production system risk, design schedules,
pull schedules, procurement schedules, and location-based
planning to achieve well-managed handing over of locations
with high quality and safety. It explains how to implement lo-
cation-based planning with the information to build effective
schedules for a project and plan for product efficiency. It em-
phasizes techniques to build a good plan, to maximize feasibil-
ity and minimize risk and achieve the best possible outcome
for all, from clients to subcontractors.
Section 3: Location-based control
The authors explain the theory for location-based control of
construction of projects. It is designed to enable management
to take better-informed control decisions. It includes four stag-
es of planning i) baseline schedule planning, ii) detail sched-
ule planning, iii) control action planning and iv) weekly plan-
ning. The section discusses how progress data is compared to
planned values and used to calculate forecasts, from which a
reactive control action planning process can be generated to
prevent future interference. A perspective is given on function-
al methods for improving production control which also con-
trols the risk, cost, quality and procurement.
Also presented is an analysis of the development of loca-
tion-based planning methods, in particular, the manual and
analytical methods which have developed over the years in-
cluding line-of-balance and flowline. Here the long history of lo-
cation-based approaches is established, showcasing the devel-
opment of various methods, from graphical techniques based
on simple linear mathematics to complex integrated methods,
based on sophisticated algorithms. The description of tools to
visualize progress are described and methods to control and
forecast costs are presented. Location-based control process is
explained, including how to use data to effectively manage the
schedules for a project and to control both production reliabil-
ity and efficiency. The location-based control process includes
monitoring current status, forecasting progress, accurate plan-
ning of implantation, planning control actions, ensuring prereq-
uisites of production, prioritizing tasks and executing the plan
through communication and assignments.
Section 4: Location-based management system
The difficult aspects of LBMS are discussed in this section, as
implementation is not simple. There is an examination of such
factors as change management, system design, team building,
contracts, incentives, payments systems. Methods like CPM
(Critical path management), lean construction, low-impact
solution, virtual construction are discussed as well. Readers
will also get a sense of different strategies which can be used
in typical projects like offices, residential, healthcare and retail.
Guidelines for different work packages like earth work with
foundation, structure, façade, MEP, subcontracted items, com-
missioning and handover stage are listed.
Special projects are also covered. These include road, rail,
tunneling, pipe projects. It explains planning methodologies
for linear projects, covering planning constraints, optimization
of work package, design, managing uncertainty, life cycle plan-
ning, procurement and design schedule. Lean thinking estab-
lishes the underlying philosophy of the LBMS, but the empirical
work exploring control in practice in a location-based method-
ology provides the practical learning and development.
Section 5: Case studies
Two main case studies are explained, one is about Optus
Business Park located in eastern Helsinki, a 14,500 m2 office
building constructed by NCC Construction Ltd. In this project
location-based controlling system was applied and also loca-
tion-based contract was incorporated. The successful project
was handed over two months before the original contract
date. By using LBMS the project managers were able to solve
the problem. This system provided the advantage of a very re-
liable baseline schedule of accuracy up to two weeks, while in
normal projects the baseline schedule is found to be a month
behind the deadline.
The other case study is that of St Joseph Northeast Tower.
This project is a 9,476 m2 addition to an existing hospital in Eu-
33 BOOKREVIEWS
reka, California. Skanska was the contractor with no knowledge
with LBMS. This case study has snapshots of 4D simulation in-
terrelating with LBMS and also used to calculate quantities. This
represents a typical way to start using location based manage-
ment for projects which have already commenced using CPM
methods. The client also used 3D simulation model-based trade
co-ordination and change management process.
In the multiple case study components, the implementa-
tion in the project, results and learning of LBMS implementa-
tion is discussed. For example i) Kamppi centre a multipurpose
project in Helsinki, Finland (2002-2005), the author (Olli Sep-
pänen) implemented LBMS in the project, in planning through
Identifying and Managing
Project Risk: Essential
Tools for Failure Proofing
Your Project
By Tom Kendrick
New Delhi, PHI Learning Private
Limited, 2010, viii, 360p.
