Acts of Repair | Architecture thesis

ACTS OF REPAIR

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A thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Bachelor of Architecture in the Department of Architecture of the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island, by Shivani Agarwal, May 2021.

Primary Advisor | Hansy Better Barraza Secondary Advisor | Christopher Roberts

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This project would not be possible without the constant support from my thesis advisors.

A special thank you to Namita Dharia for her understanding of the subject and guidance through the year. To Jonathan and Laura, thank you for your help and support through the course of my architecture degree, I am very grateful.

And to my family and friends, thank you for everything in between.

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CONTENTS Positioning statement

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On site On program On craft

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Thesis statement

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Conceptual making To make To remember and be remembered To fade To collect To reconstitute

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Introduction

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2008, Sushila

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Site

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1979, Neeta

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Program Spatial explorations

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2022, Rita

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Additional reference Sketches Precedents

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Bibliography

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POSITIONING STATEMENT I hope for my thesis to be sensitive, conscious, curious and critical.

It will be an extension of my experiences in the world. This includes my childhood, my background, the courses I have taken, the projects I have done, the relationships I have shared, the places I have been to, and the things I spend my time thinking and reading about.

At the same time, I think of it as a part of a whole, wherein my thesis would be my journey but would also reflect aspects of the things that factor into shaping it- the thinking of the writers I read, the experiences and perspectives of my peers and advisors, and the extents and limitations under which the thesis is being produced.

I hope for it to be complex in a way that it tackles topics, almost as if it was situated at the intersection of a lot of things, whether it be mediums, themes, forms of representation, research, etc. And that is what architecture means to me as well; a physical manifestation of the cultural, social, political, and environmental forces that surround it, where one influences the other. Context will be of great importance. I enjoy thinking about it as an unraveling, almost as if I were to begin by gathering all this information that exists in the world, clump it all together, and then slowly pull it apart in an attempt to gain clarity and potentially string it together in a way that says something. My thesis should put back into the world more than what I started with. I want the process to have variation in rhythm, from quick intuitive based reactions to slower moments of pause and reflection. Some other words that came to mind as I think about thesis are- challenging, conversational, uplifting, engaging, and relevant.

To some extent, I have perceived a thesis to be the epitome of my education, almost like a culmination of everything I have ever done and learned. But the more time I spend thinking about it, I realize that I would rather it be an exploration that challenges me, teaches me something, and finds its place or relevance in the world.

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ON SITE For me, a site is an understanding of what was, what is, what can be, and what will be within and around a space. The space could either be set in reality, imagination or even be ephemeral. No matter what it may be, a site in this day is almost never a blank slate. It transcends the physical man-made boundaries that attempt to dictate its extent.

As much as a site is about what is in front of you, it is about the visible and invisible forces that are constantly pulling and pushing into shaping it, as well as about yourself.

The context is what creates a site and this includes socio-political, geographical, cultural, environmental, psychological factors and so on. The consideration of a particular site would also include the inconsideration of all others. A site is very rarely the same to two people. My own position within the site, that is, acknowledging and being aware of my biases, the extents and limitations of my accessibility to the site would play an important role in unpacking what a site would be for me.

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ON PROGRAM Program can be a part of a concept or the concept itself. Although, for me, it is unstable.

Program in architecture creates a tension between the need permanence and the simultaneous need for adaptation.

Even though the design of architecture is strongly linked to and influenced by the program it was set out to hold, it should not be the only form of inhabitation possible within the space. Spaces can have the ability to transform and accept new program, beyond what they were intended for. What a building may become cannot be entirely predicted and designed for, but maybe if program is thought to be unstable, and architecture to be adaptive, multiple versions of the two can occur within the same space and lead to a better use of spaces and possibly even unexpected collusions of people, events and surroundings.

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Narrative based craft forms of India

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“All objects have a story to tell, and with objects that are handmade, the stories are personal, sometimes emotional and largely cultural.”

More than just manual dexterity and material skills, craft is the process of making thoughts, feelings, and events material. Craft creates space for physical encounters between body and matter; between past, present, and future. The material, maker, and user are interconnected through the stories embedded in everyday artifacts. Hidden within vivid colors, weaves, and imagery of most Indian crafts are stories stemming from different lands, natures, histories, and rituals. These stories exist in the forms of panoramic paintings, motifs and symbols in narrative based textiles, and performative traditions of dance and drama. Along with objects, stories have become a part of everyday life.

