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Born in Mumbai in 1965, Bijoy Jain studied abroad, in St Louis in the US, and worked for several years in Los Angeles. But he never really left India. "I decided to come back in 1995. I feel at home here, I know the traditions, the place." Some might say his decision was prompted by opportunism: the economy was and is growing at an exponential rate, as are the numbers of building sites. In India, though, something like a short circuit has also occurred between reality and expected roles: the staffs of call centers imitate British accents, while innumerable engineers work on outsourced master projects emailed the next day to the West. Their professionalism is certainly excellent, but without roots such designs are bound to be photocopies. The bottom line is that with growth rates rising on average by nine per cent per year, the only thing that really matters is speed. "In this country they give you a week to finish a project; ten days later they are already building it. This is a slight exaggeration of course, but I realized straight away that a fine set of drawings is not enough to obtain the quality which I consider to be indispensable. Instead, I need to oversee the building site: to explain to clients and workers how things had to be done."
The search for the so-called enlightened client is thus interwoven with a strategy of resistance to the way things are, which is what drove Bijoy Jain to create "a sort of human infrastructure". He gathered together a task force of bricklayers, stonemasons and carpenters: skilled craftsmen with whom he designs and builds his own works directly. With a two-fold result: he shelters behind their proven experience while recapturing local material and traditions. As the architect's alter ego, his craftsmen are the only ones capable of keeping the original project intact all the way through: by taking all the time they need. They are well aware that it is not only about building a holiday home, but... > Continue reading |
