Vedasri Siddamsetty

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  • The Acropolis of Athens

    If there was a dream come true, it was visiting the Acropolis in Athens. Sir Banister Fletcher’s History of Architecture puts forth some recommendations for architects to study, but even while studying, the Temple of Athena in the Acropolis of Athens stands out spectacularly. Just like the Eiffel tower that follows one everywhere in Paris, the Acropolis of Athens follows one everywhere while in Athens. It is poised, enigmatic and towering in its presence. I do always feel how difficult it would be for the current generations to live amongst such creations in Europe. What pressure to create!

    Touted as the most perfect building ever built, the magnanimity of the Parthenon, built in tribute to the Greek Goddess Athena Parthenos, or the Goddess of Wisdom, the Temple of Athena is profound. No line of the building employed in its construction and design is a straight line, the columns are not of the same measurement from the bottom to the top. They are narrower at the top and broader at the bottom but because of the nature of optical illusion they seem to be equally proportioned. The concept of Golden Ratio that is a proportion of 1:1.618 and the nature of all beauty in nature follows that proportion was found in ancient Greece. The Temple of Athena’s floor plan follows this very ratio as do the other temples in the Acropolis. Most of the other temples like the roof of the Parthenon have been decimated, unfortunately, yet they retain their splendour with the range of Doric, Iconic and Corinthian columns that line the fringe of the plan. From a corner the angle of the Parthenon reaches out to the sky. The use of about 100000 tons of white marble from the nearby quarries makes the Acropolis of Athens stunning and ethereal.

    Athena, a virgin Goddess is given all the best qualities, to inspire the people with a persona of goodness. She is said to have emerged from the head of her father Zeus and was also his favourite. As the legend has it, the prima God Zeus once had a terrible headache that bothered him unyieldingly, then one day his splitting headache literally caused his head to split from which emerged Athena! She was extremely loved by the people, in Homer’s Illiad, she is depicted as a war Goddess, with rare military prowess, representing the intellectual and civilized side of war, she is the divine form of the heroic, martial ideal and personifies excellence in close combat, victory, and glory. A huge statue of Athena is said to have been inside the Parthenon. One fact that struck me at the Parthenon was that no matter how lofty the statue, or the column or the building, in ancient Greece they were all broken down into smaller cubes or cuboids and fitted into each other to form a complete whole. The beauty in their fixing did not even reveal the joints, and the nature of their dry fixing is why they have probably even lasted all these years. Its like a lego town in action, except this was all in stone. Even the ancient civilisations in Egypt seem to have had a major influence on the ancient civilisation of Greece with the towering proportions. The pinnacle of achievement that the Parthenon displays may have been humbled by the future generations, yet it embodies a spirit that is far more crucial, standing the test of time, even as the Ottomans stored gunpowder and ammunition, accidentally firing a missile into the roof of the Parthenon and blasting off. In war and moments of anger such precious constructs can be lost, quite mindlessly! The beautiful Parthenon is poetry is a stationary mode, it is brilliant. Even with eighteen thousand tourists that visited it the day we were there, it held its power, its stance, highly unaffected and unbothered by the furor it created! It withheld the ammunition to an extent but I wonder if it can withhold the footfall that it receives, day after day, year after year. But unfortunately in architecture seeing is believing and then understanding. My textbooks allayed in me a strong preference for the Ionic column, the slender column with a capital in two curves coiling along the golden ratio, but in reality the beauty of the simply well-bodies Doric column is unsurpassable. The Corinthian column you ask? The one with a tidy composition of acantha leaves on its top? the celebratory one? Well, it felt too gaudy! While the Doric columns remained the Greek favourite, employed all over, the Romans loved the newer Corinthian order or columns and introduced the Tuscan and the Composite columns to the mix of Doric, Ionic and Corinthian orders of columns. The Parthenon though applies all the three in its structure. On the outside are the fluted mighty Doric columns. Today to restore the columns cost a huge sum of money and unless 80% of the original pieces of the column are found the archeologists do not assemble the random rubble that it seems. The fluted design on the Doric column is very tactile, a design phenomena that is rage in today’s glass too, but in stone, it feels phenomenal. The Carytids as an architectural support, or the depiction of female stature carrying the roof of the temple instead of the columns are striking. It would have to be my favorite feature that I found on the Acropolis in the Erechtheion. The frieze or the triangular panel that is found atop the Doric columns has been damaged, yet the pieces that remain are exhibitory of the fine nature of workmanship. Pieces of the frieze on the pediment can be seen assembled in the Museum of the Acropolis at the foot of the Cecropia, the hill of the Acropolis was named after the serpant-man Cecrops.

    The Museum of the Acropolis is quite something. While the museums of the archeological sites of Delphi and Epidaurus are enchanting, well Socrates is found in Delphi, the museum of the Acropolis has been designed atop the archeological remains of a marketplace and the glazed floors allows one to levitate over the marketplace. The Museum was designed to capture the interest of the visitors and present the Greek splendour in all its shambles and ruins. I do not know why people travel, amongst the 18000 people on the day and hour we were there (8 AM in the morning, obviously we waited for the crowd to thin to actually engage with this marvellous piece of architecture) I overheard several conversations, where a bunch of people were saying, “why do we need to know the orders of the columns, what use will it ever be to us?” Literally groaning as they climbed. Well, the asymmetric nature of gain or loss is the truth, and I do hope that the tourists who dont need or want to know dont crowd the architectural sights leaving them for us architects or history enthusiasts then, for architecture, places or spaces is my only reason as such to travel! Learning architecture through textbooks is a joke, the learning of architecture happens through understanding and that is felt only in realtime in the real place, no AI can make up for the reality of it. The way the light falls, the time of the day, the person in question, their perception, perspective, all of it matters and cannot be replicated in 8k with Dolby Atmos too. Otherwise why bother the environment with fuel and the un-sustainability of travel.