Many publications in con-
struction industry have been
published with a focus on
project management and
specifically on project risk
management. The impor-
tance of Tom Kendrick’s “Identifying and Managing Project
Risk” lies in the fact that it is written from a project manager’s
point of view. The title of the book itself represents its broad
scope and appeal. It provides a comprehensive and well-craft-
ed program to identify and minimize project risks, with strong
fundamentals of project risk management. It provides infor-
mation about incorporating risk management in project plan-
ning, with the insightful example of the Panama Canal project,
through each project phase.
This book contains a wide range of ideas and techniques
relating to project risk management. The book is construct-
ed along the risk management sequence as it starts with risk
identification, describes risk assessment and its techniques,
highlights risk response techniques, and concludes with moni-
toring new and updated risks. The first chapter offers a detailed
description of what can be considered as risks for a project.
Brief information about the Panama Canal Project is also pro-
vided. The second chapter provides insight into the overall
project planning process, which is described within project
and at the organization level. Risk management, as a part of
project management, is defined. The PERIL (Project Experience
Risk Information Library) database collected by the author is
deployed to describe sources, impact, and causes of risk. The
identification of project risk is divided into three parts: scope,
schedule and resources for better understanding.
Sources of scope related, schedule related and resource-re-
lated risks are presented in chapter 3, 4 and 5 respectively. De-
liverable definition process with evolutionary methodologies
for all types of project risks are provided too. The worst 20% of
L I B R A R Y
location-based, control charts, visualizing progress in flowline
charts and all monitoring was done at the baseline level. In re-
sult the contractor was able to handover the complex project
six month ahead of schedule. This confirms LBMS can com-
press the large-scale schedule by 10% or more. Limitation of
LBMS in this project was MEP trades were coordinated and
managed by separate schedule.
Various other case studies by both the authors discuss the im-
plementation of LBMS, its results and key learning through which
the system can be improvised for similar projects in future.
Jay Mevada
Faculty of Technology
the risks in the PERIL database are deemed “black swans” which
have a large impact, and are rare events that are hard to pre-
dict. All these project risks should be addressed first in project
management.
Risks related to the work breakdown structure and doc-
umentation process of these risks are given in chapter 3.
Several techniques are provided to help deal with project
risks at earlier project stages. In chapter 4, various methods
concerning activity duration and sequencing preparation are
provided that describe ways to avoid schedule-related risks.
Various methods for resource planning, staff acquisition and
outsourcing with project-level estimates for resource-related
risks are provided in chapter 5. Chapter 6 offers various alter-
natives for modification in all three aspects of project risks. It
also includes ways to access and document the risk factors
that haven’t been updated yet. Quantitative and qualitative
methods for risk quantification and risk analysis are described
in chapter 7. Risk probability and risk impact are illustrated as
two parameters of risk effect on a project. In the next chap-
ters, risk factors are divided into activity risks and project risks
for simplification in management. Chapter 8 illustrates risk
prioritization and classification for risk-response planning.
Various methods for risk response such as risk avoidance, risk
mitigation, risk transfer, contingency planning and risk ac-
ceptance are described according to a categorization of risks.
Risk response is explained using one specific real-life project
example.
For the quantification of the identified project risks, vari-
ous techniques are outlined in chapter 9, including experts’
survey, project simulation and modeling, analysis by scale,
project metrics, and financial metrics. Full-length descrip-
tion of the method of calculation is provided for each risk
quantification technique. Chapter 10 builds on the founda-
tion of risk assessment, discussing how to effectively use risk
and project data to influence necessary changes, to clearly
communicate project risks and to adopt the emerging risk
management practices that detect new risks promptly, and
minimize problems throughout the project. Various risk man-
agement guidelines are given for various major changes in all
phases of a project. Steps for monitoring and controlling risky
projects are provided in the next chapter; periodic project
reviews are necessary to keep a project moving productive-
ly. Metrics and trend analysis methods are provided to iden-
tify potential future risks and disruptions. Chapter 12 gives
important instructions for retrospective analysis at project
closure which reduces the repetition of mistakes. Chapter
13 discusses program risk management which brings the
project risk management to the upper level and considers
the application of results of one project to other initiatives.
