Tag: Starchitecture

Scholarly Articles

Tourism’s Unsustainable Consumption of Goa

By VISHVESH KANDOLKAR

2016. “Tourism’s Unsustainable Consumption of Goa.” In Sustainable Energy for All by Design: Proceeding of the LeNSes Conference, Cape Town, South Africa 28-30 September 2016, edited by Emanuela Delfino and Carlo Vezzoli, 365–72. Cape Town: Edizioni POLI.design. Download PDF here. To view the original see here.

ABSTRACT

At once uniquely regional, yet possessing international cache, it is Goa’s Portuguese past that makes this now-Indian territory a site of consumption. Located along the western coast of the Indian subcontinent, it is not only the ‘sights’ of Goa that have been commercialized, but the very ‘site’ that has been occupied as elite India’s playground. Goa is overburdened with tourism-based real-estate development, and, the latest trend is to own a second home, catering to the needs of the elites from the urban metropoli like Bombay and Delhi. Such second homes add to the environmental concerns of the place, especially when the basic needs of housing for the locals are ignored. This paper argues that luxury second homes, even if they are certified as ‘green’, are in fact environmentally as well as socially unsustainable for a given place.

Keywords: Goa, Sustainability, Second homes, Tourism

 

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Popular Essays

Z Axis 2016: Of Architectural Heritage and Contexts

By AMITA KANEKAR

 

‘Everything is our heritage’, was one of the memorable statements made at Z Axis 2016, the second conference on architecture organised last month by the Charles Correa Foundation (CCF) in Goa. It was said by Chinese architect Yung Ho Chang, while speaking about how he looked for inspiration to ancient China, Soviet-era China, Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh, Modernist Germany, and all buildings anywhere. At a time when attempts are on to force people in Goa and India into nationalist straitjackets of what is ‘our’ culture, diet, language, history, etc, it was refreshing to hear an argument for global heritage, even if only from the limited realm of architectural practice.

 

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Popular Essays

Zaha Hadid and our Starchitect Culture

By AMITA KANEKAR

 

The death last week of Zaha Hadid saw expressions of grief from both the architectural world and the general global media. Because Hadid was not merely a highly successful architect but a ‘starchitect’, one of the tiny group of the world’s most sought-after architects who are also global media celebrities in their own right. Along with others like Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas, and Norman Foster, the Iraqi-born and London-educated Hadid was an international brand, whose prestigious projects, with their trademark gravity-defying forms, included a cultural centre in Baku, museums in Milan and Glasgow, an opera house in Guangzhou, and the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympics. A winner of the top international awards for architecture, like the Pritzker in 2004, the 2016 RIBA gold medal, and the Stirling prize (twice), she was also celebrated for being the first woman, the first Muslim, and the first person of colour in this largely white man’s club.

 

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