Mumbai LAST WEEK

March 17

Padre nuestro que estas en el cielo
Santificado sea tu nombre
Venga a nosotros tu reino.....

A prayer in Spanish, A song in Polish, a Christian Church inside a Muslim Neighborhood in India are probably the 30 minutes of the month that I will remember the most.


March 18
An invitation to a ceremony to put the name to child, In Muslim tradition when a child born they sacrifice a goat. Amina spent the entire day preparing the food and in the night we had the only home made food that we had during the time we were there. The same goat we saw alive in the morning. (I am taking Ari’s photos to publish).



Marzo 19
We went to visit all the mosques in Muslim Negar. We also visit some altars that are located in the courtyards. What called our attention was that those altars were devoted no to one single religion but to different religions and people said that Wveryone who wants to pray can do it there.



March 20
An action with the people and an intervention in the space: Who want to draw, we wanted to draw with everyone, although in five minutes we were surrounded by around 100 children, so they were the ones who draw for us. Crayons and papers, and a question is the only thing we needed to create a big congestion inside the Negar. With the results of the drawings we made the intervention, creating a path from the main avenues to inside the Negar. People collaborate with us a lot and even if the results were not what we expected we indeed learned a lot from that action.



March 21
It was almost the last day: presentation in the morning, last visit to Muslim Negar to say goodbye, dinner in the night, Happy holy with our Indian Friends and to see the fire. For me a no picture day, just to live it as it was.

March 22 and 23 Saturday, last day last time to go to buy things and souvenirs, dinner for one euro, too much food and the flight was cancelled. It was snowing in Netherlands when we arrive.

Mumbai Second Weekend

March 15 and 16
A trip to Arangabad (I will never know how to spell it)


A strange bus, a friend next to me who moves a lot when he sleep, thanks for the flu that I catch for your fault. 10 hours of traveling, we arrived really tired, there was bugs in the mattresses of the bus and also in the mattresses of the hotel (of course the cheapest we get). I would like to do it again sometime.
Ellora Caves, it was simply amazing, I don’t have any other word to describe them.The fort, a trip in bikes and a Dance competition of Dayo made a great weekend.

Mumbai: Second Week

March 10: Mapping Dharavi Main road

Mapping Dharavi Main Road

How can you take a picture without looking at the camera, knowing that you are being measured by the people who walk next to you?

March 11:

An open Discussion with the teachers about what we were doing.

March 12:


Tour through the city, we drive around in the bus the thing that called my attention was the fishermen village. A small place in the middle of the city which I imagine was completely swallowed by Mumbai and now it can be consider as a slum. We ended in a movie theater to see Bollywood. Of course I felt sleep.

March 13:
A day without a camera by myself and without the opportunity to draw anything.
We had to find Amina Khan, social worker in Muslim Negar. Amina lives there since 1947 and everybody knows her and she also knows everybody. Amina is an incredible woman a complete matriarch. The presence this woman has inside the Negar is huge, almost scary to tell the truth. Even when she live in Dharavi, I have the impression that that woman is everything but poor. She was very helpful for us and she helped us to understand the culture and the History of Muslim Negar.

March 14:
Another day without a camera by myself and without the opportunity to draw anything.
We met Azif, another social worker in Muslim Negar. As Amina, he gave the impression of being quite wealthy, if not wealthy, not poor. His presence is not a strong as Amina’s but it is obvious that he also knows a lot of the Negar. It is a shame that we did not have any other opportunity to talk with him.

Mumbai first Weekend

March 8


We went to visit the temples but I think what I enjoyed the most was the attempt to fly after the sunset.


March 9

We were free, so we went to Elephanta Island.

Mumbai: First Week

March 3: Mapping the Border


The street: Hundreds of colors, women dressed in white, red, blue, green, purple, red hairs in henna. People are walking all at the same time in the same space in between the cars.

March 4: Mapping the section

A curious child is looking at me. He is standing half of his body behind the door in which in front there is some kind of food drying in the sun.

March 5

Reality Tour, no cameras allowed, quick, very quick drawings:
At first I thought that is a way to make the slum a touristic theme. I still think that, however it indeed showed very interesting things, some of them is how organized is Dharavi. It is divided in zones with a clear division of the use of space, establishing zones for industry and living. I found amazing the thing that there is a School where half of the plot is occupied by it and the other half is a garbage deposit.

