Platform for Architectural Transfers in the Indian Ocean rim
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PATIO
CONVERSATIONS
PATIO Conversations is directed by Saptarshi Sanyal and Sarah Melsens with the help of Thematic directors and Coordinators.
UPCOMING
CONVERSATIONS
11th September 2024
5 pm IST
Respondent: Aparajith Ramnath (Ahmedabad University)
<Conversation Link>
5 pm IST
Respondent: Aparajith Ramnath (Ahmedabad University)
<Conversation Link>
Mineral Landscapes of Cement-Concrete in South Asia
Meenakshi A.
(Yale University)
Cement-concrete as a material technology can help us reimagine the conceptual relationship between infrastructures and environments, by leading us to landscapes that are not defined by ‘artificial’ infrastructures as ‘cultural’ artifacts separate from their ‘natural’ environments. I will consider how mineral extraction across landscapes of limestone and limeshell became part of cement-concrete’s vital environmental infrastructures over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. At sites of extraction, we encounter cement-concrete infrastructures not as technologies used to ‘fix’ nature, but as processes existing within mutually constitutive mineral, industrial, laboural, built and imagined landscapes. Patterns of industrial location and production were shaped by and in turn shaped environmental infrastructures, as capital was organized to scale up or down in relation to fuel, flux and freight. Conversely, the nature of the manufacturing process and labour shaped terrains of extraction. Thus, a material history of this construction technology leads us to larger and diverse mineral landscapes and the role that cement-concrete played in infrastructuring them.
Meenakshi A.
(Yale University)
Cement-concrete as a material technology can help us reimagine the conceptual relationship between infrastructures and environments, by leading us to landscapes that are not defined by ‘artificial’ infrastructures as ‘cultural’ artifacts separate from their ‘natural’ environments. I will consider how mineral extraction across landscapes of limestone and limeshell became part of cement-concrete’s vital environmental infrastructures over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. At sites of extraction, we encounter cement-concrete infrastructures not as technologies used to ‘fix’ nature, but as processes existing within mutually constitutive mineral, industrial, laboural, built and imagined landscapes. Patterns of industrial location and production were shaped by and in turn shaped environmental infrastructures, as capital was organized to scale up or down in relation to fuel, flux and freight. Conversely, the nature of the manufacturing process and labour shaped terrains of extraction. Thus, a material history of this construction technology leads us to larger and diverse mineral landscapes and the role that cement-concrete played in infrastructuring them.
Road to Modernization?Richa Shah
Exploring the Techno-material History of the Old Bombay-Poona Road in the 20th Century
(SEA, Mumbai)
The idea of modernization manifests itself in multiple forms, especially in an activity like road-making. Here, it is necessary to address not only construction-related aspects like materials, machinery, technology, labor, etc. but also the strong political and symbolic dimensions that influence these aspects. Based on documents found in the Public Works Department Archives, this study elaborates on the construction and ‘modernization’ of the Old Mumbai-Pune Highway (NH48) which was known as the Bombay Poona Road. With the help of archival photographs of the construction of this specific road, there is an attempt to understand the material and technological aspects of road making. The study focuses on the 20th century which, in the pre-independence period (1900-1947) saw a phase of intense techno-material experimentation and the commercializing of cement concrete against the previously used materials for road making. This continued in the post-independence period (1947-1970), where some of these experiments were transformed into standardized procedures for constructing roads and highways in the newly independent India - governed by the revived spirit of nationalism. Situated within these changing political scenarios, we try to understand the evolution of the process of road-making in India by tracing the history of road construction in the 19th and 20th centuries.
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