Portfolio risk management and enterprise risk management
are discussed, in the context of an organization as a whole
against the uncertainties with potential for harm. The last
Disrupted Cities: When
Infrastructure Fails
By Stephen Graham (Editor)
London & New York: Routledge,
2010, xii, 196p.
‘DISRUPTED CITIES when
infrastructure fails’ is a multi-
disciplinary book important
for urban scholars, students,
and researchers in urban
geography and sociology;
urban politics, planning and
architecture; and urban envi-
ronmental studies and public policy. The contents of the book
are divided in nine chapters and all the these chapters draw
together research from leading researchers from Public Poli-
cy, Sociology, Urban Geography, Political Science, Social Policy,
Public Finance & Infrastructure Policy. These chapters are edit-
ed and compiled as a book by Stephen Graham, a Professor in
Human Geography at Durham University, UK. He has a back-
ground in urbanism, planning, and the sociology of technolo-
gy. His own research addresses intersections between urban-
ism, war, surveillance, and geopolitics. The chapter covered by
Stephen Graham has some ideas of his next book The Cities
Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism.
From the name ‘DISRUPTED CITIES when infrastructure fails’
readers might think that the book covers technical aspects of
malfunctions of infrastructure and interruptions in supplies of
resources. Far from these aspects, the book has tried to exca-
vate the politics and responses of urban life during disruptions
from terrorist attacks, public health crises, labour strikes, net-
work theft, and clogging of sewer due to discarded fats. In-
frastructural systems stretched across geographic space might
be immobilized in nature but they bring mobility to the city.
No one even notices them in normal situations, but the public
obsession, the politics, and dramatic inequities are momentar-
ily brought to the foreground with during times of such dis-
ruptions.
The book explores some of the iconic infrastructure disrup-
tions that have been a feature of Global Media in the past de-
cade -the 2003 blackout in U.S Northeast, the 2005 Hurricane
Katrina disaster in New Orleans, and the 2001 SARS crisis. But
other than such Media biases for North America, Europe, Aus-
tralia and East Asia, the book complements these studies with
the analyses of much less known but equally important dis-
chapter concludes by giving key suggestions for various
steps of the risk management process.
As an appendix to the book, most frequent and high im-
pact risks are listed from PERIL (Project Experience Risk Infor-
mation Library) database. The tool set presented here is im-
portant because it shows that devices & methods exist to fix
the risks regardless of the size of a project.
Sachin Patel
Faculty of Technology
ruptions: the deliberate targeting of city infrastructure in Iraq
and the occupied territories by the U.S. and Israeli state militar-
ies. These are combined with discussions, such as the clogging
of city sewers by discarded fats or the continual breakdown of
services in many global south cities.
Chapter 1 is an introduction by Stephen Graham in which
he describes the reliance of human population on the func-
tioning systems of urban infrastructure. Indeed the very nature
of current practices and trends in urbanism mean greater de-
pendence on the infrastructural circuits of the city to sustain
individuals. He refers to Gene Rochlin for the concern that lib-
eralization and privatization can also be as disruptive to reli-
able services as any natural disaster or terrorist attack, as in the
case of the collapse of California’s electricity system in 2001. He
talks about various cases of disruption which are not discussed
in the main content chapter like ‘Love Bug’ launched by a stu-
dent of Philippines in May 2000, to discuss how disruption at
one point cascades through the whole system.