March 6: Map production

First day of production of the maps, everyone is busy; the hotel became a workshop where all of us are trying to create the maps. Also we had an invitation to a religious celebration where people offer small sacrifices in forms of flowers in the presence of the priest who is singing and praying.


March 7: JJ School

We went to JJ School to a conference in the morning, during the afternoon we worked on the maps with the Indian students in the workshops of the Faculty. There was something missing in our map and it was a drawing made by Ved (our Indian group mate). After the work was done I started to enjoy the light that can only be achieved with a camera in a tropic country. To do this i counted with the help of my groupmate who acceded to be the objective of my shoots.

Mumbai, first experiences

March 1st
I just realized what we are doing or what I am doing, it is quite amazing. At this moment we are in our way to our next destination. The words “grazie” and “prego” are in the back. In front a strange language is spoken by a couple, I imagine is the same language we will hear for the next three weeks. At my left that language again and at my right an open international newspaper with a headline about Israel. Soon we will see a boring movie and I won’t be able to sleep for the noise of the engines that keep us in the air.



March 2nd
We are at the University of Mumbai. We already passed our first experience, taking the train in Sion Station. We were divided in men and women, so my three partners were separated from me. The train arrived; I went in, one hundred people fighting each other to get inside a wagon very small.

Study Cases

The City of Dead, Cairo

Our study case was the cemetery of Al Qarafa in Cairo which calls the attention of people all around the world for the fact that people live in this cemetery. Our first reaction was to be scandalized by this fact, however, after look for the history of the place we realized that we were judging too soon without any knowledge of what is actually happening. This research helped us to understand that the differences in culture and traditions can be so powerful that before trying to understand a place we should try to at least get informed of the culture that the people who lived there have.

@tlas | photography | ed kashi | cairo
The Cemetery of the Living: Cairo's Al-Qarafa

Mapping senses in Delft

How to do the map?
We start to discuss how we were going to make the map. At first we started as any other Architect, looking things from above. However, after a bit of discussion we decided to do a map focused only in senses, smell, sight and sound. We choose a specific location in delft with the idea to achieve a broad type of people.

Discussing the maps

Mapping Sound
We split in groups of 2 people; each group took an specific sense, in our case we had to map sound. To do this we decided to ask people in the street to wear headphones and cover their eyes with the idea of isolate the senses. After that we uncover the ears for a period of time of 30 seconds for the people to be able to concentrate only in the sounds surrounding them and give their impression of what they heard.

Mapping Sound

Result:
In our effort to map the sound we measure the sound with two different instruments. The first: the ears of the people, people were told to tell us how strong was the sound and if it was disturbing for them or not.
Second: A technological device to measure the decibels of sound, with this we knew exactly how strong the sound was in that specific places and we were able to compare with the answers of the people.
Te fact is that in places were the sounds are created by traffic, people find it more disturbing and strong, even when the decibels were inferior to those that existed in other places.


Reflection:
A map based in sound not just will demonstrate were the sound is stronger but it can be used to know how people react to different sounds. It is not the same to hear the sound of a person talking loud than a horn of a car in the street, even when the person can be as loud as the car or even louder.

Salaam Bombay

A good movie
The movie of Mira Nair tells the story behind what we are able to see. The part of life that is hidden for normal eyes and reveals only to those people who are involved in such way of life is presented here in a very delicate manner. From my point of view this movie is a good piece of art that helps to know what we will never understand.

Heteroropia

A very interesting concept:

Places that mirror other places, it begins to function fully when people find themselves in a sort of absolute break with their traditional time. It lies in the sphere of culture. The theater, the soccer field, the temple, universities, schools, graveyards, places that reflected what could happen in reality but should not happened in reality.

Difficult concept to understand because I never knew if it was the physical place or the state that people acquires when they enter to this places. If I have to think about it, I rather not fully understand the concept because I like to think that I live in heterotopia and that implies that my mind is the place that mirrors all the other places.

MAPPING

Our costumes are always reflected in the things we throw away.

Urban device: An object to promote a social practice.
We decided to create a map based on the garbage that is found in the different spaces of the faculty of Architecture. Out of this the idea was to create consciousness of how much garbage we produce and to understand the behavior of the students in the different spaces of the faculty.

A very simple proposal:
Small boxes that will contain a sample of the garbage that is found for people to recognize what they are doing. The proposal was thought for the faculty but it can be applied in different things. It was thought to be presented in different spaces as public squares in the city. It can also be a comparison between different cities or even countries.