  • The Port towns of Greece.

    For a country that has in its count 6000 islands, Greece is more of the sea than the land. As the Greeks Simply dive into water from any island, Land, taking a swim in the salty water of the agency, they fried themselves on their bronze look baking in the glory of the sun. While he helps them with their tan, they cool off by staring into the blue waters that surround all their islands. On the mainland, the port towns of Greece have a story of their own to tell, Galaxidi is a pretty little town, that is marked by yachts, boats and extremely pretty houses that have within them courtyard filled with bougainvillea. The azure blue waters play host to several sea creatures, but also to the ultimate land creature that loves to swim, man. The safety is of the agency makes man fearless to die from any of the rocks of not just the island, but also the coastal port towns to dive into the waters. Diving into the waters at Galaxidi made my day or should I say the trip, the balmy salty waters of the sea provide the best cure for the tons of walking that the rocky terrain in Greece! While coasts are plenty in Greece, what with over 6000 islands, the coast of the mainland is very different from those of the island. In Galixidi, the hotel accommodations are very quaint and cosy, if not for beautiful. Our hotel had an award-winning breakfast spread and we could see why, the table set with the choicest of fruits, juices, cheeses, sourdough bread was a vision to watch. It reminded me of the Russian painting, the Girl with peaches, by Valentin Serov, for its light quality. It is my favourite painting and the setting was also just a favorite.

    Nafplio on the other hand is a port town, but it also was the first capital of Greece, yes the first capital of Greece after it’s liberation from the Turks. When the Turks left Greece in 1830 Naz plier became the capital. It’s a beautiful city which is quite vanishing in its outlook because of in national, and one can find rare colours and combinations which are quite stunning to look at olive green paired with a pistol pink on a building is quite rare but red and white is quite classic and you’d find all of this in this beautiful coastal town of Nafplio, the way its buildings are built and pay still colours that are that are used on its elevation. Each of the colours on the elevation are handpicked, the windows and doors complement the elevation beautifully in national and one can find rare colours and combinations which are quite stunning to look at Olive green, paired with a pistol, pink on a building is quite rare, pets red and white, white, classic and you find all of this in this beautiful coastal town of Nafplio. Today it is mainly a tourist town, functioning for six-months in a year in full swing as the cruise ships dock bringing in hordes of tourists. Our hotel owner is a hotelier half of the year and a carpenter the other half! Seasonal professions as the climate or the season demands, and its interesting to note how tourism affects the city or rather country in totality.

    Tourism is seen to be the main source of the GDP, one into which every town of Greece is seen contributing into, every person’s livelihood is somehow connected to the tourists who visit, and sometimes in throngs! The tourists buy, eat, pay for experiences and that runs the economy of Greece, the cruise ships are a main source of Income. Athens also a port town, and the capital is sprawling, it is a megapolis. When standing atop the Acropolis the city stretches far and white, mostly in white in literally all directions. The city, also nicknamed, “the city of protests” sees a huge number of protests, mostly on Fridays so the weekend can be claimed. However hard the Greek ancestors worked on their bodies seems to be lost over the years, including weird ways of marrying in the family, yet what remains is the atrociously beautiful genes that the Greeks still have to this day. Golden haired, sun-kissed, evenly proportioned, the pharmacies and beauty stores dole out a myriad of products, for before-sun, during-sun and after sun exposure. Why even the clothing retailer Zara had an entire hair product range for after sun exposure! While Athens main forte is its patron Goddess Athena, it has the Temple of Athena, and those of several other Gods and Goddess that have crumbled in time.

    Due to its vast proximity to Constantinople and the various fights in the region between Christianity and then the newer Islamic religions, the architecture of Athens felt the tremors of war distinctly. While Rome is the epicentre of Catholic Christianity, Greek Orthodox Christianity is the state religion in Greece, and unless otherwise specified, every baby born in Greece is considered a Greek Orthodox child. The Unified Christian religion split due to political and cultural differences as the empires of the Romans moved to Constantinople and back. Power, a driving force in life, also was the reason why several centuries ago the various city states of Greece fought with each other, the states of Athena and Sparta for example. While the Athenians were grand in their beliefs and tastes, wanting to enjoy the rigours and splendours of life while chasing a life of value, Spartas believed in a more stark outlook, marred by less, in everything, including the number of purposes. There are mythological tales on how Spartan babies were eliminated in their sole purpose of wanting to only retain strength among their kind, one that could fight for their land unrelentingly. When 300 spartans faced the Persians and died fighting, the epitaph read, “here lies a spartan!”. It meant to show how dedicatedly and bravely they fought, faced the enemy and lie in valour. Known for their terse and brief behaviour in language and life, another instance read that King Philip of Macedon sent a message to the Spartan army in 345BCE: “You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city.” The Spartans sent back a reply: “If”. Their Laconic reply is also what Laconia is known for. Greece is the centre of the classical western world in more ways than one. Its not just the language, it is their philosophy and outwardness, since the land was infertile, they had to look outwards to the sea. Their mythologies are filled with stories of courage and provide a pensive into the ways of the human mind.

