Generally, monographs from esteemed architects are great tomes containing countless projects, designed over a set period that become a tribute to a practice or a person. It is a body of work that reflects style, change and a notable career.

Pushing the boundaries, and indeed the idea of this tradition, is Akshat Bhatt, founder and principal of Architecture Discipline, an architecture and design practice based in New Delhi, India.

For his first book, Bhatt has completely re-interpreted the presentation and content of a monograph. For a start there are no images of architecture, it doesn’t take hours to read from cover to cover and it has been designed for the reader to literally cut out the pages should they so desire.

In the self-published, Emotion and Commotion we encounter visual bites of text, laid over bold graphics. In fact, this book heroes the graphics that contain Bhatt’s thoughts and ideas in captions and quotes. The font used is Bebas Neue and Poppins and they jump off the pages in big bold capital letters that are underpinned by a variety of forms, colours, patterns and disparate layouts.

With vector art by Harsh Nambiar and design and curation by Tanya Khanna, Ishita Rawat, Suneet Zishan Langar, Shivani Vinod Kumar and Shivanjali Chaudhury, Emotion and Commotion is anything but usual.

The foreword is written by Bhatt but speaks for the practice as a whole and explains the content. His interest in stripping back drawings to their essence, de-constructing construction and creating concise idealogy has been achieved through the work of a visual artist, Harsh Nambiar who worked at the studio in 2017.

Working in the practice with no architectural background, Nambiar began to extract line diagrams and to visually abstract what he saw in the sketches, diagrams and drawings of the work of the practice. This is the basis for Emotion and Commotion.

While Bhatt speaks of the confines of the architecture and design community, he suggests that the graphics in the book are a close representation of the core of the practice and something that could speak to everyone.

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The architect comments: “The collection of thoughts, words and graphics is a depiction of the philosophies that we turn to when in doubt and that we hope you can turn to as well. Take them out, paste them on your walls, and use them as reminders of THE PURPOSE that we collectively pursue through our work.”

Turning each of the 76 pages within the fabulous blood red covers, becomes a mesmerising activity, as page after page of thoughts, musings and philosophies confront the reader.

The book comprises a foreword and seven sections – The Age of Architecture, The Design of Discipline, Disciples of Architecture, Citizens of the City, Manifesting a Masterpiece, The Foreseeable Future and Word to the Wise.

Bhatt doesn’t hold back and has some killer quotes that would indeed provoke the reader to find scissors, cut out the page and hang it on the wall. For example: “We have been evil without today’s technology. Technology isn’t evil, it is us”; or, “It is time we move beyond rich house porn and start engaging with clients that form the other 99%”; to, “It’s not about being some kind of abstract design genius and passing an exam with flying colours”; and, “Architecture is the art of creating habitat for human beings. To practice it, you must be a poet, an engineer and a sociologist in equal measure.” And that’s just a taster of the texts.

At 31centimetres wide and 41.5 centimetres high, Emotion and Commotion, while thin, is not a book to pop in your bag and carry around. Rather it is something to have on a coffee table pick up and read and then simply sit back and think.

Bhatt wrote on the inscription of my copy, ‘We did this for architects, and it’s not about architecture.’ However, I see it a bit differently. Architecture and Bhatt’s remarkable career have been the driving forces behind the writings, with design serving as a collaborator in the layouts. His lived experience as an architect has shaped the many inspirational, sometimes challenging, but always thoughtful reflections.

If you want to see images of Architecture Discipline’s body of excellent award-winning work, then you will be disappointed. If you want to view the idea of architecture and living the way Akshat Bhatt does, then you are in luck.

Emotion and Commotion provides food for much thought that reflects on the work of the practice. The succinct quotes offer insight and explore some hard truths that happen to include design. This a book that will certainly provoke discussion and takes the idea of the monograph into another dimension.

Although Emotion and Commotion is not for sale, some high-resolution posters are available to download from the Architecture Discipline website here

Architecture Discipline
architecturediscipline.com

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