In Chapter 2 Richard G. Little, Director of the Keston Insti-
tute for Public Finance and Infrastructure Policy at the Univer-
sity of Southern California, talks about the types of failures and
discusses cascading failures with the help of some figures and
charts. According to him the troubling characteristics of these
disruptions are their interdependency that
increases the magnitude by cascading from one infrastruc-
tural system to another. He says that such complex and tightly
coupled infrastructure systems ‘predictably fail but in unpre-
dictable ways’ through the reference of the book ‘Normal Acci-
dents’ by Charles Perrow. As in the case of New Orleans floods
in 2005 the main reason was the failure of the levee system the
fact that emerged during its construction. Our basic systems
are at risk from threats we may not foresee as potential failure
nodes are created at the intersection of various systems. He
stresses that public policies can hope to anticipate and man-
age these complex cascading effects.
In chapter 3 ‘disoriented city’ Benjamin Sims, a sociolo-
gist with Statistical Science Group at Los Alamos National
Laboratory, has narrated the impact of Hurricane Katrina on
the infrastructure of New Orleans and its vulnerability to de-
struction that even effected the city’s police department. It
describes the struggles and challenges faced by the officers
while performing their moral duty responding to the disrup-
tion. The infrastructure circuits and communication networks
they relied upon were devastated by the floods. Police officers
were supposed to stay within the city. The Sense of social or-
der coming undone, lack of resources to rescue people, lack of
35 BOOKREVIEWS
food for themselves and criminals shooting at the police may
have led to the emotional breakdown of many officers. Two
officers committed suicide, some resigned and many officers
just walked away from their duty to help their families or for
their own survival.
Timothy W. Luke, a Professor of Political Science at Virginia
Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg (Virgin-
ia), in chapter 4 discusses the blackout in eight states of U.S as
well as large areas of Ontario and Quebec in Canada. An occur-
rence assumed to be a result of a terrorist attack. This would
have been only a local Ohio blackout as the First Energy’s grid
was not able to assess the fluctuations due to some internal
software issue. He tries to explore various possibilities of how
infrastructure can be expected to fail.
Chapter 5 by Deborah Cowen, an Assistant Professor in
the Department of Geography and Program in Planning at
the University of Toronto, provides discussion on the ways
in which governments or dominant power holders in the
planning and development of the cities use the threats of
infrastructural failures that are giving rise to new form of ur-
ban space-Logistics City and how security of Global Supply
Chains has become vital to national security. With the case
study of Logistics City in Dubai, the author tries to highlight
the implications of how labour and civil rights within port
cities are being compromised as a justification for building
highly secure port complexes in cities.
The labor village in ‘Logistics City’ is termed as lavish.
Though labour strikes or protests lead to permanent expulsion
from Dubai, but at times labour just ignore all these implica-
tions and according to certain logic, a threat can easily come
from a labour action as from a natural disaster or terrorist act.
Simon Marvin (Lead Director of SURF Centre, Salford Univer-
sity) and Will Medd (PhD in Sociology) explore the case of the
deposit of discarded fat that clogs sewer. According to them
the metabolism of fat in bodies, cities and sewers are clearly
interwoven and are poorly understood. Though it is very hard
to comprehend this by the way it has been explained in the
chapter, but however the changing food habits of urbanites
has led to obesity in human bodies and also in sewers. He de-
scribes various policies, strategies and initiatives taken in U.S.
The case of biodiesel production is one of the examples dis-
cussed to address the problem.
Chapter 7 by Harris Ali, a sociologist and Roger Veil, Profes-
sor at the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University,
Toronto, has a case study of 2002-2003 SARS crisis through
which the disease infection spread across transnational limits
through the airlines. They emphasize the ways in which glob-
al airport and mobility flows were reorganized, and strategies
adopted to use physical architectural spaces during the crisis,
in an attempt to maintain the global connectivity and at the
same time interrupt the flow of SARS pathogen.
Chapter 8 by the Editor, Stephen Graham, excavates the de-
liberate disruptions caused to the essential urban infrastructures
of cities by the state militaries, non-state terrorists, and insur-
gents etc. It involves various case studies like the U.S bombing
L I B R A R Y
theory, the systematic de-electrification of Iraq in 1991. Such de-
structions mostly tend to deliver some threat or violence or to
bring ‘strategic paralysis’ to urbanites or administrations.
