ABSTRACT
At first glance, one might think that the juxtapositions imagined in this series of drawings by Dhiru Thadani reflect a polemical intent, a now somewhat commonplace critique of Modernism from the standpoint of a traditional architecture. A closer reading suggests a more ambivalent and complex positioning, a meditation on Le Corbusier’s project that is both critical and appreciative. The perspective that enables this irony, in the most profound sense, is constructed from lines of convergence between the aspirations of an architecture that reaches toward transcendent ideals to be found in classical traditions but from the standpoint of human invention and imagination (disegno), and the aspirations of a Modernist architecture that reaches for something transcendent that lies beyond history and culture. I’d like to suggest a reading of these drawings as a reflection not only on architecture, but also on the complex relationship of the architect’s imagination to time, history and urbanism.
