Standing out from the crowd
- chet kamat
- Jan 15, 2020
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 6
Most of the 90s, I worked in Europe, initially in Stockholm and subsequently in Budapest. We enjoyed this period, taking the cross country trains and a few flights on weekends to explore neighbouring nations. Europe has the distinction of having huge diversity of architecture in a small geographic area. From medieval monasteries to renaissance castles and cutting edge modern structures - Europe has it all. Post moving back to India, I have still had the opportunity to travel to Europe and Ive admired the work of modern designers.
Architects like to build spaces that stand out from the crowd making a bold statement about the patron, the city and the architect themselves. One such structure I marvelled at was the Dancing House - the Prague office of the firm I worked at, was based in that building and hence it naturally got my attention.
The architect's concept was a building consisting of two parts, static and dynamic, which were to symbolise the transition of Czechoslovakia from a communist regime to a parliamentary democracy. The building has been criticised as being inappropriate in classical Prague - I found it refreshing.
Much later, in 2006, as the chairman of Teleca, a Swedish technology services company, I would frequently travel to Malmö, Sweden's third largest city at its south western tip. The world's first twisted skyscraper had been newly built there just a year earlier. It was intended to be a bold statement broadcasting the urban renewal of the erstwhile industrial region.
In both cases, the architects were backed by patrons who had the financial strength and a shared vision of what they wanted to create. While these structures were grandiose endeavours, I dreamt of adopting a similar mindset albeit in the context of my modest home. Time would tell to what extent this would be feasible and what success we would have.
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