The closing chapter of the book is by Colin McFarlane
(Lecturer in Urban Geography at Durham University) who ex-
plains the links between infrastructure disruptions and urban
inequality in Global south cities, exploring the complex politics
of infrastructural disruptions in fast growing cities like Mum-
bai. Due to a lot of infrastructural crises in tackling the growth
of these cities, infrastructural services are rendered unreliable.
The continuous crises are roots of complex improvisations
and privatization which increases the physical and social gap
between the upper classes between the walled enclaves and
poor majorities inhabiting informal and shattered settlements.
He explains with the example of the Mumbai floods in 2006,
how the crisis has been exploited by property interests as a
reason to justify clearance of ‘slums’ with assurance of ‘Global
City’ with reliable world-class infrastructure.
The way it has covered various aspects, makes the book
significant for people from multiple disciplines. The statement
“one person’s infrastructure is another’s difficulty” draws the
reader’s attention to social biases. The Case study of Mumbai
(Bombay) shows radically different experiences of infrastruc-
tural disruptions for different social and economic classes. In
cities like Mumbai, the normality of continuous disruptions is
a habitual element of daily urban life especially for the poor. In
the very first chapter, Stephen Graham has discussed that in
many global south cities, access to network infrastructure has
always been fragmented, highly unreliable and problematic.
For such cities improvisational capabilities to deploy back-up
facilities (generators, boreholes) or coping strategies when
main network collapses, tend to be well developed because
removal of such services is such a normal part of everyday life.
It explains the concern of the book to signify the necessity of
capacity building and institutional resilience along with the
physical resilience (as seen in the case of World Trade Centre
during 9/11 attacks).
Thus ‘DISRUPTED CITIES when infrastructure fails’ is a use-
ful reading to trigger critical thinking among readers to learn
policy or planning lessons about situations of immobility and
interrupted flow, how to avoid such events or how to minimize
their effects . But the book also brings major opportunities to
rethink and re-theorize the planning of cities and the nature
of contemporary urban life, so that cascading effects of such
failures do not increase the magnitude of the disruptions.
The devastation during the recent earthquakes in Nepal
(June 2015) highlight the need to understand the inter-link-
ages of various fields and aspects critically. This sense of crisis
and the search for alternatives help to derive new ideas. As our
urban life is critically dependent on such urban infrastructur-
al networks, it should be our priority to make our cities more
resilient and capable of surviving such deliberate or natural
disruptions.
Ravi Inderjit Singh
Faculty of Planning
 Urban Environment and
Infrastructure: Toward
Livable Cities
By Anthony G. Bigio and Bharat
Dahiya
USA, Washington, The International
Bank for Reconstruction and
Development/ The World Bank,
2004, xxi, 149p.
The review of the active
portfolio of the World Bank
projects aimed at improving
urban environment qual-
ity was carried out during 2002-03 to assess the institution’s
commitment to urban sustainability. Their main objective is to
effect improvement in urban environment.
The brown agenda focuses on urban environmental is-
sues which became a major challenge in cities of developing
countries and became an important part of international de-
velopment assistance. The World Bank strengthened its focus
on urban environmental management with the adoption of
the brown agenda as a part of the bank’s urban livability pro-
gram. The review focuses on the contribution of key sectors
to urban environmental improvements, in particular on those
belonging to infrastructure and the projects contributing to
achievements of millennium development goals.
This volume is remarkable for the depth of its research and
projects as well as the thoughtfulness of its argument. The full
title, ‘’Portfolio Review Methodology’’, suggests a much larger
topic than the one covered; indeed, the World Bank book is
comprehensive.
In the chapter titled ‘urban environmental investments in
small and large cities’ according to the size of the city, urban
environment issues have been seen and accordingly environ-
mental projects and outcomes have been different .Govern-
ment policies may tend to invest in small and medium sized
cities more than in larger countries (such as Brazil and China).
