Tradition and Modernity in India and China

Discuss the relationship between tradition and modernity in India and China has unfolded over the past century, and how these developments in these two countries resonate with each other?

Over the last century, the development of Chinese and Indian architecture was heavily influenced by both local and national government policies as well as international influences particularly from Europe. This has brought about a conflict between transnational values and local cultures in the process of globalization (modernization).[1] Such paradox has also resulted in architects from both countries searching for a national identity for their countries to answer the question; how to deal with the relationship between tradition and modernity.

Initially, China’s modernization was limited partially due to government policies which favour the balance of preservation of agricultural production over urbanisation. Hence, against the Standard Western Model of urbanisation - as seen in India where “it has progressively destroyed the integrity of both the urban fabric and natural systems”[2] - China demonstrated a trend where geographically, there was greater assimilation of areas of with agricultural and no-agricultural activities and hence less urban architecture[3]. In saying, China’s modernization was still inevitably subjected to considerable international forces. This includes equipping China with new modern technology resulting in new aesthetics in architecture.[4] This newness – the technology and construction techniques- was initially received with mixed reactions, varying from “immediate acceptance followed by layering on of Chinese characteristics”[5] to “resisted newness …choosing instead to pursue a more indigenous, often traditional course”[6].

However what is common amongst some practicing architects is that “from an internal perspective, encounters with newness have not lead to the jettisoning of tradition and past practices[7]”. Instead, the various traditions of using motifs with modern construction; or modern materials juxtaposed against tradition styles - were considered in order to establish a national identity. [8]

The trend of continuing traditions to establish a national identity through continuing practices of the past is resonated in India through the idea of critical regionalism. After Independence in India, the idea of critical regionalism was developed to resisting international influences by advocating for “architecture of a region and the indigenous knowledge systems and practice which produce it”[9]. This idea was an artistic expression to ensure a “unified and homogenous ‘nation’ became an ineluctable reality”[10]. Therefore Indian architects were seeking for an Indian identity, an Indianness that was continuous with its idealized past and the result was buildings were based on form-making and place-making.[11] In critiquing the Vistara, a catalogue for the Festival of India for an international audience and hence with an orientalist bias, we can further examine this “blind embrace of modernism”[12] and hence how a superficial form-making architectural practice in India developed.

In this discussion, we can question the creditability of the Vistra as a “spiritual interpretation of Indian architecture as a series of epiphanies”[13] categorized under distinct periods of myths which stylistically were “matched to underlying formal ideograms which purportedly reflected the “deep structure” of the society of the time”[14]. It presented buildings such as Chisholm’s Senate House in Baroda; or Rashtrapati Bhauan in New Delhi, where he intentionally borrowed traditional Indian architectural characteristics to produce an “Indian style”[15]. Likewise, the Vistra suggested that Charles Correa’s embodiment of the nine-square plan of vastu-purusha-mandala in his plans for the Jawahar Kala Kendra is “not mere tra­­nsfers of imagery, but transformations of a deep order…meant to impart “Indianness” to the design”[16]. However, these modernist architects have mis-interpreted the spatial understanding of their precedents or understanding of the myths. Therefore, some postmodernist architects in India were obliviously decontextualizing the stereotypical Indian elements making them unique from their origins and then transferring these images onto their buildings. [17]

This transferring of stereotypical elements resonates with the phenomenon of the Chinese ‘Big Roof’. In both India and China, we can imply that this literal transfer embodied an underlying ambition to express a visual connection that links the contemporary building to the past. Also once again, the emphasis is more considerate of the physical form or “formal figural aspects of the building”[18] and less on abstractly reinterpretation of the spatial arrangements.[19] The latter was a difficult concept for architects practicing both in India and China to grasp because neither countries had a strong foundation on architectural theory;[20] and for India, an absence of architectural writings by Indian authors as well[21].

During the modern era in China, the working a cultural leitmotif into the architecture is regarded as authentic when it is also honest to the modern era, and as Thrilling’s idea of not just simply borrowing the traditional form literally but rather the leitmotif should be “further refined or merely implied”[22]. Taking the Chinese Big Roof Phenomenon as an example, this 1950s tradition architectural detail can be said to be more authentic if it is made out of contemporary concrete using modern technology rather than being presented as a timber structure.[23] An example of this would be Qi Kang’s Memorial Museum or Paul Andrew’s National Grand Theatre in Beijing.[24]

In India, the use of the Vistra to legitimise architectural history and has result in stereotyping images so that now images such as the “Jawahar Kala Kendra, are no longer simplications that make the narrative more contextual for the West; rather, they are evidence of appropriation of history to “create a tradition”[25], the “invented postmodern tradition”[26].

In 1990s, China’s revivalist architecture is a further development of the Big Roof phenomenon, so that through modernization, architects were not just concerned with the physical form, but also the importance of the spatial arrangements in a contemporary context. [27] For example, Zhang Jiinqui ‘s Shaanxi Museum of History had a traditional style gateway; courtyard and gallery relationship that is reminiscent of the local Tang dynasty; and encapsulated characteristics that were modern in abstraction by having a structure showing the transition between the traditional double gable roof with concrete columns.[28] All these strategies lead “the design of the project walked a fine line between unabashed revivalism and a sense of contemporaneity”.[29]

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[1] A.G. Krishna Menon, “Interrogating Modern Indian Architecture,” Architecture + Design 17, no.6 (Nov.-Dec. 2000): 24.

[2] K.T. Ravindran, “Contemporary Architecture: An Uncomfortable Glance at the Mirror,” Architecture +Design 14, no. 1 (Jan.-Feb. 1997): 27.

[3] Peter G. Rowe, “Modernization in China,” AV Monographs, nos. 9-12 (September-December 2004): 9-11.

[4] Ibid., 10.

[5] Ibid., 11.

[6] Ibid., 13.

[7] Ibid., 11.

[8] Ibid., 13-17.

[9] Menon, “Interrogating Modern Indian Architecture,” 24.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid., 25.

[12] Ritu Bhatt, “Indianizing Indian Architecture: A Postmodern Tradition,” Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review 13, no.1 (Fall 2001): 44.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid., 47.

[16] Ibid., 48. Bhatt quoted from Charles Correa, “The Public, the Private, and the Sacred,” Architecture + Design 8, no. 5 (Sep.-Oct. 1991): 92.

[17] Ibid., 49.

[18] Rowe, “Modernization in China,” 15.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Menon, “Interrogating Modern Indian Architecture,” 25.

[22] Rowe, “Modernization in China,” 13.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid., 13-15.­­

[25] Bhatt “Indianizing Indian Architecture,” 49. In the Afterword Bhatt quote from Eric Hobsbawm in his discussion “The Invention of Tradition.”

[26] Ibid.

[27] Peter G. Rowe and Seng Kuan, Architectural Encounters with Essence and Form in Modern China (Cambridge, MA; London, England: The MIT Press, 2002), 179.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Ibid.