ABSTRACT
Exploring the theoretical postulates of modernism in architecture, this chapter realizes that the movement was ideologically anchored to the ideas inherent in the predominant "thought-world" of Western civilization, whose roots ran all the way down to ancient Greece. Scholarship is a rare attribute among contemporary Indian architects: it is actually looked down upon. Western observers who have written about contemporary Indian architecture have mostly seen it as appropriate and relevant only within the social, cultural and environmental conditions of India without realizing or acknowledging its global value. Theorizing has always been an adjunct activity of architectural practice. Phenomenology offers architecture a possible avenue for theorizing future direction in which both reason and experience will co-exist. The existential and ontological issues which such a confluence throws up are particularly significant for architecture, which ultimately rests with the lived experience of humans in their phenomenal environment.
