Architectural Styles Guide

Art Deco

The Art Deco buildings in India, while distinctly referencing the international Art Deco mouvement, reserve a regional flavour. In Pune, though cement concrete construction was widely adopted by the mid-20th century, the use of stone had not entirely stopped. The black basalt stone that is so ubiquitous in the buildings, bungalows & even some wadas of Pune is also part of a style which is meant to be sleek & aerodynamic.  

Keywords - symmetrical, aerodynamic, turret

Modernist

There was a wave of the modernist styles in Pune post- independence. This included many specific styles within the "Modernist" umbrella & some that were using modern lines & volumes but not conforming to a style. They had a varied material & colour palette and the were mostly built in cement along with a small amount of stone & brick.

Keywords - Simple geometry, clean lines, smooth finish, cantilevers, concrete jaalis

Historic revival

Keywords - arches, decorative facades, symmetrical

Brutalist

Brutalist architecture presented itself quite rarely in Pune but nevertheless had its presence. The imposing, large volumes & seemingly dead facades were yet another design decision possible by modern materials & innovations.  However, the colour palette was subdued for this style to have maximum effect.

Keywords - exaggerated volumes, cement concrete, sculptural architecture

Postmodern

Refers to the style and period of art and architecture that developed in the 1960s and after, when there was a clear challenge to the dominance of Modernism. Generally speaking, it advocated a pluralistic approach to the arts and it stated that Modernism had failed because of a lack of a coded language of meaning to the viewer. 

Keywords - false facades, bright colours, "software design"

Building Labels: writing the vernacular into the Architectural History of Twentieth-Century India

The history of architecture primarily relies on morphological categorization to define styles. The use of labels, such as Gothic or Baroque, to identify and categorize these styles has long been considered crucial in classifying and communicating architectural history. In India, the historiography of the formal history of architecture has seen several shifts over the past century.[1] Architectural forms of the past have been described and ordered till the end of the seventeenth century, when Mughal architecture dominated a large part of the sub-continent. Several categories have been questioned, renamed, and freshly interpreted. For example, what was once called ‘Imperial’ and ‘Provincial’ architecture is now known as ‘sultanate’ and is fragmented into a number of regional styles for the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.[2] Though styles are thus never absolute, some degree of categorisation is important not only to find common ground in the study of architecture as an academic pursuit, but also in preserving cultural heritage by making it easier to document and protect historically significant structures. A building's style guides restoration efforts, ensuring that renovations are in line with its original design principles and historical context.

In recent years, there has been a growing awareness of the limitations and biases inherent in traditional architectural labels. As a result, contemporary discourse is increasingly moving towards more inclusive and descriptive terms that better capture the diversity of architectural expression. This shift acknowledges that styles are not monolithic but are instead dynamic and influenced by a myriad of factors including culture, geography, and individual creativity. The early periods of architectural history are often labelled using dynasties, periods, or regions: for example, Chalukya, post-Gupta, or Gujarat respectively. In a similar vein, one could use the umbrella term ‘Colonial’ for architecture built under the period of Company and British Crown rule. Colonial, however, encompasses a great range of architecture, varying in form depending on the purpose of the buildings and the dominant materials and technologies. For example, Mustansir Dalvi observed for the city of Bombay, that while “public or monumental buildings” competed in the high styles of empire, namely Neo-classical, Victorian Gothic, Indo-Saracenic, there was a parallel architecture built by natives and migrants, which he called ‘Domestic Vernacular’.[3] [MOU1] [D2] It is clear that categories such as ‘Colonial’ and ‘Modern’ are inadequate to comprehensively cover the cultural, spatial, and temporal range of buildings produced in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

While high colonial and international architectural styles such as Neo-classical, Victorian Gothic, Indo-Saracenic, Art Deco, and Modern have been recognised, there exists a large group of buildings from the past couple of hundred years that borrow from these influences but escaped any classification so far. One could call these commonplace, non-high style structures vernacular buildings.[4] Should style be abandoned altogether as we turn to these buildings? Rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater, this essay proposes two umbrella terms for some of the so-called middle and low-brow architecture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in South Asia: Colonial Vernacular and Modern(ist) Vernacular.

Architecture of the nineteenth century in India operated at two levels: the monumental and the non-monumental, which included the domestic, vernacular, and utilitarian.[5] Non-monumental buildings emphasize functionality, local tradition, and everyday use, as opposed to the grandeur and symbolic significance of monumental architecture. High styles were not practised puritanically in non-monumental buildings, but elements of high styles were often incorporated. This amalgamation of high-style elements in otherwise everyday design and planning is unique, and should be called Vernacular.