The Kavadh is one such example of a traditional Indian craft form that incorporates narrative elements. It is, a colourful wooden toy box resembling a shrine, where stories of folktales and family histories live. A person goes from door to door with the Kavadh narrating these stories. Another example is miniature paintings; a craft from Rajasthan that has been a way of documenting history for future generations, and include scenes of the city during festivals and daily events. They exist as little postcards or murals. Mostly seen in temple typologies, stone and wood carvings have often been used to communicate and preserve mythological stories.

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“Our past is something that we can build ourselves by the act of narrating it.”

- Doris Salcedo

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THESIS STATEMENT Storytelling traditions in India have been a way of memorably holding on to and passing down oral histories for generations. A lot of these stories manifest into the physical realm through craft techniques and objects; they allow for stories to be told, retold, reinterpreted and added to. Through my thesis, I am hoping to bring these narrative properties of craft into architecture, as a way of memorializing stories. Storytelling can be used as a decolonial methodology to foreground personal life narratives and human experiences that have been written out of history through the erasure of architecture.

The demolition, fight for preservation and rising real-estate prices of the industrial textile mills in Mumbai is one such example. The architecture of the defunct mill represents a battleground between the capitalist actions of the real estate market and the suppression of peoples stories. I hope to create a framework for a public space of production where the architecture creates an invitation for collective storytelling. Can we begin to highlight the textile worker’s experiences of erasure, violence and invisibility while also creating a form of blankness within the architecture; a psychological and physical safe space that makes people feel comfortable to add their own story to the narrative? Can we find a version of permanence within architecture that goes beyond physicality through the manifestation of stories? How can we find an afterlife of a building in the futures of where it exists or existed by memorializing the stories and experiences of those who once inhabited the building, in the next building to be created?

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TO MAKE How does what you make connect to where it was made? What is the role of craft in placemaking?

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TO REMEMBER AND BE REMEMBERED When the object disappears and a representation remains, what is permanent? what is remembered? what is forgotten? what is fading? what falls out from the gaps? what remains? what is visible? and how?

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A clean cut, a chi p, a rupture, a slow e r a s u r e, and emptiness.

TO FADE How can you know what it used to be and why does it matter?

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TO COLLECT How do the layers of inhabitations, events, people and stories in a place accumulate?

Can you tell them apart? Have they been buried or morphed?

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TO CONTAIN

An enclosure could be a container for another being and/or the being itself.

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TO RECONSTITUTE: A COLLECTION OF FRAGMENTS Neglected, abandoned, stagnant or even discarded spaces are a byproduct of society; of everyday life. What do they bring from their own life into their future?

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The project is a postcolonial imagination of a space of production.

It is a depiction of Mumbai’s mill-lands through the fictional characters of Sushila, Neeta and Rita. It by no means represents the wide range of experiences of the textile worker community. It is based on the worker’s experiences noted in the books One hundred Years One Hundred Voices: The Millworkers of Girangaon : an Oral History by Meena Menon and Neera Adarkar, and The Archive of Loss: Lively Ruination in Mill Land Mumbai by Maura Finkelstein, and weaves together a story of erasure, power of the collective, and remembrance.

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xyz mill, Mumbai, India

A STORY OF ERASURE The textile mills and workers in Mumbai, India; the local textile industry that provided cotton to the world in the 1800’s is what put the city of Mumbai on the map.

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Pheonix mills, Mumbai, India

In a city with almost no empty lots for construction and escalating real estate prices, the monetary value of the mills has taken over the life stories of the working class people, those essentially responsible for creating the city. The architecture of the defunct mill represents a battleground between the capitalist actions of the real estate market and the suppression of peoples stories.

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2008, Sushila

Meet Neeta, collect sari from masterji and pick up Rita’s books… Meet Neeta, collect sari from masterji and pick up Rita’s books...

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xyz station, Mumbai

“The next stop is Mahalaxmi station.” I push through countless shoulders to make my way to the door. Besides me, nobody needs to get off at this stop. Many, many years ago, this used to be the busiest station of them all, but today, I am alone.

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xyz mill, Mumbai

Tracing my once taken steps I continue towards Neeta’s chawl. About halfway into my journey I am interrupted, but I am able to steal a peek through the tiny gaps. A majority of the former structure has been demolished and a new residential tower is in the making. With most of the walls disintegrating, the room stood open, more open than I remember it ever being.

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Who has the city made space for this time?

Who has the city made space for this time?

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Girangaon, Mumbai, India

The mills, originally built by the British during the industrial revolution are positioned in a cluster at the center of the city, forming Girangaon, a village of the mills.

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Girangaon, Mumbai, India

The maps over time highlight the fading of the old structures, most of which have been redeveloped.