    Every part of the country, however small it is, is known for a diverse set of stories or Gods, who are relatable. Nafplio boasts of a castle, as does Mycenae, as does Nafpaktos, these citadels or forts so to speak overlook the sea and were centres of Naval power. But these forts built on top of hills overlooking the sea are just what we would find everywhere in the world as centres of security. The sculptures in Brass and Gold, the Mycecean gold are extremely beautiful from what we see through literary descriptions, yet they have been melted and used by the Christians in the buildings that their built later in their times, like that of the Hagia Sofia and others. Therefore what remains in the Mycenean tombs are the terracotta ones that may not have been of any use to the plunderers. Atop all of these buildings, the bastions of Nafpaktos, Nafplio, one is treated to extravagant scenes of the azure blue Mediterranean sea with the clear blue sky and its perfect luminousity. The glitter of beaten gold of the Myceneans shine bright, as does the soft feel of the beaded Komboloi in Nafplio, the stark pastel cotton cloth that is breathable against the harsh sun the country receives, the terseness of the olives and the gaiety of its oil makes this part of the Mediterranean so effortless and utterly natural. With no need of adornment and rich in its personality of the stories of its past or its legends, Greece has no place or space for pretence. The starkness of nature and truth in Beauty is not for the tales but in full-bodies blue blood in the oh-so-blue country!

  • Olympia – let the games begin!

    While ancient Greece was divided into several colonies or city states. It also meant that the city states were parent fighting with each other. These city states traded with each other for Essentials but also help together when faced with a foreign opponent. Yet in spite of their number of fights, they would all pause. Stop all wars to play games every year. There were four games held in the region. One was the pythian games which were held at Delphi, the other and the most popular one is that of the Olympics, which is even played till today. While Olympic games in these modern times have changed a lot from the games in antiquity, they still hold on to the spirit of sportsmanship. When translated from Greece, the Olympics does not have an annexe of games, instead, it was annex by a word that meant an ordeal. Because men were expected to fight with great determination, resolve discipline, and grit to fight for their place among the athletes of their time to dedicate themselves to something greater than themselves to finally reach a place that would bring them closer to their creator, thank God.

    As the Greeks believed that a beautiful body is a whistle for a beautiful soul, they expected their bodies to be the best version of themselves. Athletes would come from all over Greece to take part in these games, pausing their lives, even wars if any, that were fought during that time were paused, only to be resumed once the games were finished. Almost 40,000 people would come from where is regions in Greece to participate in these games to bring glory to their place of birth to bring met to themselves and their families inactive aspiring to have a statue of theirs erected in the Olympic campus. The participants and spectators would camp around the Olympic campus and prepare in the gymnasium that will allow them to practise their sport of running, which was the first sports introduced in the Olympic Games. Thereafter, several other games were introduced like javelin wrestling, boxing et al.

    It is also in the Olympia that the temple of Zeus is housed and the ancient Olympic games were held once every four years in honour of the greatest of the gods of the Greek. The spectators and participants who would come from great distances would also bring with them several offerings, the best that they had in gold, silver or precious jewels. These offerings were stored in the temple of Zeus into which only the highest members of the society at that time were allowed. Today, walking to those ruins, it is important to know that the original structures have been greatly destroyed and covered by sting of rivers that changed its course over time. Yet after years of escalation archaeologist found the temple of the temple of Hera, administrative centre, the hotels or guest houses and finally the stadium of Olympia. The great stadium that hosted over 45,000 spectators looks pretty paltry and simple compared to the stadia we have today. This stadium measured about 190 m in length, and this is the length that the athletes would run during the games in antiquity. Dousing themselves in olive oil, the athletes within cover themselves with mud of the soil and participate wholeheartedly in the games in nude. The man who wins would be awarded. A wreath made with olive leaves collected by a golden haired boy from the vicinity.

    A lot different from the modern games. The ancient Olympic games that were organised by the Hellanodikai were held for 1169 years from 776 BC to 393 AD and were stopped before it re-began in 1896. German archaeologists are said to have unearthed and excavated major portions of Olympia following scriptures and text that they found overtime of travellers who visited this region. The ancient site of the Olympic Olympics still holds modern relevance as it is the light of Olympia that is captured to ignite the modern Olympic torch that travels from state to state city to city all across the world as the games are continued to be held once every four years. the concave mirror that captures the light of Olympia ignites the Olympic torch in a ceremony that is held at the start of the Olympic games once every four years. The winners are hugely decorated awarded the wreath of olive leaves and given a reputation that exceeds the life of the wreath. the winners bring glory to their city, whose name is inscribed forever as a city that produced such great athletic heroes. Today, Site is all inspiring by the magnitude of its scale and its share ingenuity of providing water through aqueducts to the participants.

    The museum of Olympia holds the most spectacular statue that remains, which is the statue of the messenger of gods that of Hermes. the East pediment of the temple of Zeus holds Zeus with his followers while the West pediment holds the statues of Apollo with Centaurs fighting, a reminder for the visitors to not behave like centaurs losing their head while at the games. The men who cheated out of greed or pretended to lose and let others win, and they found guilty were also falsely glorified by having to pay a bronze statue of Zeus for every time they made an error. the games that were a brain. Child in antiquity are widely regarded as one of the greatest sporting events of mankind today. As the Romans took over the Greeks, the Greeks are said to have not resisted instead, letting the Romans come and build a layer of their thinking and their way of one thing, an architecture to look on their existing structures and hence Olympia has a layer of Roman contribution. in fact, the workshop that was used to make a huge 12 foot statue of Zeus sitting had been later transformed into a church. While the Greeks knew to build in straight lines in squares and hardly used any arches with the know how to make a roof without the need of a keyStone, there are a few arches visible in the Olympic campus, which were later built by the Romans. The Olympic games were also the first of the games to be held in the cycle of the four years. When every year a different game was held in the region. It was perhaps because of that the Olympics has survived while the other games have slowly lost their relevance. that is not to say that the modern Olympic games look a lot different from that which was practised in the ancient times. The spirit of the games of sportsmanship of community of belonging is still harboured in the present day games. The world still looks at the winnings as how many medals each country won in a particular year, making the country beam with pride!

