Thematic Space on Indian Architecture by Kulbhushan Jani (Aasi Centre & India Research Press, 2002) explores the spatial logic and cultural meanings embedded in traditional and contemporary Indian architecture. The book aims to understand how architectural space in India is shaped not merely by function, but by thematic and symbolic meanings that transcend typology and time.
Thematic Space in Indian Architecture represents an attempt to understand the spatial order that apparently runs right across the enormous. spectrum of building types in India. This spatial order seems to emerge more from its own meanings rather than the specificity of any function. This very ambiguity creates a range of spaces that are similar in form and yet diverse in character.
An effort to understand space in Indian architecture can draw on the simple and direct physical conditions of the environment prevailing at any place, thus giving a meaning to the creation of spaces within specific physical parameters. This discussion is, therefore, an attempt to understand and explain the ideas of space as observed in various essential, functional and structural expressions in the architectural traditions of India. It is not based on mythical beliefs or romantic versions of ‘notions of space’. While most writings on the subject have so far concentrated on the sculptural and the decorative, the idea here is to examine the simplest and most common features of a spatiality that has lasted for centuries. The thrust is on the thematic and the conceptual. And the study includes both the mundane and the sacred. It is the abstract notion of space common to both that are the focus of this set of articles.
– Kulbhushan Jani, Thematic Space on Indian Architecture (Aasi Centre & India Research Press, 2002), excerpt from the book description
The text is in English. The book is profusely illustrated with photographs and architectural drawings.
Our copy is used and still fully usable. The pages are clean; no markings. The binding is in one piece, but is showing first signs of fracturing. The covers show edge wear and some traces of shelf wear and use.