Building a Slum

Slum construction:
I think it demonstrated us that architecture not always can be designed.

Slum Construction

Deconstruction:
It is something to make a reflection about if we realized that the real slum dwellers built and turn down these settlements many times before establish them.

Slum Deconstruction

Photography Workshop

Impressions:

“The City is the stage for daily life”
I don’t remember who said it but I know someone did it.

And Henry Cartier Bresson said:
“Photography is a 125 part of a second when daily life becomes art”

Something I will never take a picture of:


The only things I can think is something inside a place without any light, because it will not appear on the picture, like the key inside my pocket. Everything else is worthy to be photographed.

A bad picture:


From my point of view there is only one type of bad pictures and that is when the image doesn’t create a reaction on the observer. In photography there are many rules about how to manage light and composition but all of them can be broke.

Sequences and distance:

How to prepare a cigarrette


Elevator


Distance


In general, this week was full of experiences each one of them very interesting.

I RECOMMEND

I strongly recommend this Movie to Everyone:

“City of God”
“Cidade de Deus”

Year: 2002
Director: Fernando Meirelles
Language: Portuguese with English subtitles

It is based on real facts and it is a story that takes place in one of the biggest Slums in Río de Janeiro. I think it will help everyone to understand a little bit more the life inside these neighborhoods.

IMPRESIONS

EXPERIENCING SPACE
I have always thought that Architecture is the understanding of the relation between space and human beings. Most of the people do not really experiment the space, do not really live the space, as architects I think that we should not forget to do that.

Jorge Luis Borges said:

“Todo escritor se jacta de los libros que ha escrito. Yo me jacto de los libros que he leído”.

…Every Writer is proud of the books he has written, but I am proud of those books I have read.

As architects I think we have to read the space and be proud of those spaces we were able to read. In our search for understanding we must look different approaches to the space that surround us. The moment we closed our eyes I was able to understand the space in which we were. Different sensations came into my mind and every part of my body was looking for a space where people were part of it.


PLANET OF SLUMS
During the seminar it was an attempt to define what actually a slum is. In my opinion, it can be compared with a biological organism which grows according its own necessities. Are we able to understand it? I think we are not, but I am sure we are able to learn from it. And in order to do that we should be aware of the fact that there are hundreds of conditions that provoke hundreds of consequences for the establishment of these neighborhoods that are seeing by their own population as different communities inside a city.

MOTIVATION

EL COMITE EL PUEBLO
This is one of the biggest informal settlements in my home town (Quito – Ecuador). It started as an illegal occupation of private property during the early 1940’s. In 60 years it had grown until it became a very big part of the city. During the year of 1999 I worked as an art teacher for children between 5 to 13 years old in the communal house. In that period I realized how these people live and all that they do in order to organize themselves to have those things that the municipality does not give them, such as security, roads communal spaces, etc... I realized that the same children I used to teach were those that sell roses in the corners during the nights.

This place has no quality in any type of space whether it is public or private. Public space is reduced to a single soccer field for the entire area, a one hundred square meters communal house built by the same inhabitants and to the streets, very narrow streets that divide the blocks that are conformed by houses, at least ten houses in a space big enough for 5 or less. The front doors of the houses go out directly to the street, in the cases when there is a front door. Hard working people lived here surrounded by criminals. To avoid crime and to acquire services these people get together and organized themselves into a very strong community.

This is an everyday reality in my country, it is something that had been there for at least 60 years and it continues growing. Only in Quito there are more than 10 of these Slums and I am pretty sure that there should be something to do in order to give some quality in these spaces. Here the work force already exists, people is ready to work in order to improve themselves. However what is needed is not only the will, it requires commitment of different persons (institutions, professionals, municipalities). But above all, it is needed someone to plan the right questions in order to search for solutions.

This was my first motivation to enroll into the program of Urban Body. Out of the two sites that the program offers the one that I find more interesting is the one in Mumbai, not only for the similitude I find with my own country but also because that the people will really get involved from the inside. It is really different to know the problem by experiencing it than to know it by learning about it in conferences or seminars. I think that the fact that we will live for three weeks in one of these places will really open our eyes, not only about space, but about life itself, because the spaces in places like these are completely filled with life even though they do not have any studio behind. The experience I had in my home town made me see things in a different way, it made understand that people is always willing to help each other, it made understand that the poorest person can be the wiser too. I just cannot wait to see what I can learn as a person and as an Architect by immersing myself in this environment.