    The reality of the Olympic Site is insurmountable, the fact that the games where we people would find themselves to their countries and bond with other countries is a brilliant idea of the times. The Romans are said to have opened up the games to beyond the Greek border,  just as they took several creek concepts, Mehta and spread it all across the world as they conquered the world. The archaeological sites in Greece also demonstrate the greatest offerings of the Greeks to the world of architecture, the golden ratio the orders of architecture, ionic, Doric and Corinthian, and the matter of scale and proportion.  The Doric and ionic columns built at the Olympia site, were built in parts and assembled one on top of the other, just like the 12 foot high statue of Zeus. The human spirit is greatly exhibited from the ancient times through the modern at this glorious site of Olympia  that finds itself at the base of the Mount Kronion and is wedged by a huge retaining wall to retain the Olympic complex.  Like all Greek locations it is also swathed in stories of legend, of pride and of valour.

  • The Sanctuaries of Ancient Greece.

    Beautiful bodies are vessels for beautiful minds and are where strong moral compasses dwell. So believed the ancient greeks, as a corollary good minds only live in good bodies, hence a lot of effort was made to maintain strong, healthy and beautiful bodies chiselled to perfection. If a person was beautiful externally, with ripped abdomen or shapely curves, it was believed that they had a beautiful mind too, and also a very sound morality. Therefore a lot of work was done to keep the physical body highly attractive, today we see a huge number of statues peppered across the Peloponnese and Greece in general in nude, even Leonidas the Spartan has his statue all equipped with his arrow, shield and helmet, in utter nude. Clothed statues with the ripple of cloth were introduced by the Romans and are the proponents of the Greco-Roman period in art and architecture when Greece and Roman influences overlapped. The body in nude was to display its beauty. Sanctuaries or places of healing were important centres that people would travel to to heal their bodies and perhaps minds, keeping themselves healthy and in turn beautiful.

    The centres of healing that are very impressive in their remains today are those at Delphi and Epidauraus. In Delphi, the stunning sloping landscape embraces in its midst the temple of Apollo, where the famous Oracle would dish out her prophecies, the theatre and a stadium. in Epidaurus, also a major centre of healing the theatre’s stunning acoustic properties are still keenly felt and enjoyed. The ancient Greek theater was a sacred space that allowed audiences to overlook the city, countryside, and ocean, and encapsulate the sky. The sky was the most prominent feature in the visual field of the spectator, and the Greek terms for sky were interchangeable with the word for heaven. Though the stage buildings do not remain, considering they were built in the 5th century, it is a marvel that the theater with its stepped seating still stands today. In Delphi, an Agora sets the tone to journey up to the hill top where the stadium sits, while in Epidaurus, the lay of the land is more flattened and all the parts of the sanctuary are laid out with some buildings still a lot more intact. These sanctuaries are the most beautiful remains of the ancient Greek architecture.

    While Roman architecture follows rules stringently, we see such spectacular and proportionate architecture all over Rome and Italy, they also came in much after the Greeks in the timeline of history, they have the rulebook fine-tuned and applied. But in Greece where it all began, the golden ratio, the optical illusions in building design, they embraced nature and the tenet that the site is everything and the architect seeks answers from the site in its landscape, using nature for inference and inspiration. Nature and site are two things that the Greeks widely embraced. For if the site is sloping, the Greek buildings are built embracing the lay of the land as we find in Delphi or even in Oia, while in the buildings of Rome, the human spirit and enterprise were valued as prime and sites were even razed to make way for enormous spirited architecture. But in Greece the building always married the site, in tandem, flowing with it effortlessly. The beauty of nature is never surpassed in these beautiful buildings, that sometimes frame, sometimes encapsulate, sometimes perch onto the site, like we see in the temple of Apollo, or the monasteries of Varlum and Holy Trinity among the others, but for the most part, in Greek architecture, nature is the wind beneath the wings of architecture, nature is the sanctuary, and then beauty is the consequence.

  • Kalambaka & Meteroa

    Meteora is a rock formation in Northwestern Greece, that holds atop it, Eastern Orthodox monasteries. Kalambaka is a city at the foothills of these monasteries that makes access to the monasteries easier for the tourists, it has a dessert by its name that is a pudding of sorts with walnut cake and condensed milk! Yet the monks of the monasteries built them during the times of the prosecution of the Christians by the Turks, the Ottoman empire. The monks fled to Meteora and built their monasteries on top of the over 500 m high rock formations who’s tops are unconnected to any part of the land, soaring into the sky. The sight of these rocks with the monasteries atop them is stunning to say the least, and the climb up to the monasteries, lets say is quite a hike. The way the monks went up is too interesting though as they did not climb by foot, or use cable cars like they use now, they would be airlifted through a rope cage, a net cage, not every different from how fishes are pulled out of water! The net cages would pull up a bunch of monks every once in a while through an elaborate turnstile pulley system. Thankfully we trekked up to the monastery!

