ROLE OF ART IN ARCHITECTURE

Graffiti paintings add life to urban spaces

INTRODUCTION
 Art in public spaces is a tool to empower people and enable them to think beyond borders. It opens up
dialogue between people,” Guilia Ambrogi, the co-founder and curator of Start India Foundation, told
Quartz. “We don’t think about public spaces since they do not belong to anyone. Look around, we see
citizens throwing garbage and damaging property.”

 Art is also a powerful tool to bring about much-needed social change by encouraging people to think
aloud, debate things in open, and question established norms, Ambrogi added.
 “Public art is catching up in India as more and more artists are coming forward to experiment.
Painting walls and creating art work on the top of buildings is a reversible process which helps
beautify city landscape,” said conservation artist Ratish Nanda.

Research questions
 How is art important in architecture?
 Impact of art in architecture?

Case studies
 Lodhi colony art district
 Khidki village
 Metro pillars
 IIT delhi

Methodolgy
 literature studies
 books
 live case studies

Lodhi Colony was chosen for its big and even walls, its proximity to a Delhi Metro line (easy connectivity),
and its pedestrian-friendly streets. Most apartments here being government-owned, getting permissions and
clearances to carry out art work was easier, too. It is the last residential area built under British rule in the
1940s to house government employees.

Its walls serve as an open museum, providing easy access to art to the public at large which otherwise is
confined to art galleries and closed spaces, said Priyanshi Saxena, a Delhi-based independent art advisor and
curator.

In fact, there are some pecuniary gains, too. Small shopkeepers and vendors, for instance, have seen incomes
go up significantly since art connoisseurs as well as casual visitors—students, young artists, and foreigners—
began trickling in to Lodhi Colony.
Not everything is hunky dory now, though. The continuous stream of visitors to Lodhi Colony has irked some
residents, especially in matters of privacy and safety.

An elderly resident of Block 17 is annoyed at people treating easy access to art as their fundamental right.

Requesting not be identified, the resident complained that sometimes youngsters come in to click selfies against
the walls at even 5:30am, riding fancy bikes and honking incessantly. This person has lent the boundary wall
of his residence to Italian artist Andreco, who has depicted the impact of pollution on the River Yamuna that
flows through Delhi.