HOME - FORMATIONS, FUNCTIONS, MEANINGS

© DAVID CARR-SMITH 2009 : all images and text are copyrighted - please accredit text quotes - image repro must be negotiated via dave@artinst.entadsl.com
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This section of "HOME": 'LOCATION VIA PERSONAL CHOICES', offers examples which are not so completely individually originated as the factory and land-squat homes shown in the first two sections [see above 'IMPROVISED-ARCH...' and 'IMPROVISED VILLAGES ...']. Shown here are examples that more or less conform to local physical/cultural 'vernacular' norms but whose (at the time of recording) owners/makers choices are individually driven - only minimally biased by conformity to mass-taste/product exemplars.

EG 2:
DURAG NIWAS HOME & GUESTHOUSE - JODHPUR, N-INDIA
1 Setrawa House, Old Public Park Lane, (next to Main Gate Gaushala Sports Complex), Raikabagh, Jodhpur, India 342001

The 'DURAG NIWAS HOUSE' is basically local vernacular in external appearance and basic internal planning, however the originality of its owners; the laxness of external restraints of mass-taste and planning-regs; the necessity of integrating non-home functions (guest-house and education), drive and enable its ongoing physical/functional initiatives.

The following generalised summation (a paean to the functional elaborateness of homes - or at least those realised outside such onerous planning, constructional, aesthetic restraints as are current in the UK) was written after six weeks of encounters with buildings of different degrees of functional complexity across northern India. The most complete (if not the most magnificent) being this particular home/guest-house - an object built and continually elaborated by its owners

"During our six week trip across the north of India we stayed in eight towns and your house was the most beautiful and complex of all the places we experienced and saw. Compared to it even the truly wonderful marble temples of Dilwara and Ranakpur and the (overrated !) Taj Mahal seem cold simplistic exercises in aesthetic engineering that have left no sense of personal engagement. It took the complexity of a human dwelling in which are formed all the needs of home, through all levels from raw practicality to leisure and beauty, to wake any real desire to return and drink from that place as if from an experiential source. I think the point is that we don't need temples but we do need homes and if we make these for ourselves (as you have) each is invested with the wonder of uniqueness and the excitement of an individual's discoveries." [1]

Note:
1: Alas the above evaluation no longer applies - sometime during the intervening five years the owners have 'thrown in the towel' and adopted the ennui of mono-styling - expunged their personal talent for pragmatic initiatives and buried everything they own under a kitsch evocation of the 'Moghul Palace' style!


DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to NW) House facade.	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to WWS)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to S) House entry view of the gates to the neighboring Sports Complex.

DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to EES) Entry and access hallway - view back to the entrance.	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (paste-up x2 pics 16-02-2010 / to N) Entry and access hallway - view into the house and courtyard.	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to NW) Entry and access hallway - wide end with formal dining area and view into court.

DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to N) Entry and access hallway - view into narrow end, with curtained perimeter and entry to the courtyard, plus, at the far end, an entrance to the owners' home.	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to SW)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to SW) Exit from the courtyard to the hallway.

DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (paste-up x3 pics 16-02-2010 / to WWN) The courtyard (mainly for guests).	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to WWS)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to W)

DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to ##)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to SE)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to EES)

DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to SE)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to NNE)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to NNE)

DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to NNW)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (paste-up x2 pics 16-02-2010 / to N)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (paste-up x2 pics 16-02-2010 / to NE)

DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to EEN)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (paste-up x2 pics 16-02-2010 / to WWS)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to E)

DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to NW)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to WWS)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to W)

DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to WWS)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to NE)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to ?)


DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (paste-up x2 pics 16-02-2010 / to WWS)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to SE)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to SE)

DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to NW)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to E)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to SW)

DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to WWS)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (paste-up x2 pics 16-02-2010 / to SSE)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to SE)

DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to SW)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to N)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to NW)

DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to N)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to SW)	DURAG NIWAS HOUSE (pic 16-02-2010 / to SSE)