If one is made to look at images of buildings constructed late 90’s onwards in London, New York, Tokyo, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Hyderabad, it would be difficult to identify the cities just on the basis of these images.
'Dream Factory', is an ongoing exploration into why that is. The project was intiated as a part of my photography course work at the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts and Communication. By tracing the history of global as well as national architectural trends 1920’s onwards, the project uncovers the contextual factors that led to the widespread shift from an architecture of elaborate ornamentation to one of clean lines, flat roofs, cuboidal forms where form follows function and finally to the ubiquitous high rise tower of the financialized global cities of the world. In doing so, the project seeks to criticize the proliferation of a copy paste approach, the system that enables it and highlight the vital importance of grounding architecture in the context in which it is being developed.
The project is also a commentary on the contradictory feelings of placelessness that living around architecture devoid of context evokes and a (false?) sense of freedom, security and convenience that these spaces give us. Cities have always been sites where people come to fulfil their dreams and aspirations. But the dreams and aspirations that we choose to pursue in these cities, are they our own?
