Curators Yang Seunghee and Manasvini Hariharan have put together an exhibition, Tall Storey, which depicts the similarities and differences between India and Korea while highlighting the lessons that we can learn from our South East Asian neighbour. By Team Viva
What makes a megacity great? One answer of course is a sustainable space which can fulfill the needs of its citizens to live their lives in a holistic and enriching manner. Seoul has often been quoted as an example where energy efficiency, emission rates, waste discharge, e-governance, a well-connected public transport and efficiencies in land consumption have ensured that the city is not just smart but answers to the requirements of its people.
Take the Eco-Mileage system, an energy-saving programme that engages citizens, for instance. It offers incentives to those who voluntarily cut back on the use of electricity, water, urban gas and heating by at least five per cent compared to the monthly average of the previous two years for six months. The reduction is translated into points which can be used to make purchases like eco-friendly household products, charge public transportation cards, procure gift certificates for use in traditional markets and exchange for credit card points. Certainly, a method worth replicating in burgeoning Delhi.
Urban spaces can conjure up images of highrises bereft of open areas, where people walk about with an apparent lack of connection in a homogeneous set-up throughout the world. But the development of community neighbourhoods is influenced by geography, climate, scale and culture and shows diverse patterns of growth.
So while differentiating a hanok in Seoul from a haveli in Delhi is obvious, it is difficult to do the same with a highrise apartment in Seoul and one in Delhi. Tall Storey, an exhibition at the Korean Cultural Centre, depicts the changing housing styles in India and Korea and also discusses their similarities and differences in-depth.
Both the nations are very different from each other, a difference that is clearly reflected in their traditional architecture. Curators Yang Seunghee and Manasvini Hariharan say that the major differences in the highrises of both the cities exist in the way that people occupy them. They tell us, “While Seoul highrises often have closed balconies which are used as spaces for storing kimchi, soy sauce and for other fermentation practices that people would usually carry out on the ground, Delhi towers often come with large community halls, open farmer’s markets and other spaces for activities and gatherings for which one would usually step out into the street.”
The curators feel that architecture is a response to living habits and hence differs according to local culture, climate, geography and other factors. But the inhabitants are always human, whether in India or Korea, who can personalise seemingly formatted spaces. The evolution of urban spaces in both cities is a response to industrial and societal changes. Manasvini says that Delhi and Seoul, being capitals, absorbed populations following World War II. Moreover, a variety of laws have shaped the urban fabric of the two cities. Undoubtedly, economic capital and industry have also influenced their urban characters.
In case of Delhi, the development was partially planned by the government and did not necessarily look at the questions of sustainability. Rather it answered to the immediate needs of the community. Which is why we need to innovate on existing templates. Since we cannot redo all of them. Talking about the evolution of its urban spaces, Ranjit Sabikhi who is an architect, urban designer and the writer of Sense of Space says that post Independence, development in Delhi was largely determined by the planners brought in under the aegis of the Ford Foundation who defined the framework for Delhi’s Master Plans — in particular the first one in 1961. It sought to define the layout for a city of 50,000,000 by 1981.
“We followed the Master Plan which laid out a series of sectors, each built around a district centre where commercial spaces were to be concentrated. The 15 District Centres were developed one by one, within which individual plots were sold to developers. The same process was followed for large areas of residential development. As the population of the city steadily grew, demand also increased,” he adds.
Seoul, which has a population of 10.2 million people, is one of the largest and most densely populated city in the world as it hosts 20 per cent of South Korea’s population. So there are various urban development plans of the city which Delhi can learn from. The bus reform is one of the major transformational reforms carried there since 2000s. A detailed analysis of the travel patterns was undertaken to study the bus routes for two years. Then new trunk and feeder bus routes were introduced. The government prioritised buses over private vehicles. This helped in the urban transformation of the city.
Their waste management is rather admirable. People separate their waste into different categories and each is delivered to a specific treatment facility. Separate bags for disposal of different categories are given by the district government. Not only this, there are different days designated for the collection. The non-degradable and non-recyclable waste is incinerated in different plants.
Though the exhibition is a simple presentation of housing in Korea and India a century ago, versus housing in the two countries now, it leads the viewer to question why two countries with diverse backgrounds now have common expression in its housing typology. Despite that, Delhi can imbibe many lessons, the ones suited to its specific conditions, from Seoul.
(The exhibition is on till January 3, 2020 at the Korean Cultural Centre India.)