volume zero

if the triple axis mundi arranged around the central axis of the british council library in delhi to represent the history of the nation was not silly enough, the film maker chooses to highlight the 'three phases of our history' with hindu music when he shows us the bindu; muslim with the charbagh and western classical music when we are looking at the classical flooring in the atrium. the rest of the film while glorifying the great man went into slide show mode with images stolen from the most famous monograph on correa intercut with tracking shots of the buildings and some generic voiceover. correa also comes in once in a while and gives us obviously rehearsed childhood reminiscences. in the discussion that followed when architecture is called less ‘hegemonic’ because it does not have a linear structure like film (correa brought the house down with ‘what’s hegemonic?’) the discussion aspires to planes not relevant to the work that preceded it making it seem even more ridiculous than the grovelling bio-documentary-by-numbers thing it was.