November 19, 2013
A recent trade fair organised by Index/IFJ in Mumbai allowed a few architects to imagine about open spaces in Mumbai. Large panels were put up – almost 6.mts long, and 2.4 mts wide. There were schemes of just making parts of Mumbai pedestrian friendly, or using the railway corridors and covering them to make them linear green strips or of developing the water fronts. We had put up a panel of a park that got away. In Wadala, along a strip of land, we had imagined a park that comprised on many hybrid realities, much like the local trains of Mumbai that contain many lives.
In many segments, the park allowed completely different experiences that connected ecology and the life in Mumbai. So it had garden boxes, much like compartments , that grew herbs, or plans from the creek ecology of the city, or just plants that fed people , and so on .
Work had started and by now the park would have been completed, had it not been the misguided intervention of local powers. Sad.
To mark this exhibition, based on a set of questions, a small essay was printed in the magazine, that carried some thinking about Mumbai.
Do see below.