The role of local government is well explained in the chap-
ter. Different agencies at different levels have the technical ex-
pertise to manage the urban environmental investments. Civil
society and the private sector have the potential to contribute
to the urban environmental management in many ways, by
providing cleaner technologies in industries and providing
urban environment services, Strengthening institutions and
technical assistance, capacity building and support to coun-
terparts by different sectors. An appropriate regulatory frame-
work is needed to facilitate better urban environmental man-
agement that cuts across sectors.
The quality of urban environment has been upgraded, re-
structured by generating project supervision reports. A higher
portion of urban environment projects is encountering diffi-
culties and being rated unsatisfactory on progress in imple-
mentation.
The monitoring and evaluation of the project implementa-
tion has increased in recent years( Kolev and Nitti 2001, World
Bank 2002 ) and different indicators have been used to mea-
sure progress in achieving the urban environmental goals like
environmental health indicators for measuring the impact of
providing water and sanitation services to the urban poor. Mil-
lennium development goals have been used in relevance to
urban environment.
Smaller cities are the beneficiaries of the disproportionate
share of the bank projects. Many operations are designed ex-
clusively around a single sector. Different strengths and weak-
nesses of the urban environment help in contributing to the
achievement of millennium development goals. This review
did not cover the next generation of urban environmental
projects- those currently being designed or under preparation.
The expanded brown agenda needs to be better recognized
and introduced in country assistance strategy.
Different case studies have been explained to illustrate the
multi -sector nature of the urban environment portfolio and
the integrated approach needed to address urban environ-
ment issues. Case studies have been presented for five main
sectors: urban development, environment, water and sani-
tation, energy and transport.The bank supervising task team
leader’sjudgments on implementation progress.
China Liaoning environment project on water and sani-
tation in East Asia and pacific, 1994 provides physical works
and technical assistance for institutional development in water
supply, waste water treatment, air pollution control and envi-
ronmental rehabilitation and reconstruction.China Guangzhou
city center transport project seeks to improve different sectors
for environment management in China. Bombay’s sewage dis-
posal project has also been described to elucidate the Indian
situation.
In chapter 15, Colombia Cartagena water supply, sewerage
and environmental management project is examined. As are
the Guinea third urban development project in sub Saharan
Africa for solid waste management, roads and highways and
for sub- national government administration.
Project description, institutional strengthening and tech-
nical assistance activities, environmental aspects and project
implementation have been explained for several projects.
Critical areas like investment aimed at indoor air quality im-
provements have received less emphasis, the more complex
challenges of large urban centers growing in number and size
will require more assistance and investments than is currently
being catered
for The Bank’s commitment to urban environment includ-
ing policy advice, technical assistance and capacity building
has not been reviewed and may- show
a different pattern of
involvement. Finally, the bank’s brown agenda should be
fully integrated in the bank’s lending operations.
The work of World Bank offers us a reason to have greater
faith in the rapidity with which the goal of environment man-
agement may be fulfilled and the fascinating perspectives we
may expect.The text and the tables used in the book are cer-
tainly very informative and one must acknowledge the wide
research that has gone into their preparation.
Rabia Vohra
Faculty of Planning
37 BOOKREVIEWS
 Laurie Baker: Life, Work,
Writings
By Gautam Bhatia
New Delhi: Penguin Books India (P)
Ltd., 1991, xiv, 313p.
Gautam Bhatia met Laurie
Baker in the late eighties
with the intention of writ-
ing a guide book contain-
ing Baker’s building meth-
ods, but soon realized that
the spirit of his architecture
could not be captured with a
mere collection of techniques and designs. It had to be under-
stood to be the result of a personal ideology of his honesty, his
simplicity in understanding a common person’s life, his search
for suitable solutions and the gradual evolution of a revolu-
tionary ideology of architectural practice contradictory to the
contemporary norm that faced India at that time. The book it-
self begins with the author’s note highlighting the attitude of
Laurie Baker as he turned down a fully paid invitation to a na-
tional seminar on housing, but instead sent a letter suggesting
they spend his seminar money in providing housing for two
needy families he knew. With that Bhatia continues to weave
together, for the reader, three inseparable parts of Laurie Bak-
er’s architecture: Life, Works and Writings.
