India: Trains

One of the single greatest phenomena I've experienced so far in India is riding the trains. As well as being a sensory overload, it offers a crash course in Indian society, economics, and geography.

A high degree of freedom from regulation has lead to a peculiar economic condition: because there are no barriers to boarding the trains (a ticket is really only required for a seat), and the absence of a dining cart creates demand, trains are constantly patrolled up and down by food and drink salesmen, who board the train at various stations as they please. This apparently chaotic laissez-faire phenomena can exhibit a pretty complex organisation at times: dinner orders taken early on in a 24 hour journey are phoned to a kitchen at a station further on down the line, and prepared to coincide with the trains arrival at that station.
The salesmen, as they walk up and down the carriages, advertise their product or products by chanting the names of their wares, the most common being the near-ubiquitous drone of 'chai...chai...chai' from the tea and coffee vendor. These chants add an extra layer to the aural experience, augmenting the staccato rhythm of the railway tracks, the intermittent blast of the horn, and the unexpected deafening that results when a train is met coming from the opposite direction.

This does have unfortunate environmental consequences (as often happens in India; economics trumps environment) - litter is generally disposed through the window, especially at major stations, where trains often stop for extended periods to allow salesmen ample time to restock and sell. This, together with the disposal of waste from the toilets, combines the function of a station with that of a landfill in many instances, a problem compounded by the destitution and poverty often located around the stations themselves.

The lack of regulation also leaves some issues of quality to be desired - I'm pretty sure the chicken in my chicken biryani was raw...

Layers: India: 1

A street-facing surface on the outskirts of the old town in Jodhpur, Rajasthan.


Layers of posters for recent Bollywood movies, each ripped off or replaced as soon as the movie has finished its run.


A long-running nationwide ad campaign for Reliance Mobile, consisting of a blue painted surface with the name of the product and contact information.


Meter boxes for the electrical system, installed by the British pre-1947.


The building itself was probably built during the reign of the Maharaja.

Elephanta Island, Mumbai

Hewn directly from the rock of the rock of the hillside, the temple to Shiva at Elephanta Island near Mumbai exhibits an extraordinary proximity to its natural context - architecture exists as that which has been removed; nature, in a physical sense, is all that remains. Human intention gives order to nature through the medium of absence.

The grid-like arrangement of columns enforces a secondary diagonal relationship to be set up between spaces.


This allows for spaces to be viewed through, and in the context of, other spaces. Here, the sunlight picking out a carving of a playful Shiva seems all the brighter in the context of the solemn lignum altar space.

Here it goes

Spent the weekend in London before I fly out this evening to Mumbai. Was struck by the proliferation of large building complexes, actually making up the fabric of the city in many areas around the city centre - it's original grain having been unrecognisably altered. One way of viewing London then would be as an accretion of monuments and monumental buildings into an extremely dense pattern, with superblocks adjutting superblocks. This and variations on it is the kind of thing I hope to document in more detail in other cities (I guess I'll just have to come back to study London some other time).

A Brief Introduction...

A Brief Introduction...

This blog is mainly a way to keep me active and focused on my trip, although I really have no idea what the conditions will be like once I start - in theory, the globe is contracting, through technology, to a point roughly the size of a village; however, I'm also aware that the world is a big place with a lot of things in it that could come between my thoughts and my successfully putting them up on this website. Therefore, if I don't seem to be updating, you can assume one of the following:
i) I have been bludgeoned to death somewhere and can't get to the internet (unlikely, mom)
ii) My laptop has been stolen (depressingly likely)
iii) I've spilt coffee on my laptop (90% likelihood)
iv) I'm in a village somewhere without electricity.

As I do update, I will mostly keep it focused on architecture, urbanism, and my area of research (top-down design vs. reactive non-design), but I hope to add interesting things I find along the way. Please leave comments, or email me at kvwxyz@gmail.com if you have any ideas of things I should while I'm in certain areas, or better yet if you know someone I should meet up with.