    Today the monks use a cable car to reach atop to the monasteries, some of the monasteries have been converted to nunneries, yet their schedules remain gruelling as they embark on a journey to look inwards. The monastic cells have tiny windows, though with a spectacular views to encourage the monks to look inwards. Every monastery or nunnery has a church of the Greek Orthodox type that looks stunning with art in gold covering the walls. The art is filled with symbolism to tell a story to even those who could not read or write. The cross around the halos were used to depict Jesus Christ across his different ages, while the hand gestures of the monks painted gave away whether the monk was a saint or a martyr. While the monasteries today are a huge tourist attraction they continue to remain centres of worship. The beautiful elevations of these centres of internal reflection make for a stunning view during the golden hours of the day, of sunrise and sunset.

    From the ground up Kalambaka has all the makings of a small greek town and serves up delicious fare of almost all cuisines, while up at Meteora, the priests each a largely what I term a spiritual fare. Today the monks also make their own merchandise and products including honey, cheese and mysterious beeswax that they claim can cure any issue of the body and mind, simply by rubbing some onto the skin or ingesting it to cure a common cold! The monks are in black for their day to day dressing and wear white and golden robes during important events. Even today children receive communion from these monks. In Greece every baby born is considered to be in the Christian fold of Greek Orthodoxy. Monks voluntarily enter the fold abiding to the tough diktats, giving up all their possessions to the church and are free to leave if they wish to. The higher purpose of their lives, to be closer to their Gods is vastly cherished and chased in their lifetime!

  • Its Greek to Me!

    The Greek Gods are mythical legends, with epics and stories that display their grand values, a lot like the Indian Gods, yet unlike the Indian Gods, worship to the Greek Gods have been long lost to the advent of the Romans, then the Christians and then the Turks, now becoming a tale in the chaos of the ruins in Greece. With enough on their plate, the economic crises, the unemployment crises, Greece also now has to deal with the crippling effects of global warming, environment change and over-tourism. The day we were at the acropolis, 18000 people were said to be visiting and slotting people into different times also did not seem to help. Present day Greece is probably a lot different from that of the antiquity, yet many phrases and even ideologies of the present, if I may say even philosophy come from the times of Ancient Greece. The idea of the individual and views of the individual, hence democracy came from the country that had to look seaward as the land was untenable. The azure blue waters of the Mediterranean connects Greece and its over 6000 islands to different countries and cultures, a confluence of many parts that were as different as ever.

    The Greek revolution cemented its form and created a basis for a republic in the 18th century, yet it was one of the first countries in Europe to become a republic soon after the Industrial revolution. Early civilisations were found even under the archeological site of Olympia and by the looks of Greece, digging under its untenable lands a whole new world could easily be found anywhere in Greece, and an expensive task at that, the government stops excavations more due to the lack of funds rather than a lack of content! Greek philosophers like Socrates, Epictetus, mathematicians like Pythagorus, thinkers Plato, physicist like Aristotle, are a few of the many that have laid foundations of the way we derive and experience the modern world. The modern Olympic games that happen once in 4 years finds its base from the land of the Peloponnese, the mainland of Greece, that began in great earnest and even had the power to pause wars as the people of the land prepared to compete earliest for running followed by wrestling, boxing, javelin and discus. Over the centuries it was paused by early Christian emperors before being revived in the 18th Century by historical enthusiasts.

    My journey across the Peloponnese brought me up close with the ancient and the modern Greek culture, to its Gods, who apparently threw rocks at each other bringing forth the make of the land, with its modern day architecture and its ruins of the past, with concepts in architecture like those of the golden ratio, the use of light in architecture, the significance of white in architecture and the stories that its culture weaves. The modern day country is juxtaposed against its past, having lost most of its mythology, unless for the sake of tourism, Zeus isn’t worshipped, yet his stories of valour and pomp surround the world. The Romans are said to have adopted the Greek Gods, and Indian Gods are some where likened to their Greek counterparts, yet many of the major Greek impressions are in ruins or ruined by the advent of the following centuries and its rulers who imposed new religions and wiped out the past not just in reality but also from the minds of the people. While the ancient Greek states fought for power against each other, the Athenians against the Spartans, the Ionions against the Corinths, they finally united against the Turks, expanding their Naval power. Yet the Byzantium empire ruling from Constantinople extrapolated a branch of Christianity that now is known as Greek Orthodoxy paving its way all across the east of Europe and all the way to Russia.

    While the Gods may have their stories of eating stone, marrying each other and then the mortals to form a web of Gods, Titans and Demi-Gods, all scripted in the Greek epics of Iliad and the Odyssey, they are rather confusing and hugely complicated, just try reading one of the Homer’s epics and you would know what I am talking about, beautiful faces still dot the country rich in its culture and heritage, faces that could still launch a thousand ships! The rather handsome country is beautiful in its people and also the landscape at large. Th idea of beauty is something even the ancient greeks took very seriously, for a beautiful body is a vessel containing a beautiful mind, a beautiful soul and hence a strong moral compass. Each of the 6000 islands have their own distinct quality apart from the mainland, the white buildings of Mykonos and Santorini are the most popular, but even Naxos, Paros and the mighty of them all, Crete have their beauty intact. While Athens, the capital is notorious for its protests, Athens is also called, “The City of Protests”, it is home to the mighty Parthenon, that every architect would want to visit. Even with it’s roof blown off by the Turks, its Doric columns still stand towering and a plenty to give a glimpse of what it would have been like. From on top of the Acropolis, Athens looks wild and mighty, yet all white till where the eyes can see. In the past the great Greek temples were all painted in vibrant colours in reds, blues, greens that contrasted with the shite of the building stones or stuccos, many of the islands and towns delectable pastel combinations that truly work today. The idea that buildings look best in white against the blue sky is not lost on the people today of Athens but mostly of Mykonos and Santorini, an architectural insight that totally resonates with me. The beauty? Well, its Greek to me!

