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Evolution of the Urban domestic interiors from 1989 to 2009
History of Design
Sumegha Mantri
Exhibition and spatial design
2009
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As the title suggests, this essay traces the evolution of the 'Urban' Indian home in the
lasttwo decades.
In these twenty years,I have lived in four housessituated in twoof India's largest cities
Kolkata and Mumbai. The cities aredistinctly different from each other. Kolkata on theeastern coast is the Capital city of the state of West Bengal. Even though the
predominant living culture is Bengali, many other communities like the Marwaris and
the Chinese call the city their own. It's a large city, with a huge population and a wide
economic divide between the rich and the poor. The state has been under the CPI (m)
government for long - twenty five years under its Chief Minister Jyoti Basu. Therefore,
the common way of thought is in the communist direction, even though the Marwaris
of Kolkata are well known for their entrepreneurship. The city harbours a rich cultural
and social diversity andpeoplehavean interest in the arts and sports. Also, it'sthe cityof the Metro and the maidans, a city that runs at its own pace the fast and slow co-
exist, like the tram and the metro. It does not push its citizens into a frenzied
timetable. On one hand there would be children leaving for school at sunrise, and on
the other, most of the local shops are closed at noon, for the shopkeepers to go home
and enjoytheir mid-day siesta.
Mumbai on the western coast is the city that never sleeps. It's a fast city, with local
trains zipping to get people around. Mumbai is the commercial capital of the country,
and unlike Kolkata which is peacefully cosmopolitan, I have known Mumbai to be
grudgingly cosmopolitan, especially in the recent years, after the change in name
from Bombay to Mumbai. It is the city of Bollywood and the city of dreams. And in
being the city of dreams and possibilities, Mumbai faces large urban migration and is
cramped for space. The suburban areas are a tessellation of faster and ever higher
growing skyscrapers and places like the Dharavi slum, where people do not have the
resources to build skywardsare cramped at theground level.
It is very important to know the context of the urban settings in which the homes are
based, because a lot of what is inside the home is directly influenced by the conditions
outside, in thecity, in thecountry andin theworld.
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Personalization of the space. The posters show the influence of cable
television and the opening up of the economy to let entertainment from
other countries come into the Indian market.
The wall finishes have undergone a substantial
in the past two decades. From simple white
lime finished walls to special paint andtextures on todays walls. People have started
using bolder brighter colours and textures on
their walls. Companies like Asian Paints have
not only reinvented their technology, but also
redefined the way in which the urban India
homeis coloured.
2009 - Mumbai
2009 - Mumbai
2009 - Mumbai
2009 - Mumbai
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2009 -Mumbai 2009 -Mumbai
In the above images, notice the change in the floor pattern and tiling.
The windows - punctures in our box like homes have also changed. The
image from 1991 shows a grilled window in the background, with a hingedframe system. In the image from 2009, the window lacks a visible grill on the
inside. The glass is smoky black and not transparent, mounted on a sliding
window system.
Both the houses are apartments - parts of larger community dwellings,
building. The house in the 1991 image is on the third floor of a five storey
building. The present house is on the eleventh floor of a thirteen storey
building. The view from their respective windows is starkly different.
1996-Kolkata
1991-Kolkata
2009 -Mumbai
There has also been a change in the choice of upholstery for
the sofas.This being influenced by a greater variety of fabrics
available in the market and also the changing trends - of
matching theupholstery tothewall colours andtextures.
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At this point of time, the television and phone used to occupy centre-stage in
most homes. They were usually placed in the main hall or the 'drawing room.'
The phone was usually kept on a small mat, on a side table surrounded by a
telephone directory and a writing pad and a pen stand. Often, one could also
find photo-frames and show pieces around the device telling of theimportance that thedeviceoccupied in outeveryday lives.
The design of the actual device has also changed from the turn dial to the push
button. The telephone looked as if it had undergone a rigorous diet
programme and had become sleek and lightweight. The cordless phone
evolved some years later and made life free from wires. This was the precursor
for the mobile phone. It meant mobility within the house even when on a
telephonic conversation.
This is also the time when the
'Intercom' evolved. Rooms in the
same house had separate devices
all connected to a single
telephone number. Incoming callscould be transferred from one
room to another at the push of a
button. There was no longer a
need to call out to the person.
This caused further segregation of
the private space within the
house and the family. The privatespheres of people shrunk from
being the entire houses, to being
individual rooms within those
houses.
Intecom
The cordless
phone
Kolkata - 1996
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Simultaneously, at about the same time and more so in the late 1990s, the
mobile phones had also stepped into the Indian market. They were expensive
luxuries then, with exorbitant incoming and outgoing call charges. The device
itself was a bulky mobile phone with antennae and a fraction of the features
thatthe i-phone offers today.
However, with competition in themarket andtheadvent of technology, mobile
phones have now become ubiquitous. As families have nuclearized, its
members feel an increasing need to stay connected and to feel the security of
that connection. Mobile phones networks are a physical manifestation of this
connectivity.The landline telephone is slowly on its way out for the urban,
upper middle class home and so is its function of tying and unifying people andspaces in the urban household. In many households today, all its members
possess mobilephones, sometimesin a grouptariff plan that suits their needs.
To conclude, the mobile phones have better connected the world, but have
simultaneously further defined the boundaries of 'private-space' within the
home. The number of phones per-capita have substantially increased and
parts of this private sphere have also proliferated into the virtual worldthrough online social networking. One can now reach the required person
directly, without having to pass through thefamily members. With themerging
of the technologies of the internet and the mobile phone into one small
handheld device, this segregation of private space within the house has
become evenmoreprominenttoday.
Http://kottkegae.appspot.com/images/iphone-parallels.jpgHttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/
58/Nokia_5110.jpg/450px-Nokia_5110.jpg]
The evolution of telephones over the years - form, function and technology.
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REFERENCES
Books
Das, Gurcharan. 'India Unbound - From Independence to the Global Information Age,' PenguinBooks, 2000.
Varma, Pavan K. 'Being Indian - The truth about why the 21 century will be India's,' Penguin
Books, 2004.
Web references
Communications in India:'The Indian Telecom Industry', report by Vatsal Goyal and Premraj Suman ,Consulting Club,IIM
Calcutta:
'Sam Pitroda's OneWallet: Doing It His Way,' case study by Enric Gili Fort, Dan Greene, Rishabh
Singh & Albert Wang, Illinois Institute of Technology, Institute of Design. Spring 2006:
Sam Pitroda Wikipedia:
'The telecom journey', by B.S. Padmanabhan:
'Enhancing telecom access in rural India: some options', by
Paper presented at India Telecom Conference Asia-Pacific Research
Center, Stanford University, November 2000.
Image Credits
st
Subhash Bhatnagar Indian Institute Of
Management, Ahmedabad. ,
All other images have been taken by Sumegha Mantri and other members of the family, unless
specified otherwise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_in_India
http://www.iimcal.ac.in/community/consclub/reports/telecom.pdf
http://trex.id.iit.edu/~enricg/portfolio/case_study/OneWallet_Case_Study.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Pitroda
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2020/stories/20031010005111800.htm