The qualifiers ‘Colonial’ and ‘Modern’ before the word vernacular do refer to stylistic inspirations. Modernism is associated with a break from the styles that came before it and an embrace of new materials and technologies, emphasizing functionality and simplicity. In South Asia Modernism in architecture emerged in the 1920s (and thus well before Le Corbusier’s work on Chandigarh) through the global circulation of designers and print architectural culture, as well as the wider application of materials such as cement, asbestos sheets, and metal windows. It is in this spirit that some of the neologisms for architectural styles in nineteenth and twentieth century India are proposed. Thus, the architecture grouped under each stylistic label can be visually variant but ideologically united.

Colonial Vernacular

Colonial Vernacular refers to buildings that do not adhere to a strict stylistical pattern but instead borrow from the different stylistical influences that existed before the arrival of Modern styles such as Art Deco/Style Moderne or the International Style. .[6] Examples of such buildings are the traditional wooden-frame-brick-infill buildings in Pune, onto which façade elements such as doors, windows, and balconies borrowed from a European colonial architectural vocabulary, were grafted (add figure) . These can be seen in large numbers in the cosmopolitan bazaar areas of South Asian cities, where the visual projection of architecture was deemed important for business. Colonial Vernacular architecture, moreover, could result from borrowing in either direction. Hence, the incorporation of indigenous forms such as large overhanging roofs in the early residences of colonial settlers in South Asia and many of the colonial bungalows (add figure)  are examples of colonial vernacular architecture, as are commonplace buildings in the colonial so-called PWD style (add figure). Colonial Vernacular designs at times also resulted in highly idiosyncratic buildings. Buildings, such as the The Hari Mandir (Prarthana Samaj) in Pune, did not value any kind of purity of style, did not desire any revival, but wanted to create completely new compositions using historic elements from different sources. In some sense similar to the Academic Eclecticism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was an attempt to create completely new designs retaining historical precedent only in small parts. Elements from high colonialism were often incorporated. The Hari Mandir (Prarthana Samaj) in Pune comprises a simple large hall with a porch fronted by three arches. The façade has a semi-circular gable capped by a finial. Built in grey basalt, the interior of the building has only a gallery and a lectern, with balconies on three sides. (add figure) 

Keywords - Mangalore tiles, stone walls, balconies

Modern(ist) Vernacular

Early Modern Vernacular buildings often combine traditional spatial configurations such as courtyard plans, or configurations that result from local planning rules with Art Deco or Modernist style elements and new building techniques (add figure).[7][SM1]  With the commodification of housing in the mid-1970s buildings in the modern vernacular became increasingly austere and sparsely decorated following a financial logic rather than symbolic (add figure). It shall be clear that buildings such as the VT station, which incorporate Indian ornaments such as elephants into a Gothic style, or the India Assurance buildings where Indian patterns are included into a stylistically consistent architectural style may not be labelled colonial vernacular or modern vernacular respectively, since they are not vernacular. They are monumental, highly stylistic buildings, with proportions and plans and materials associated with a high-architecture style that respond to local figurative culture.

In addition to the vernacular styles, even the high styles of Modern and Art Deco have taken on uniquely South Asian forms, and defining them regionally is important so as to understand them as products of both local and global influence.[8] Art Deco took on local flavours as it became popular across the world, and India was no exception. Several art deco buildings in India have ornament and motifs that are peculiarly local. The labels Indo Deco and Bombay Deco have emerged to describe this. In the immediate post-independence period, architects experimented with Jaali facades and sculptural thin-plate roof shapes in a style that is often referred to as Tropical Modernism. Similarly, later architectural successes by modernists such as Charles Correa, Achyut Kanvinde, or Balkrishna Doshi are well-known, and all of them made attempts to include elements that resonated with architectural practices in India. Whether it is the use of a courtyards at IUCAA by Correa, or the form of a traditional spire in Kanvinde’s Ramakrishna temple, references to the built past and local context are present. They may be incredibly subtle at times, but the intention is very much expressed. Thus, while being modernist in their design, these adaptations to local contexts make their buildings regional modern or critical regionalist.

While processes of borrowing in architectural design are thus complex and authorship is never absolute, this position piece argues that a useful distinction can be made by distinguishing buildings that are predominantly vernacular from the high-architecture that is typically the focus of architectural historians. Labelling forms a first step into acknowledging the importance of these colonial and modern vernacular buildings to cultural fabric. In combination with archiving initiatives that no longer only focus on the iconic but also embrace twentieth-century vernacular buildings,[9] our understandings of the built environments can only benefit.