    The places featured in this journey are Kalambaka, Meteora, Delphi, Olympia, Nafplio, Galaxidi, Mycenae, Epidaurus, Athens, Mykonos and Santorini.

  • Using HI in a world of AI

    ‘Where are the renders?’ is a very often heard statement in the world of interior design and architecture. My Lighting vendor to pop the question at me, very vehemently, in fact, he wouldn’t just let me go. He wanted me to tell him what it exactly looks like! What are lights like? How’s the feel of the space? But if I knew exactly what I wanted, and then where is the question of collaboration of bringing forth something that was not there before? Everybody from Lighting vendors to clients to carpet layers want to see what the final look will be even before the process is started. As done now this wasn’t always how things were done in the earlier times when the architect would be the director with the vision in his or her head, directing the site and how people would flawlessly completely trust the designer or the person whose vision it is, but today that has changed quite a bit when everybody wants to know what is it going to look like because nobody has the patience or even the trust to wait till it is complete. Everybody wants to know how is it going to look and then once you give them how is going to look then the scramble begins to find the exact same lights that look exactly like the picture, to find the carpet that can be put, which looks exactly like the picture, the picture is not worth 1000 words it’s worth 1000 lives when that is being replicated into what spaces in a world of AI. In fact, it’s getting more and more pristine, exact to the point that all that the person has to do once the Artist impression is done is to follow it to the team, the process of Design is no longer a process anymore. It is an endpoint you have the endpoint in the picture in mind and everybody works collectively to bring that picture to life now that is a normal that is how architecture works that is how the interior design world works.

    I tried to do one project a little differently this time, the final 3D was not in anybody’s head, including not even mine as the architect as a director of the project, the final picture was not in my mind too, and as the days went by and selections kept happening, the process evolved. What aligned stayed and what didn’t didn’t make the cut. Considering I have been trained as an architect trained to make these full proof, bullet-proof plans, elevation and renders well, it took a heavy dose of HI or human intelligence to bring this project to fruition. Taking things by the fly of the seat of my pants required a whole different mindset though. The need to be present at every moment on site is what it takes to employ human intelligence as against artificial intelligence. When things are not planned and there is no endpoint in sight, then the whole point is in the now. And to trust that what it will be, will be something that what it is meant to be. This way of employing human and on the site as work progress as things came together, required a teeny bit of planning but not to the point of excess with every stitch has been thought of, of course, every stage has been thought of, but when it was meant to be thought of not way in advance. Using human intelligence over artificial intelligence or rather employing human intelligence when it is necessary when it is a call of the day is a very liberating experience and instead of planning way in advance and knowing exactly what something is going to be when you can trust and be open to what it could be, it also feels very freeing and hence liberating. it is the state of not knowing and being okay with not knowing that brings us to places which we could have never imagined. It is the place for human intelligence come to the forefront, and we stopped relying on intelligence that we have built through artificial means. in fact to create content to write about what I am thinking is so easy to use Meta, to use these various platforms that use AI to construct a world of words, but without the human element in it, it is quite nothing. Without a render or a 3-D in hand, it has been quite an experience without a goal post. I’m sure life is also going to be quite interesting when we take each day as it comes and move forward, knowing what we are going to have at the end of the day is a combination of a multitude of tiny decisions that were made in a state of being present.

    It is then a win of the human intelligence, of humanity, of the human being rather than the human doing. The world that celebrates achievement that celebrates a state of doing that celebrates a state of achieving should also balance the state of being of being present of being so that what is done is done through complete mindfulness, through a state of being, that taps into intelligence born of humour, the human mind, which is more than intelligence, and one that starts to be intuition.

    The biggest lesson of working with human intelligence versus artificial intelligence has been the idea of not setting goals of not having any end points, treating the very moment as an end in itself. Of course, every moment is worked with great sincerity, it is not about not having an idea of where to go, but about allowing the moment to show up with decisions of what to do next. 

  • Faith over science

    Over the last month or so, I have had the good fortune of visiting a lot of temples starting with the temple at Yadagirigutta in Telangana to the new Tirumala Venkateswara Temple in Telangana to yesterday going to our family gods family Temple in Adavanahalli, a Shiva Temple. While all the temples were very beautiful, in fact, the Yadagirigutta temple was recently renovated for 1800 crore and looked worth much more than that. Our family God’s Temple is where we witnessed like my six year-old, called it magic or probably science. As the Purohit conveyed our seeking to the Lord answered by blessing with flowers. It was a sight to be hold very thrilling, and it kind of piqued our senses.

    While the average atheist would question, the existence of God not to mention the multitude of rituals, even his non-compromising view, would have to bend with the coming of faith. While science explains a whole lot of things, including the beginning of the universe and the happenings of physics explain the natural world to us, chemistry conveys to the molecular gist of things and Biology explains the processes of living beings there is no doubt that there is something that super sees all of these and that is probably faith. so when the Purohit asked to God for blessings and he replied with a tumble of flowers from his head, my six year old immediately turned to me, and said Amma is this magic or is this science while a part of me want to tell him that it is sign. another part of me. wanted to keep it a little magic, so part of me said that yes, when the pura Purohit was speaking loudly and creating a vibration through his sound that shook the flowers and made it fall. I also looked at him and said it would not have happened. If God didn’t want to, so it is somewhere the whole world is magical.

