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Public spaces. What are public spaces?
Let’s re frame this.
What makes a space Public?

For me, an Ideal Public Space is the one where each individual of each age group has a scope of contribution.

Right from the ancient times, city planners have been striving to balance movement of humans and urban/public spaces. From Plato’s model of ‘Agora’ and ‘Emporium’ being a paradigm in the Roman Empires to Port Cities to City Squares and Plazas, Boulevards and Avenues of the west, we have witnessed the rise and evolution of Public Spaces.

I’d like to take a moment and appreciate one such infamous and informal space which now is experiencing it’s downfall. And which is related to the Indian context. The Katta.
(The word Katta is purely a Maharashtrian term)

This has become the starting point of my journey to the explorations of elemental architecture.

An element so small in scale, yet infinite in emotional, social, cultural and interactive spacism.

At some or the other point of our lives, we all are exposed to this katta.
A playing hub as a kid.
A hangout station as a teen.
A political debate dias for men.
A gossip catalyst for women.
A platform rich in knowledge from the elderly.

It would be of absolutely no harm to associate Katta with an archaic importance. The evolution of this space can be traced right from the pre-independant India, where plots were set, rebels were planned, protests were incorporated by the comman man against the British Raj.

There hasn’t been any space so lively yet so subtle in physical as well as mental dimensions.

My testimony to this ‘throne of the common man’.
The apex of Minimalism.

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Until next time.

–R