As technology advances and India progresses it gets more difficult to disagree with Amartya Sen when he says that globalization is inevitable. Today in virtually everything, be it in people, places or commodities, it is easy to see the crossing of national boundaries. In a recent issue of Tehelka, writer and Architect Gautam Bhatia talks about the influence of globalization on architecture and how architecture has become just another commodity in today’s world.
He begins by saying that the increase in land values and the demand for floor space is without question responsible for putting Architecture on the fast track of change. But more importantly it is the people’s perceptions of style that seems to blame for accelerating this change.
Ten years ago, the Punjabi Baroque was an emerging style of Delhi’s houses, in which the persuasion to elevate modern domestic buildings to higher levels of ornamentation, was just a joke. The styles included those of Bania, Gothic, Early Hawai and Marwari Mannerisms. At that point of time this type of architecture seemed to have no purpose other than that of exterior decoration and was just thought of a passing stage that would soon die down without a doubt.