    As religion knows no bounds in India with a lot of rituals, a lot of gods, it is our way of making sense of the universe. But as long as all, these gods are mainly asking us for morality, for sensibility and for actually living harmoniously among each other, probably chanting to keep our mind, calm, or Communal feeling when celebrating the festivals together it is a beautiful way to celebrate existence. Religion could be a beautiful way to celebrate life.and when religious sentiments or rather even sentiments are hurt like the recent controversy at Tirupati with their Laddu, it makes no sense as the basis of religion shakes. The whole point of having religion is to celebrate the magic that is life to celebrate the magic. that is God for none of us know yet what is true, but we cannot also know that it is not true, believing and God is a personal choice. Being part of religion. Somehow doesn’t be a personal choice because of the community that religion brings along with it. The various aspect of various religions basically ask us to be aware of ourselves and whether is chanting the name of Krishna or Jesus or whoever if it is bringing closer to ourselves, then it works, and then religion is really truly magical.

    While being scientific is amazing, it is great to believe in the power of science. It is great to decode the word molecule by molecule atom atom probably proton by proton or electron by electron. It is amazing to be a part of this beautiful world with a laisse faire attitude too to just know that the universe works itself out at by atom or proton by proton, for that one has to have faith faith that the universe is working faith that things are working. Things are moving the way they should things gravitate to what they need to while we do what we need to, India is a secular country and there are various religions that are practised in India. The diversity is beautiful. In fact even in Hinduism I have been learning more about why things are the way they are very recently whether the Chatur mass or the time and Lord Vishnu sleeps, or it’s the time of the gods one after the other till December till Diwali, when all the gods come down to earth, it’s a bit of mythology, but it’s also about something that keeps us looking forward to anything in life, and the secret of happiness is to look forward to something that you want to happen And festivals. Do just that it keeps us always looking forward, so while science can explain how the sun rises or why the Earth is round and gives us proof helps us believe in that and not expound further, and further, even if we do the moon affects water on earth, it pulls the oceans up, rising the tide or letting it go and lowering the tide, have you ever seen a low tide, and how much of the ocean is actually visible at that time, it’s crazy. It’s truly crazy and so is the power of religion. It has the power to lift us up to our highest high and hopefully doesn’t bring us down to a lowest lows as long as we follow the middle path in religion and in life and well balance things out with faith, and that is backed by science, we should truly experience the magic that life brings to us. Faith then with, and not over science!

  • Diversity.

    Here’s a word on diversity. The more different your diet is, your workout is, your day is, your clothes are, your shoes are, may I add your friends are, the better off you are. This is fact not fiction. For the last couple of years I have been reading books on health, following influencers of health and seen first hand how health is really wealth, ask me for I have for years aided tons of money on medicines for acne, hair conditioners of every type and even astrological consults to help assuage my mental health! But what I have gathered from all the tomes of reading, is that health not wealth requires a lot of movement, a lot of diversity. Stillness may be beneficial but even that needs to be complemented by movement, the balance always tips on the diversity aspect.

    Eat the colours of the rainbow is old, eat 30 different vegetables and fruits is the new alarm, and doing so will cause no reason for alarm. There is truth to the fact that simply walking for years will hurt the joints, if it isn’t supported by strength building exercises. Also true is that there is going to be pain, in your joints or in your muscles the choice remains, workout and the muscles hurt, do not them maybe the joints will. I don’t personally think exercise is crucial, but it does offer several boons that even the lazy bones in me cannot argue with. But then the beauty of it is when a lot of different types of exercises are done, mix it up as they say. The same with reading, I have one last book that hinges on wellness for now, more lined towards the art of cooking, but after that it is time to pepper my reading list with different genres, it keeps the mind fresh. Then there is the fact that novelty keeps the mind young, alert and active, while routines are good for some new things are something else. That explains the love for travelling and the art of walking about in new cities.

    With walking is the question of shoes, and no matter how comfortable the shoe, wearing it every single day without a change could be disastrous for your foot. The human body thrives on change. So wider the shoe and the variety the better off one maybe! Even with music or podcasts, it’s a pity that AI reads your mind and serves up the exact same type of content, or even the social media gives you more of what you like, where is the mind expanding then. Then also is the company one keeps, when you are the sum of the five people you meet then you’d better watch out for who you meet! I have found that when I meet different people over different times the conversations are plentiful and refreshing. I have a friend who meets me and others once in six-months, for what is there to talk more often she says, that way one can cut off heedless gossip and malignant complaints from one’s life too. But either way there are those who you need to see everyday and those who you can see once in a while but then it’s the diversity that makes one’s life fun. Now while I go on and do something different today, it all does contribute to one final agenda in the day and that is to enrich my life and of all the others!

    P.s while this may not work in every situation or every order, it works in some! Do exercise it in caution!

  • Sri-can!