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“These imperfect, incomplete, broken and illusionary fragments of the built environment are important components of narration. They connect people, places, histories and futures.”

- Mark Minkjan

Ever since their construction, the mill lands have been a site of activity and conflict.

The rise of the mills in the 1850’s was followed by a mass migration of people from the surrounding areas, who came into the city to work at these mills. During this time, the mill lands were thriving and established Mumbai as one of the most prominent ports in the world. Following the great textile strike, most mills were rendered defunct and workers unemployed. After a long period of abandonment, new laws regarding the development of the mills were formed and since the early 2000’s most mills have been redeveloped into high-rise residential buildings and elite shopping malls.

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Compared to the 130 mills that existed, only about 20 defunct mills make up the city’s urban fabric today characterized by their sloped roofs, chimney stacks, large windows and large singular floors, similar to a typical mill typology.

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Shakti Mills

The chosen site of repair, is the site of Shakti mills situated within the old Girangaon area.

It is one amongst the few mills that are a part fo the city’s industrial ruins and is surrounded by chawls, slums, the dhobhi ghat, and Mahalaxmi station.

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1979, Neeta Twist, attach and roll... twist, attach and roll... twist, attach and roll...

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xyz mill, Mumbai

Sushila, almost without a thought, her muscles so used to the movement, spins the last bundle of cotton fiber and hands it to me. I put it into a cardboard box and tape it shut. She sighs with relief.

It is one large room at its maximum capacity and the only break we get, we spend at the back end of the floor, amidst countless boxes.

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xyz mill, Mumbai

Sushila climbs up on two of the boxes and jerks a window open.

Hot, humid air escapes, making way for a cool breeze. It has been a long day of what seemed like never-ending work. I stare into the distance. She knows what I was thinking.

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Does anybody know that we are here?

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* One month later and a thousand miles away, somebody buys a tshirt.

“Made in India” the label says. *

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Shakti Mills

Following a similar timeline as the other mills, it was built in 1938, shut down with the decline of the industry in 1985 and now exists as a hollow shell on the ground, more recently becoming a space for urban wilderness.

The mills were mainly used for weaving and spinning cotton fibers into yarn and fabric.

Communal living and performing arts were a big part of the workers’ lives, in remembering their identities.

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Program diagram

Labor in the mills was also a gendered process. Girangaon was predominantly a male space with women participating in work only when the family was in desperate need. Women’s work and mobility thus became subject to, and dependent upon, the circumstances of the family and especially its adult males and created conditions for the exploitation of their labor and controlled their use of public space.

Even after its desolation, with the increase in crime, specifically violence against women, the site of Shakti mills continues to be a site of danger, further restricting a woman’s access to the space.

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xyz factory, South Asia

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“My legs ache from twenty years of standing” Manda tells me.

-Maura Finkelstein, The archive of loss

Current spaces of textile production, mostly sweatshops in South Asia follow a similar typology of the oppressive mill. Drawing from the sequence of processes needed to make a piece of clothing along with past activities on the site, I am proposing a space for textile production and collective storytelling, run by women, using both industrial and hand textile methods in an interwoven space to further question the craftsperson-labour divide.

Based on the stories of the textile community, I began to spatialize their experiences. I focused on ideas of disruption, both in terms of fragmentation and a fade in the urban fabric, as well as the movements and structure of weaving and spinning.

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Fragmentation

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Fade in the urban fabric, Girangaon

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Weaving

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Weaving

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Spinning

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Spinning

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Fading and stuffiness

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Fading and stuffiness

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Textile as a metaphor and material

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Textile as a metaphor and material

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Textile inspired concept prints

The mill facade is treated like a loom where the spinning creates spaces with gathering and walls act as frames that hold the threads, in this case the beams together, connecting the varied fragmented spaces. Moments where the force of the spin begins to intersect with the structure of the weave, the movement of the spinning pulls on the walls to disrupt the traditional gable shaped form of the woven roof. Each gathering space has its own purpose; to collaborate, to store water, to circulate and to stage.

The weave of the structure creates an unfinished architecture; one that can be added to by the act of inhabiting it. The role of the architect here, is to just create a framework that enables people to narrate their own stories.

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2022, Rita Once off the train at Mahalaxmi station, Rita and a few others follow the familiar echoes of song and dance towards the co-op. The old mill facade has been taken over.

