POETRY IN ARCHITECTURE

Often while looking at spectacular facades, we wonder what it is that puts us in awe of its architecture. On thinking deeper, we realize that it may not be the material or its structural design but the experience and how it makes you feel. Intangibility in architecture encompasses the ephemeral qualities that go beyond the physical structure, imbuing spaces with profound emotional and psychological resonance.

Broadly, architecture is a collective expression, the expression of the designer, the owner and the context and a resultant symphony of these that fit into structural plausibility. The impalpable qualities of the built cuts through time with newer meanings developed routinely. The Expression of such eternal nature of built is well described through the rhythmic intensity of poetry and prose that well captures the character of space.

It's likely to identify poetry and architecture as different entities but the bleak overlap of these spheres opens a different world for designers to use it as a tool for design but also for the users to express the way architecture met them. 

Poetry personifies.

Its emphasis the rhythm 

Which the designer hoped for

And makes you look into spaces 

Through someone’s eyes.

Thus, Words become lenses

Layering newer meanings to 

A synthesized built 

It grants metaphors 

Bridging the built to narratives of life

Such as “Geodesic” 

Which Quotes: 

The shortest distance between two points — 

the line between us is a length of string, 

pulled taut.

From a collection of poems published in the book Walk, “Geodesic” by Ar. Mustansir Dalvi draws remarkable parallels between the characteristic qualities of an architectural structure of Geodesic to the frustrative longings of migrant laborers. Laborers who traveled miles on foot to their hometown when Covid downstrucked all other means of transportation.

Verses better capture these longings

Longings of trying times.

What else could emphasize

The tautness of love 

A remarkable metaphor of geodesic

Verses better capture hidden connotations

It's one we see in “Caryatids” 

A poem closest to architecture 

But personified 

Bridging the built to narratives of life

The Greek architecture references and embeds many such cultural connotations. 

Caryatids at the entrances of Greek architecture are the women who were punished and made to hold heavy burdens of the world.  Ar. Mustansir Dalvi, through this poem empathizes with by asking if he could share their burden only to realize that the burden is heavier than apprehended….

Poems such as these bring a 

refreshing perspective to build. 

makes one perceive spaces through someone’s eyes.

Thus, words become lenses, 

Layering newer meanings to a synthesized built 

You now revisit with a different lens

Poems' seemingly unconventional medium to express our internal monologue of perceived concepts and things around us. It is our understanding of what’s in front coupled with what’s previously felt that gets juxtaposed and results into a complex, temporary, abstract story of its own.

Poems taken into account are written by Ar. Mustansir Dalvi who is a poet, translator and editor.

Written by:  Aditi Manglurkar (2A), Khushi Pednekar (5A) Edited by Editorial team

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