    Last evening I got to see a rather delightful movie about a man called Srikanth, a blind man who takes the world by storm, who refuses to accept a business award in a special category instead claiming to work harder and come back and win eventually. That way he does not acknowledge what we would think is a huge disability, a non-working sense of sight. The movie starts with the song “Papa Kehte hain” and plays all through, it is so apt in its use as a background score that it is still playing in my head. So peppy and aspirational just like Srikanth’s spirit. He dreams a dream, he has a vision, he has the tenacity and finally he has the humility, all the ingredients for success, also whipping up a few along the way as and when the need arises. All these do not require the visual sight, ofcourse with a little bit of help from his friends.

    The movie also touches upon heart-warming details where Srikanth with his lovely sense of humour adds a touch of extraordinary to the ordinary. When life gives you lemons they say, but this man refuses to believe that he was dished out the lemons in the first place! Rolling with the punches takes a new meaning, but all his achievement is because of who he is and should not be read in context of his physical attributes he says, that way normalising a spectrum of perceived issues. At the end of the day in life, all that matters is the lives you touched, the feelings you happily embraced and accepted the randomness of life, taking it in as bonus to the efforts one puts in. The cants are many, even in science till it is proven to be cans, and this is one such man.

    The best thing about Srikanth is his spirit for sure, not to mention his intelligence, I barely remembered Ohm’s law when my brother quizzed me about it recently while I have always loved physics. The human brain is so malleable, when unused the neurons happily die and build newer ones that is useful for the situation life presents one, like I now have developed patience with a 7-year old who detests reading and doesnt want to learn. Thats the beauty of the brain and of the human body, it always finds a way when it wants to, whether it is self-healing acne or cancer. Repressed emotions that are said to cause un-ease and hence disease, are released from the brain when the brain seems fit. The brain and hence the mind is super powerful, with or without the senses, and what can be said of the spirit, when aligned, we are all in, bound to win, even when playing blind!

  • There’s something about AutoCad!

    I barely draft drawings these days, but when I do it is just the best thing ever. Heard of being in a flow state? Well doing a drawing on AutoCad or probably any computer-aided design software puts one in a major state of flow. Or perhaps it is about the act of design or the act of building up a world a whole new creative world that’s inception is in one’s brain and magically enchanting it into reality is probably just as fun. But this entire morning as my fingers went snap snap on the keyboard and the brain kept conjuring up a dozen possibilities of what the room could be or what the piece of furniture could be, I didn’t realise the time slipping literally through my fingers. As an architectural apprentice I couldn’t wait for the day when I didn’t need to draft and could be the architect about town doing her thing, and now being that architect about town, I know the importance of a well-drawn drawing! Not to mention a correctly drawn drawing! A creative person I was told would never want to be a manager as managing people aka controlling people is as far from creativity as possible and I find that opinion rather true. The act of actually making something is a conversation between a real person and a possibility, possibilities which we know could be plenty.

    That is the beauty of design and possibly of life that is so dynamic, the ever-changing nature of life should be celebrated and given its due. For all the times I wasn’t in a state of flow I wonder, what a waste of time! For now, there is AutoCAD and plenty of rooms to design. There is something so magical about AutoCAD, and Sketchup and Photoshop but the blank sheet of paper with a drawing instrument does trump it all, it is eternal enchanting as thoughts flow out of the minds into the white expanse.

  • Indian Railways

    All through school and college, travelling through traverses of India rail travel proved one of the only ways to capture the miles across the country. The other way mostly was by road driving through the southern states mostly, with my brother and I plonked in the back seat. Rail travel always meant more people, crazy locales and activities that allowed kids to move freely, take a walk whenever we please not to mention all the hanging by the monkey bars! Now with a little kid in my precinct I was just reminded of how much fun train travel can be. The British are much lauded for laying the extensive railways. From the toy train in Shimla (there is nothing you like about it, except being laid in wood) to the Vista dome in Karnataka, to the efficient Vande Bharat, the good old Rajdhani and Shatabdis, now with the Link Hoffman Bush coaches and finally the Palace on Wheels, there is quite something for everyone.

    When my maternal grandfather was posted in the Railways as an Accountant General he officially travelled in coaches that were fitted like a home. And with him I had the fortune of travelling in those, that could only be exciting for a child. Literally it opens up thinking on what a room should be like or what a train should be like. When on Vande Bharat one is quite well fed with food brought in every hour or so, in the older coaches the charm of train travel is very much intact. If people are not the forte then first class travel is totally recommended, off late I find myself not wanting to indulge in small conversations so I simply stick my nose in a book. But my 6 year old is quite a chatty one and soon we find ourselves about others plans, where they are heading and what they’ve been up to, throw in some parenting tips or life goals that everyone seems to be giving away for free these days!

    Indian Railways is upgrading yet it’s holding on to the coaches that were running earlier that reach smaller stations. The quaint stations with three or less platforms reach the inner parts of India, the Bharat that is the soul of the country. Recently I watched a movie called Laapata Ladies that also provides a look into this inner India that is so simple and aims for similar things in life that binds us all as one. While the platforms can do a lot better, a great number of platforms are revamping to be sustainable achieving LEED ratings of gold or platinum. While the air-conditioning for the coaches blast off, the heat generated by them are dumped on the platforms making the platforms quite hot and chaotic. (This is probably the case in our cities, with CSIR incentivising not using an iron, but more on that later) The overbridges aren’t a really enough and I’d like underground walkways a lot better!! When flying has become a lot more convenient and economical the astronomical impact it has on the planet is undeniable. Anyone remember how Thunberg took a solar powered boat to the Climate Summit to make a point? If only the Indian railways could be solar powered and the platform connections could be subterranean, the otherwise comparatively sustainable mode of travel would win even bigger.