Education
1965-1971)
Trinity College, Cambridge.
(292 line drawings and colored photographs This book is...)
292 line drawings and colored photographs This book is about vatuvidya or architectural theory, the creation of temples, and the role of drawings as an indispensible bridge between the two. It focuses on two worls attributed to Bhoja, the legendary Paramara ruler of Malwa in the first half of the eleventh century. The first of these is his vastly ambitions, but unfinished, royal temple at Bhojpur, with its unique set of architectural drawings engraved in the surrounding rocks. These beautiful drawings, documented here for the first time, provide insights into construction processes and glimpses of hitherto unknown temple forms. They also hold the key to the intended design of the Bhojpur temple itself, which would have been by far the biggest Hindu temple in the world. The other main focus of this study is Bhoja s great compendium of architectural knowledge known as the Samaranganasutradhara, a project of comparable ambition to this temple. This famous Vastusastra was compiled at a moment when the classicl traditions of Indian architecture had blossomed into abundant maturity, and could be understood their diversity. The Samarangana s treatment of Nagara, Dravida and Bhumija temples are covered here in detail, with Key chapters translated both into English and into drawings of the temple designs that the next encapsulates. As illustrated by numerous photographs, the text description types known among urviving monuments, as well as many others probably never built. Far from being a straightjacket and an impediment to growth, the text is revealed both as a framework and a stimulus to further creativity. This book will allow the reader to begin to understand the temple architecture of medieval India through the eyes of its creators.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9381406413/?tag=2022091-20
(Indian temples represent one of the great architectural t...)
Indian temples represent one of the great architectural traditions of the world. Built for Hindu, Buddhist and Jain worship, they are without parallel in the way that they combine direct sensuous appeal with a highly complex formal structure. This volume explains the principles and processes underlying the designs of these monuments, providing essential historical background and placing the architecture in its cultural and religious context. It traces the origins and formation of the two classical architectural 'languages' of India - the northern Nagara and southern Dravida - and their extraordinarily varied development during the great age of temple construction between the 6th and 13th centuries. The book surveys the continuing vitality of these systems up to the present, and explores the lessons that can be learned from them by architects and artists today. By giving a coherent explanation of how to look at this architecture, as a whole and in detail, the book is able to convey a lucid and comprehensive understanding of the design concepts followed by the temple architects, and of the development of temple forms. The starting point of the analysis is the realisation that the principal elements of temple designs are themselves images of temples. Once this is recognised, the complex architectural compositions become clear. It can then be seen that a perennial concern of this architecture is the expression of movement. Recurrent perceptions of the cosmos and the divine in Indian religion and philosophy are shown to have close parallels in patterns of emanation and centrifugal growth embodied in architectural form. The book is lavishly illustrated with colour photographs and analytical drawings, which are integral to the ideas and arguments put forward in the text.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470028270/?tag=2022091-20
1965-1971)
Trinity College, Cambridge.
He is Director of PRASADA, a centre bringing together research and practice in South Asian art and architecture. Going against a prevailing tendency to focus narrowly, his work has embraced most of the subcontinent, and a very long time span, while at the same time involving detailed formal analysis. He has tried to bring to light a meaningful way of looking at what at first sight seem bewilderingly complex structures.
The work has revealed striking structural homologies between architecture and other branches of culture, and shown how, within a number of regional traditions, forms evolve in a characteristic way, notwithstanding conspicuous artistic inventiveness.
Drawings have played an important role in his research, not only for explanation but also as a means of analysis. Director, PRASADA Editor, South Asian Studies Principal Investigator, The Indian Temple: Production, Place, Patronage (AHRC project) Editor of South Asian Studies Editorial Board member for Context, Abacus, Pakistan Heritage Council member, British Association for South Asian Studies Executive Committee member, European Association of South Asian Art and Archaeology.
(292 line drawings and colored photographs This book is...)
(Indian temples represent one of the great architectural t...)
Member of AHRC Peer Review Academy.