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The physical movements of weaving and spinning have become of the structure and circulation. Just like the journey of the path gathers, rotates, the roof going over and under. The becomes a part of Rita’s body as she moves along through the of spinning, weaving, stitching and dyeing.

a part thread motion spaces

For some hours during the day, when the work isn’t machine based, the women are able to step out onto the veranda and continue to stitch, spin or weave. Even while at the machine, familiar voices of chatter keep their spirits high and during their break, they are able to go down to the water and enjoy the summer wind.

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In between arches and scaffolding are tokens; fabrics, broken windows, and memorabilia; an archive of lost futures. She recognises a few names on the tapestry from her mothers stories of her friends.

A few steps later she reads “Sushila” and smiles to herself. Her mother was here. She reaches into her purse, pulls out a photo and ties it to the weave. A little more of home.

Six months into working with SEWA, Rita has been able to bring her project to life. The people’s response is flattering. They are not only interested in buying the clothes, but also in hearing about her ideas and processes; her story. She is not just an invisible hand behind a label, she is living her mother’s dream.

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With time the facade is allowed to deteriorate. Every time a wall chips or roof tears, the women come together to repair it and patch it up with materials lying around.

Even when the old colonial mill disappears, the new building remembers.

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the stories will continue...

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Sketches

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Sketches

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Traditional workspaces of craftspeople in India

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Participatory

Narrative

“Sumando Ausencias” by Doris Salcedo

Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

Experiential

Symbolic

Jewish museum

African Burial Ground

Precedents for storytelling through architecture

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BIBLIOGRAPHY On craft 1. Torell, Viveka, and Anneli Palmsköld. “Dwelling in Craft: Introduction: A Call for Studies about Craft.” The Journal of American Folklore 133, no. 528 (2020): 131-41.

Accessed September 23, 2020. doi:10.5406/jamerfolk.133.528.0131.

2. Varghese, Shiny. “How Craft and Architecture Can Come Together to Tell New Stories of Identity and Culture.” The Indian Express. May 06, 2020. Accessed September 23, 2020. https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/art-and-culture/craftand-architecture-identity-and-culture-6396934/.

3. Smith, T’ai. “The Problem with Craft.” Art Journal 75, no. 1 (2016): 80-84. Accessed September 23, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43967655.

4. Cooper, Ilay, John Gillow, and Barry Dawson. Arts and Crafts of India. London: Thames and Hudson, 1996.

5. Read, CurrentsGuest EditorialIssue 32·7 Min, and 2013 April 16. “Craft Context: Connecting Architecture to Place and Time.” Terrain.org. July 15, 2020.

Accessed September 23, 2020. https://www.terrain.org/2013/currents/craft-andcontext/#:~:text=The%20essential%20meaning%20of,,%20temporal,%20or%20 even%20spiritual.

6. Chattopadhyay, Kamaladevi. Indias Craft Tradition. New Delhi: Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1980.

On India 1. MENON, MEENA R. “Land for Mumbai’s Millworkers.” Economic and Political Weekly 47, no. 29 (2012): 19-23. Accessed September 20, 2020. http://0-www.jstor. org.librarycat.risd.edu/stable/41720007.

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2. EPW Research Foundation. “Mumbai’s Textile Mills and the Land Question.”

Economic and Political Weekly 32, no. 43 (1997): 2785-787. Accessed September 20, 2020. http://0-www.jstor.org.librarycat.risd.edu/stable/4405999.

3. Neera Adarkar, and Vidyadhar K. Phatak. “Recycling Mill Land: Tumultuous Experience of Mumbai.” Economic and Political Weekly 40, no. 51 (2005): 5365368. Accessed September 20, 2020. http://0-www.jstor.org.librarycat.risd.edu/ stable/4417541.

4. Dossal, Mariam. “From Mills to Malls: Loss of a City’s Identity.” Economic and Political Weekly 40, no. 5 (2005): 365-67. Accessed September 20, 2020. http://0www.jstor.org.librarycat.risd.edu/stable/4416126.

5. Manish Chalana. “Of Mills and Malls: The Future of Urban Industrial Heritage in Neoliberal Mumbai.” Future Anterior: Journal of Historic Preservation, History, Theory, and Criticism 9, no. 1 (2012): 1-15. Accessed September 20, 2020. doi:10.5749/futuante.9.1.0001.

6. Finkelstein, Maura. The Archive of Loss: Lively Ruination in Mill Land Mumbai.

Durham: Duke University Press, 2019.

7. Adarkar, Neera, and Meena Menon. One Hundred Years One Hundred Voices: The Millworkers of Girangaon. Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2004.

8. Beckert, Sven. “Empire of Cotton.” The Atlantic. December 12, 2014. Accessed June 01, 2021. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/12/empire-ofcotton/383660/.

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