CEPT lecture traces roots of urbanity

Following last month’s workshop on ‘Revealing Ahmedabad’, wherein students and faculty of Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) University had worked together to unveil the base of the city, the Interactive Studio 2010-11 of the university organised a two-day lecture series on the same topic on December 17 and 18.

The two-day long CEPT and Vastu Shilpa Foundation Lecture Series 2010-11 featured lectures by eminent speakers such as Dr MP Mathai, Ganesh Devy, Prof Darshini Mahadevia, Sudarshan Iyengar, Prem Chandavarkar, Pandit Rajeev Taranath, Sameera Khan, Kartikeya Sarabhai and Vidya Rao.

Pandit Taranath, one of world's leading exponents of sarod, highlighted certain pointers on urbanity. "Urbanity moves from population, town size and architecture to concepts, mannerisms of people and the kind of food they eat and prepare," he said.  The sarod maestro added that what we see as towns today is nothing but overgrown villages.

"And hence, there seems to be no sense of belonging, as you keep moving, pushing and pulling each other in a crowded town. What is important now is to help preserve the purified dialect and manner in which a town originally existed," Taranath said.

Prof Neelkanth Chhaya said that the first day of the seminar too had questioned the sense of belonging, existence of village and sense of not belonging. The essence of the part of Ahmedabad city which formed the base of today's metropolitan was also discussed, added Chhaya. 

Mathai spoke on 'Rural-rban Encounter' whereas Devy deliverd a lecture on 'Hoshiyar Shahar (intelligent city)'.  Chandavarkar picked up 'Imagining Indian City' as his topic for the lecture and 'Moving House: Tracing Residential Spaces of Tawaifs' was the subject of Rao's lecture.