<div>In a full-page ad for luxury apartments, a young couple lounges under beach umbrellas, sipping Bacardi besides the photoshopped blue waters of a pool. They were dressed as any successful westernised working couple — open collar shirt on black pants for the man and racy low-cut blouse and skirt for the woman. Thirtyish, both probably rising executives, heavily in credit card debt, employed by some IT firms that have contributed to Incredible India’s 8 per cent growth, now slowing. They exude a self-confidence that says they are people for whom architectural luxury is not a long-term hope, but a routine expectation. Lolling about their home, the image could be in Rio or the Riviera. Or Greater Noida.<br /> </div><div>The ad promises an international standard paradise: a 5-bedroom condominium set in a 12-storey structure, open plan, Jacuzzi, bar, two kitchens, servant quarters, heated terrace pool, barbeque, solarium and service backup. Architecture by a US firm, interiors by a Singapore-based consortium and pool design by a Brazilian artist, the international ideal could not be in doubt. Isolated in the supposed luxury of their 5-bedroom apartment, dipping their toes in their pre-warmed pool, the couple is doomed to a life of serious luxury. All for a mere Rs 3 crore, payable in convenient EMIs.<br /> </div><div>The ad had all the promises being made in other structures rising in Malibu Towne in Gurgaon, Whitefields in Bangalore, and New Gomtinagar in Lucknow. Whatever the location, architectural value lay only in the elimination of geographical distance, and proposing a structure that could no longer be identified with its location, no longer even identified with India. Architecture was changeable and dispensable; only the marketing of luxury was capable of making it into a saleable package. <br /> </div><div>Moreover, insisting on the exclusiveness of his venture, the developer had added a rider to the ad: By invitation only. In a country where shades of caste and status add premium to any idea, the clause of restriction could only work in his favour. By conducting interviews for admission, he elevated the status of the project from mere apartment house to exclusive club. The developer was a Punjabi, familiar with both, the workings of the Indian mind, and the capacity to manipulate it.<br /> </div><div>The primary interest in architecture has always been directed towards excess: fanciful space, new materials, structural assemblies that defy gravity, an attraction for the loud and supercilious. Call it what you will — luxury, style, status — the reasoning behind the inclusion of useless fripperies is a cultural flaw. Are Golf View Apartments sold because they provide a view of the greens? How many of the owners are interested in the game? How well would Sewage Treatment Plant View Apartments sell? Why are buses Deluxe, Semi-Deluxe and Super-Deluxe? Is there a difference in levels of comfort, privacy, convenience? How does the luxury model of the Nano compare with the Jaguar — both owned by the same company? Is one an indicator of Indian luxury, the other of British? <br /> </div><div>In the 1980s, when designing a house in Delhi, I realised that the idea of style and luxury had stemmed from entirely different considerations. At the time, people’s values were essentially Indian, even parochial. A house with a puja room far outweighed one with a Jacuzzi. Exposed brick walls were as much a status symbol as the diagonal width of the TV screen today. Luxury meant a red velvet sofa, the kind seen in cheap European brothels, juxtaposed against a wallpaper of a New England autumn scene. On the floor, there was no traditional Kashmiri carpet, but a nylon shag rug. Alongside, a dinette of tubular steel and glass-top surrounded by heavy Baroque chairs. Architecture was an abundance of textures, colours, and mismatched styles that lent a certain couldn’t-care-less bravado to the lifestyle.<br /> </div><div>Indian luxury always was — and always will be — a mélange of contrasting sensations. The new French restaurant in Delhi’s Hauz Khas village promises all the gastronomic pleasures of a small bistro in the Loire valley, but access to its interior is through an alley filled with excreta and garbage; walk further you can smell fresh coffee and croissants amid the diesel fumes of a restaurant perpetually run on a generator. At the entrance to the market, housewives stop in the morning to buy flowers for the puja room. That the flowers are displayed against the wall of the public urinal is not enough to upstage the sanctity of their religious use. Contrasting moments of utter dereliction and exaggerated delight are a permanent backdrop to urban life. The exclusive club and spa seem all the more luxurious when seen from the ramshackle despair of its surroundings.<br /> </div><div>We are, as you can see, unsure of the constituents of luxury. As with most things Indian, luxury is a constantly changing recipe: a list of add-ons that provides essential garnishing to humdrum lives. I too now approach every project as a package of new pretentions. Brushed steel columns if it’s an office, a skylight above an atrium for a mall and acres of plate glass if a house. Accordingly, the nomenclature changes, and phrases assume their rightful professional tone. ‘I’m trying to recreate the duality of urban enclosure as both physical confinement and symbolic representation’ is an old favourite. In designing an elaborate farmhouse, I am always careful to select the right words to convey the importance of architecture. If I add a colonial mirror-cum-hat stand to the entrance hall, I call it an ‘Arrival Loggia’. The drawing room, however cramped, can be christened ‘Entertainment Galleria’. In discussing the bedroom on the drawings, I make sure we mark it ‘Sleeping Chamber’. <br />The thing to remember is not what a building is, but how it will be perceived. If people have made a financial success of their life, my job is merely to make them realise that they have.<br /><br /><div><em>Gautam Bhatia is a Delhi-based architect and columnist</em></div><br />(<span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; line-height: normal; ">This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 24-09-2012)</span> <br /><br /> </div>
