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On Practice/ Interviews of Architecture Graduates

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In India, over 25,000 architects graduate every year with varied learnings, skill sets and aspirations for the future; in the field or otherwise. This transitory stage- one of exiting academia and entering practice is a very interesting time. It is a phase that propels introspection, self assessment and the need to take charge of one’s life. Stepping into a world beyond the cushiony atmosphere that academia fosters- and into the nitty gritties of all the things that comprise an architectural practice. A phenomenon that has been subject to constant change due to socio-economic forces, cultural trends, political scenarios and so much more. But mostly, evolving in response to the ideologies and choices of the people that make up this collective landscape of practice. Being a part of the 25K+ architects who graduate this year, I decided to inspect the present day architectural practice through the choices that my contemporaries are making. Throwing light on decisions that are not only the ...
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People Photo Place

In 1967, a French philosopher named Guy Debord published ‘The Society of the Spectacle’, a seminal text critiquing contemporary consumer culture, mass media and the pacification of people’s minds through the bombardment of imagery- which he terms as the ‘Spectacle’. He writes, ’In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.’  Today, architectural practices and its allied fields seem to have reached that point where the image has superseded the lived. Here, ‘What appears is good; what is good appears.’ The emergence of numerous digital magazines operating in tandem with social media algorithms have only accelerated this phenomenon. Where the medium one works through, drastically alters the way we respond to, write about and manifest design thinking. Agreed that platforms like Instagram, Pinterest etc. give a sense of agency, auto...
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