“You are not after all trying to put up a monument which
will be remembered as a ‘Laurie Baker Building’ but Mohan
Singh’s house where he can live happily with his family.”
Life:
Baker’s journey as an observant and hands-on architect be-
gins in the first part of this book. Bhatia guides even a lay
reader through various influential aspects in Baker’s early life
— the early Quaker upbringing, life amidst war, sixteen years
in Pithoragarh and several in Vakamon before finally settling
in Thiruvananthapuram with his wife Elizabeth. His influential
years at Pithoragarh are depicted through snippets of Baker’s
writings and his own sketches of the local life. On his return he
designed and built over a thousand houses and forty institu-
tions, each expertly combining the environment, in which he
worked with, the locally available traditional technology and
the need of each inhabitant, resulting in remarkable abodes
true to the land they stand on. He believed in the appropriate-
ness of local technology and adaptation, hence experimented
by crafting locally established elements, unlike Le Corbusi-
L I B R A R Y
er who seemed to seek a universally applicable architectural
technology. During the 1970s, when years of colonial architec-
ture and desire for modernity left India with a large number of
isolated buildings lacking identity, and whilst the Indian gov-
ernment barely kept up with the increasing demand in hous-
ing, Baker was quietly continuing his revolution in one corner
of India, more than ever relevant to the times.
Works:
The second part is mostly for young students of architecture
and showcases forty projects of the thousands he did in and
around Kerala (his buildings in Pithoragarh were never docu-
mented). These are explained through simple plans, sections,
photographs and short texts. The write-up also includes the ar-
chitect’s intentions, the client’s requirements and income, the
land’s configuration and the resolution of these concerns. As
most of his work was left undocumented, or done in situ solely
for the purpose of construction and not for publication or ar-
chitectural record, the drawings in the second part are mostly
diagrammatic or plan in its basic form assisted by photographs
of each project.
Writings:
The last part is an illuminating collection of Baker’s published
and unpublished writings that include the master craftsman’s
perception of his own architecture. On one hand, he gives this
account through personal experiences which gave rise to his
personal style, but on the other questions the modernity and
cement fever that gripped India at that time. Most importantly,
he attempts to explain the relevance of his architectural style
and his drive to house affordably, especially the poor.
He goes on to demonstrate the methods in cost-reduction
complete with calculations, estimations and policies that pro-
vide a ground to realize his projects and ideas. The following
pages contain sketches from Baker’s diary, a part of the well-il-
lustrated cost-reduction manual and a letter to the minister
for works and housing to change the policies of Kerala State
Housing Board.
Being the only book to have been written on Laurie Baker,
Gautam Bhatia is able to do justice. With his straightforward
approach to writing, Bhatia manages to capture the humble
quality of Baker and his works. Additionally, the decision to at-
tach Baker’s own sketches and writings helps it resonate with
readers for a deeper view of the ‘Baker Style’.
Leeza John
Faculty of Architecture
 Punjabi Baroque and other
memories of Architecture
By Gautam Bhatia
India, Penguin Books India, 1994,
xii, 265p
Penguin Books was found-
ed in 1935 in Britain by V.K.
Krishna Menon and Sir Allen
Lane. Penguin became the
pioneers of high quality and
inexpensive paperbacks. Its
success can be attributed to
the large demand for serious books.
Gautam Bhatia, who was born in 1952, is an architect. He
worked with Laurie Baker in the initial days of his career. Here
he acknowledges the requirement of acknowledgements in
architecture in the opening sentence of this satire. He gives
an imaginary comic account of his quest to convince a few
eminent architects to write an introduction. Evidently failing,
he writes the introduction himself.
