The Unsung heroes of architecture community

Workers working late night in Kathmandu

Today, on World architecture day when everyone is celebrating the contribution of architects, I would like you to also think a bit about the workers, masons and artisans without whom Architecture will just be limited to plans, elevations and sections. They are the unsung heroes, the under celebrated warriors and the silent guardians of any Building which is constructed. They are the backbone of any project but still get less or no credit at all. Architects and workers complete each other.

This reminds me of a song which I learnt when during a month in a worker's protest last year. Its called 'Hathoon ke kaam' sung by the famous activist couple, Vinay and Charul. The song is about Beautiful hands of workers that have created wonders which are now idle.

There is a beautiful paragraph which says:

"Mitti ki khudai ki, Bhatti ko jalaya re,

Eetoon ko pakaya re, Bangla Banaya re,

Sansad ka har ek khamba maine hi uthaya re,

soun kyu foothpath pe, ke mere liye kaam nahi."

It can be roughly translated into:

"I dug the ground, I started Brick kilns,

I burnt the adobe to make bricks, I built the Bungalows with it,

I raised every pillar of the Parliament building,

Why should I now sleep on the Footpath? as there is no work for me now."

Technology is growing so fast that pretty soon there will be no need of masons/artisans/helpers at all, I wonder where will these skills go? Will the beautiful wood carving on the windows be replaced by the parametric designs chiseled out by a Laser cutter? Will we all be just designing the whole building on a computer and let the 3D printers build it? Only to sit in that building to do nothing but to work on the computer?

Kanpur

Bakhang, Nepal

Bhopal

Radha, a daily wage laborer Siddhipur, Nepal

A brick Kiln worker in Macchegaon, Nepal

Satnarayan ji working in Muzaffarnagar.

Mason Abbas during a slab casting.

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