Architectural Innovations

The heritage architect planned our offices in such a way that he took away our carpet space but did not give it to any one. “Sir, he has moved the front wall in and reduced our office area.” This sounded weird. “I will see what it is” I said. So we went up to the second floor to see the new offices. The fellow had broken down the front walls, so that he could work on the floor to stop the leakages. When he put up the new walls, he had put up wooden planks as walls in place of bricks and mortar. Must be hand in gloves with people who had fallen trees in municipal areas, making a lot of wood available suddenly. After all, one has to keep the market on the move. There was that shortage of sand too, because of some policy of the government and ban on taking out sand from rivers or sea-bed. “Why has he put wood in place of original brick walls?” I asked. “He was very strong on maintenance of heritage structure of our building. Now he has destroyed it.” “He said he has the liberty to do what he wants as an architect.” “Ah!” I said. There did not seem to be anything else to say. An architect given a free hand by the civic administration was not controllable with mere words. “But look at this. He has moved the walls in.” I looked. Indeed he had put the walls in line with the inner edges of the pillars, instead of the outer edges as they were originally. So the corridor was now wider and the offices smaller. He had put up rectangular box-shaped cabinets on the ground so freed, but the door was inside by a foot or so, anyway. “He said he has given us storage space by moving the walls in.” But the storage has to be inside the room, not outside it!” I said. “That's what!” the professor sounded quite upset, with full reason for being upset. “Another problem is that he has put a 5 X 5 feet glass in the front wall instead of wood.” There was indeed a transparent glass of 5 X 5 feet where the front wall should have been. “It must be so that you can admire the view of the corridor” I said, “like French windows – only in concept.” “What a view!” the professor snorted in disgust. “So you have less space than before, loss of privacy, and need for going out of the room to put things away or get them from the storage space!” I summarized. “In a nutshell” the professor said. “Must be recent advances in architecture” I said. “Don't hire such an architect when you redo your house.” “No chance! Who will hire such a Dodo?”