The author describes architecture as a memoir. And the
impetus to write came from this autobiographical quest in
architecture. Here he talks about failed projects but success-
ful exchange of ideas with a string of clients. By romanticizing
the profession too much, he ends up misinterpreting client
requirements. The narrative is broad and may resonate with
most middle-class professionals who live and work in India.
Elaborating on the country, the author gives a glimpse
of Indian society in a slightly cynical manner, mentioning, for
instance, that Indian dailies have more readers for tragedies
than for events of national importance. He takes a spin on
cricket from an extra-terrestrial’s perspective who will eventu-
ally doubt if there is any intelligent life on earth. From such
instances, the author tries to establish a disjointed connection
between the working figures involved in various aspects of ar-
chitecture.
He rekindles his connection with architecture in the follow-
ing chapter with a quote by Nicholas Pevsner: “A cowshed is
a building, Lincoln Cathedral is architecture.” A distinction be-
tween a building and architecture is then established through
examples that seem too superficial to hold justification, or so
CEPT Library Timings during Academic Session
Monday to Friday: 8 am–8 pm
Issue: 8.30 am – 7.30 pm
Saturday: 8 am -6 pm
Issue: 8.30 am – 5.30 pm
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Issue: 12 – 5 pm
the author intends. The significance of architecture in India
depends on anybody but the architect. The author compares
the work of an artist to that of an architect, and explains how
architectural principles of an institution cannot be imposed on
that of a housing block.
Architecture in India, however, chooses to contradict him:
court-houses look like fire stations, and schools look like hos-
pitals.
The role of an architect in today’s society isn’t different
from what it was in the past. The architect is a liability when it
comes to projecting the powerful image of the maker, the cli-
ent in this context. Through various examples from across the
globe and epochs, the author emphasizes this point. No mat-
ter the context, the client’s desire to exhibit authority makes
an architect replicate architecture misplaced from its ‘natural
habitat’. Deception becomes synonymous with architectural
communication catalyzed by complex linguistic discourses.
Architecture can be thus given up for a writing career instead,
although the architect as an individual is celebrated in this
chapter of Punjabi Baroque.
The next section, named after the book’s title, has the
author deriving ‘classic orders’ in Indian regional architecture
copied distastefully from their actual counterparts. Celebrating
the architect, almost cynically, to be able to extract the darkest
architectural fantasies of the client, the author dives into these
orders viz. Bania Gothic, Early Halwai etc. While concluding,
he talks about individual architectural expression as a cultur-
al statement through these orders. The author’s personal ac-
count as an architect becomes the following section stressing
on the Indian attribute of adjusting.
The penultimate chapter advocates, through the example
of Mahatma Gandhi’s house, a revival of native techniques and
materials. A few contemporary examples are mentioned as well.
The author then differentiates between the western archi-
tectural processes and the Indian manual techniques.
The book concludes in an elaborate autobiographical epi-
logue with virtual instances like Bhatia helping Antonio Gaudi
in the design of Sagarda Familia, amongst others. Architecture
and literature are thus celebrated in this satire that makes the
book a compulsive read.
Prathamesh Patkar
Faculty of Architecture
39 BOOKREVIEWS
CEPT LIBRARY INITIATIVES

Posters for various events organized by the library.

The author is invited to talk about a book which is a part

of the library collection. The aim of this initiative is to
give an opportunity to interact with an author and to
know about his ideas, views and experience about the
book .It is open for all.
Two such talks were organized as under:
19-03-2015, Prof. Anne Feenstra, “life of Afghan Hammam’”
01-09-2015, Ar. Shubra Raje & Amita Raje,
“Anant Raje architect : selected works 1971-2009”

Nine exhibitions of selected books were held at various departments.

It had given an opportunity to view books and journals to those who
do not find time to visit the library. Members were allowed to select
and borrow the books at the time of the exhibitions. This initiative was
appreciated by many members.

CEPT University Library

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