VIDEO:Anupama Kundoo-Taking Time to Rethink

“I feel that a lot of the problems we have in today’s world have come because of that wrong notion that time is money. No, time is the only resource we have when we are alive. What else do we have?” asks the renowned Indian architect Anupama Kundoo in this video. Watch her speak passionately about time as the most important human resource and why this notion should be applied to architecture: “Architecture outlives the human life.”

While we’re saving other resources, Kundoo argues, we don’t seem to mind spending our own time freely on anything. This is why she encourages people to use their time wisely – to use fewer natural resources and more human resources: “Use more brain, use more muscle, use more time. Because people grow clever in the end when we do that.” A lot of architecture, she continues, has taken more than one person’s lifetime: “And when people die, the architecture is left behind. So, we need to have a long-term thinking approach to designs.” The important thing isn’t the ego of the person creating but rather “a larger collective thing” such as entire cities, and we must resist the prevalent sense of urgency: “Please take the time to rethink. It takes a lot of time to do good design and to create something new.”

Anupama Kundoo (b. 1967) is an Indian architect. Kundoo’s internationally recognised and award-winning architecture practice started in 1990 and demonstrates a strong focus on material research and experimentation towards an architecture that has low environmental impact and is appropriate to the socio-economic context. In 2013, Kundoo received an honourable mention in the ArcVision International Prize for Women in Architecture for ‘her dedication when approaching the problems of affordability of construction and sustainability in all aspects.

Anupama Kundoo, Taking Time to Rethink, Ιnterview by Marc-Christoph Wagner, Camera: Jakob Solbakken, Edited by Roxanne Bagheshirin Lærkesen, Produced by Marc-Christoph Wagner, © Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2020, Supported by Dreyers Fond