Architecture....from a line to a wall

Architecture…..Achitecture….Architecture……I am all lost. Everyday not less than few hundred times, I have to either listen to this word called “architecture”, and it’s kind of become one last shadow in my life that would never leave me alone. The shadow so real and so confronting. The shadow so promising and so frustrating. The shadow so unfulfilled and so unreached. The shadow so bleak and so apparent. The shadow so standing and so lazy. The shadow so interesting and so innovative. The architecture has become everything to me now and in everything that I do, I do architecture in my own ways not so obvious to the ones I deal with in day to day life though. Of course I don’t regret the fact that I joined this profession without knowing much about it. But that’s the best part I believe that ever happened in my life. I would have never stepped into this trade if I had known that architecture takes hell out of you, and makes you so confronted, stooped, lowly, and sad when things just don’t go my way. I would have never dared to make myself do things that sometimes do not have a value to stand but architects give them a foundation to rests with certain justifications and reasons. I would have never thought of being in a group where everyone has an opinion to debate for, and the session never stops to make everyone satisfied with each other. Architects are one species who try to do things that do not exist, and we come out having created it. Today I feel a sense of pride when I say people that I am doing ARCHITECTURE. Of course the term is really big, so big enough to claim that it’s everything that is there in universe.  I perhaps feel good because the name sounds so BIG, and so BEAUTIFUL.  Architects are always been thought as creative creatures, as professionals who do things on their own and end up having changed from a unit called man to the mass. It’s a pride, a universal pride that you own.

There is no stop to learning and the statement holds its firm reality when it comes to architecture. The creative field as it is, the ideas change with times, and as ideas change, the intellectuals are born, new things come up. Engineering enhances to next level, architecture changes to another thing of its own creation. There is non-stop process happening in it. Man can go on and learn till you stop your intuition to determinately deny learning. Architecture is like non-stop ribbon. It can take you to the end without reaching it; you get furthermore with another step you take to cover.  The process of creating is Godliness. Its general belief that world is a creation of God, and that’s why we sometimes call that God is an architect. And the very process that began from him, today that is in the form of architecture. The new spaces are all creation of architects. We build environments, (at least to say ignoring that for certain degree, the statement doesn’t hold true). It’s a subjective thought, and in architecture, everything is presented in practical which started as a piece of thought. So as subjective as your thoughts are, you get a chance to make people believe and come in line with you.

I am in the middle of the architecture course. Its actually so academic to say that I will finish my course in next two years. Architecture doesn’t end; there is no stop to it. It goes on and on. You can only be the part of the revolution that transforms it and conserves to take it next level. My journey has taught me many things.  Right from being able to know what we desire to the ways in which our thoughts be converted to the reality, architecture has become a truth, a real one. Today I could understand the link between architecture and the man. Many people may take architecture to be the process of designing buildings. The very fact that that building which architects design can actually change the whole environment, whole social outlook, and the whole system of functioning of the life of any individual involved, very less people understand it. Even to begin with the scratch involves so many thoughts and ideas. The idea that architects has to think whole issue on social status, economy, political situation, human psychology, historical heritage, technology, human attitude towards the very function the building is going to serve, the whole lot than I could pen down, architecture has a vast link with anything that man considers so important to himself. Tremendous things can happen and that’s the very thing that is architecture. Many think that architects are money making machines, forgetting that architects are the ones who are actually servants to any individual’s idea or wish. Architects sometimes sadly function as a tool, though. From considering the way man uses toilets to the lifts, I have covered in my studies so far. The brick that appears nothing more than a red building material, taught me many things in the first years. It was like everything that I drew on the sheet, has a promise to become a wall or a building. Making drawings, the tool to explain the concepts behind the design, and timeless debates, discussions, and research make architecture not everyone’s cup of tea. It involves so many nights of research, so many days of discussions, and so many hours of converting ideas on to the sheet which could finally become a building on the ground. Architecture makes people go mad, when you think too much; you are bound to appear like someone who is just lost in his subconscious mind.

Hopefully, I may be lucky enough to learn many things, and much architecture. My journey with the architecture so far has been adventurous, challenging, discovering and interesting. And the best thing about architecture is that given that you follow certain aforementioned rules, you can create your own set of rules to define your architecture. You become a master of your own ideas, and I wonder how many professions out there let you use your own instincts and ideas to serve other people’s needs. And eventually make your own destiny: I am an Architect of my own Life.

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