The Consciousness of a Place

Kashef Chowdhury.

The Consciousness of a Place

Whatever our invention or intervention, our engagements with place hardly ever end in concord. Only if we were to slow down and listen into its deep silence, could we hear of the memories and wishes of a place.

Materials? Ask me not of materials. I'm still listening to the story of the clay earth, millions of years before you have uncovered it, moulded it, burnt it. For bricks or terracotta temples. I wish to know more. And I want to learn to care. Like gold in the hands of a goldsmith. And oh! The textures, the imperfections, the feeling, the beckoning.- The building doesn't need ornament. The material is the ornament.

I'm tired of efficient buildings. Buildings that offer you not a moment to pause, to ponder, to wish, to recollect. Buildings that work well, better than you had wished for and give you nothing else. In an office or railway station - yes. But in a home or in front of art in an art gallery, I look for a loss of time.

Absence of time.

And then there arises the opportunity for serenity to invade.

And silence. The silence of a breeze. The silence of a deep sleep. The silence of a space. With few exceptions, architecture is forever married to the place where it is located. And to its climate, its wind, its light, its flora and fauna, and its people.