Had a chance to travel across south Kerala in the last few weeks - some new places, some revisited after more than a decade. On such a journey, its very easy to observe trends - like how each house has a new flat screen TV (Joshina had written about this some time ago) and how each garden has the in plants of today. But the most striking thing is the number of houses and their lack of taste and individuality. An NRI will build a huge bungalow for his wife and kid to stay, despite not having a plan to return in the near future and his parents living in an equally gargantuan mansion in the same compound. And each house is a copy of a copy of a copy. The trending element of Kerala architecture at the moment is the chaarupadi in the verandah - everyone and their neighbor has it. Decades back, when flat concrete roofs became the style-statement Laurie Baker had cautioned on how unsuitable it is for our land and climate. In the rush to follow, nobody listened. Now everyone has a sloped roof of fibre/ aluminium above their flat roof. There is no free land, no vegetation - only houses, and the merciless sun above...
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 02:36:38 +0000
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