Altered Perception of Culture: Based on Features of Pedestrian Experience and Aesthetic Regeneration of Built Environment

Abstract

Culture and tradition are based on participation, engagement, and an idea that prioritizes equality for humanity. And “perception” toward tradition has created the bonding between human values, tradition, and technological progression. “Perception” is the identification, organization, and interpretation of sensory information into coherent unified meaning to self and to the world. Since perception is based on human interpretation and meaning; it varies with factors like culture, civilization, and age of development. Hence, perception forms the “imageability” of the space and altered with time and space.

The chapter would concentrate on the rapid urbanization that has led to the disparity of identity, imbalances of the indigenous knowledge system, deterioration of cultural and regional assets, and hence, a decline in individual empowerment. The chapter focused on the indigenous architectural forms and knowledge system as a part of everyday aesthetics. It attempts to grasp the physical, tangible architectural forms and patterns of space. Therefore, define and evaluate the form, style, and pattern of the architecture itself and space around by analyzing people’s perception toward it. The study would culminate through assessment of architectural patterns and built environment in two different case studies, namely, vernacular architectures at Santiniketan in Birbhum and Jorasanko Thakur Bari and their alternative responses to different versions and priority of nature and ecology.

This chapter brings to light how a pre-transitional context of Jorasanko Thakur Bari grafted from a hardcore urban footprint in British Industrial Calcutta had contrasted with a posttransitional eco-friendly setup of Birbhum in Rural Bengal from which Santiniketan and its eco-exploratory setup was carved out. Thus there is a need of a search for qualities of regional vernacular architectural aesthetics, use of space, and people’s perception toward it as against the more formal Bauhaus kind of design elements of formal urban spaces and its built environment. But the chapter does not end in contrasting and likening the two. Rather it takes another step to bring together the best of the two worlds. Therefore, integrating indigenous knowledge with modern technicalities may help to promote, sustain, and alter people’s perception toward both vernacular and modern forms and patterns, and arrive at a design vocabulary of the third kind. Hence the chapter has been segmented into three sequences of discussion, i.e., firstly, indigenous architecture as explored through the analyses and discussions of vernacularism and regionalism, on the one hand, and contemporary formal architectural aesthetics, on the other hand; secondly, a composite focus on the range and gaps of the experiences in cultural and social contexts based on the twin cases and its allied people’s perception; and thirdly, at a need to delineate an attempt to chart out recommendations on the basis of an innovative and creative approach to integrate vernacular into modern architecture and vice versa. With these three successions of discussions, the deliberation hopes to alter general perception toward the extremities, like “Indigenous” and “Modern,” and portray a new design vocabulary of the third order.