Evolution of the Urban domestic interiors from 1989 to 2009

History of Design

Sumegha Mantri
Exhibition and spatial design
2009
As the title suggests, this essay traces the evolution of the 'Urban' Indian home in the
last two decades.

In these twenty years, I have lived in four houses situated in two of India's largest cities
Kolkata and Mumbai. The cities are distinctly different from each other. Kolkata on the
eastern coast is the Capital city of the state of West Bengal. Even though the
predominant living culture is Bengali, many other communities like the Marwaris and
the Chinese call the city their own. It's a large city, with a huge population and a wide
economic divide between the rich and the poor. The state has been under the CPI (m)
government for long - twenty five years under its Chief Minister Jyoti Basu. Therefore,
the common way of thought is in the communist direction, even though the Marwaris
of Kolkata are well known for their entrepreneurship. The city harbours a rich cultural
and social diversity and people have an interest in the arts and sports. Also, it's the city
of the Metro and the maidans, a city that runs at its own pace the fast and slow co-
exist, like the tram and the metro. It does not push its citizens into a frenzied
timetable. On one hand there would be children leaving for school at sunrise, and on
the other, most of the local shops are closed at noon, for the shopkeepers to go home
and enjoy their mid-day siesta.

Mumbai on the western coast is the city that never sleeps. It's a fast city, with local
trains zipping to get people around. Mumbai is the commercial capital of the country,
and unlike Kolkata which is peacefully cosmopolitan, I have known Mumbai to be
grudgingly cosmopolitan, especially in the recent years, after the change in name
from Bombay to Mumbai. It is the city of Bollywood and the city of dreams. And in
being the city of dreams and possibilities, Mumbai faces large urban migration and is
cramped for space. The suburban areas are a tessellation of faster and ever higher
growing skyscrapers and places like the Dharavi slum, where people do not have the
resources to build skywards are cramped at the ground level.

It is very important to know the context of the urban settings in which the homes are
based, because a lot of what is inside the home is directly influenced by the conditions
outside, in the city, in the country and in the world.
The past two decades have been the most exciting times in the country post The stone statue - art in the domestic environment
independence (1947). We have witnessed a major Economic reform in the
country in 1991, a war in Kargil in 1999, and several internal tensions. There
have been four major natural disasters, the cyclone, two earthquake and the
tsunami. We have also seen the Indian economy in its process of slow
transition from a service based economy to a knowledge based economy and
with it, the rise of the 'Great Indian Middle class'. The past two decades have
also been the decades of the 'Information technology revolution'

These and many more prevailing external forces in the country, city and our
immediate community have sculpted the interior environments of our homes.
The telephone- a
product of the then
The economic reforms in 1991 have been by far the most influential factor in nascent Information
technology revolution
redefining the urban home. In the larger macro-picture, the reforms removed The wooden side table

large bottle necks from our economic system and its policies of de-licensing,
liberalization and globalization enabled the ordinary Indian to have access to 1993-Kolkata The sofa and its upholstery
the world. In the micro-picture, the reforms brought with it a general sense of
optimism in a sluggish daily life plagued by corruption and frustration. The above image is from 1993. Notice the
blue ‘medieval’ telephone on the side. Both,
the device and the technology have
The economic reforms were a boost to the industry and it brought about the undergone a substantial change since this
image.
shift from locally made craft products found in the interior domestic The wooden side table has been custom
environment to industrially made, mass-manufactured products. The shift made for the house - a one piece designed
and manufactured by the local carpenter.
was not only in the material objects of everyday life, but also in professions and Similarly with the sofa and the heavily
lifestyles. My father shifting his profession from trading to manufacturing and textured fabric used for its upholstery,
chosen by my grandmother.
setting up an injection moulding plastic manufacturing unit for household
goods is one out of many such venture stories after the economic reforms. The image on the left is from 1994. The
circled wooden table is from before 1991. It
Since then onwards, every household product ranging from spoons to baskets was probably made by the local carpenter.
and buckets to tables and entire movable houses, could be imagined out of The carpet on the other hand is from Nepal,
bought from the town Siliguri, near the India-
plastic. The following images taken over the last two decades show this Nepal border. It belongs to the time after
evolution in furniture and other elements and aspects of space of the urban 1991, when goods could be imported into
the country. It being in its place reflects three
domestic interiors. things -
1. The ability to purchase it
2. Mass manufacturing making the expensive
Handmade technology affordable
3. The aesthetic to embellish the interiors
1994- Kolkata

1996-Kolkata
The image above is from 1996. The house was changed in 1995 . Most of the old
furniture was retained, some new ones were commissioned to the local carpenter,
tailor made to fit the house, as illustrated by the image on the top right.
The new furniture in the house was mainly wall mounted full length cabinets systems,
usually with a ‘Godrej’ cupboard inside it . The motifs on the furniture and its style
were freely decided by the craftsmen. The other new addition to the domestic
environment were the moulded plastic chairs and table as seen in the image above.
The reason for its existence in the house was the family business.
What you see here are perhaps the first moulded plastic furniture manufactured in
India by a company called ‘Peacock Plastics’ (located in Udaipur), designed to be
modular (the table comes apart completely) and the chairs are lightweight and stack-
able.
* Das, Gurcharan. 'India Unbound From Independence to the Global Information Age,'
Penguin Books, 2000. Pages 255-258.
**In the year 2000.
Motifs on the wooden
wall mounted cabinet
1997-Kolkata
THE TECHNOLOGICAL SHIFT
The ASIAD games of 1982 brought colour broadcasting to Indian television. It
was only after 1991, after the government opened the broadcasting sector, that
cable television entered and transformed the Indian home.
We are all aware of the story of Subhashchandra and the ZEE TV venture*.
Private broadcasting was forbidden in the country in 1991, but he figured
out that he could show hindi films on TV from overseas. Therefore Zee TV
was born, and it now reaches over 22million homes in India**.
The television has “brought the world to our drawing rooms”, and a major
contributing factor for that has been cable television. Looking at the
evolution of the television spatially, as a small child, I remember a TV
cabinet in the house with an attached VCR system. The cabinet was small
and had wheels. It could be moved around the house and taken to
whichever room required.
 With the change in homes, the new wall mounted cabinet was custom built for the
new German, 'Grundig', television set, the Sony Media player system and some glass
showcases. The speakers were wall mounted for the surround sound system. All the
wiring of the television was concealed and all the wires connected through holes in
hind-part of the cabinet. With advancement in audio-visual technology, the VHS
player was put away and a TV video game took its place.
Television has done more than just change the physical nature of space. It has
exposed the children to the world. The visual content on television is easily mimicked
in everyday life. Traces of its influence are found everywhere - from the games and
toys with which children play to the mixed 'cocktail' language we use. We try and
make our homes like the ones we see on TV. Our sense of clothing and fashion is also
to some extent governed by the visual content disseminated by this medium.
However, it was when children began using the computer at school and at homes,
and parents began to nurture dreams of making their children into
software/computer engineers, study tables started coming with a computer
attachment. Entire prefabricated childrens' bedroom sets available in the market
today all have a computer integrated in the study area. With further progress and
affordability of technology, each one is moving up the chain. Houses that had
computers are swiftly shifting to laptops, in some cases, one machine per member
of the family.
This also points us to the fact that since 1989, many more families have become
nuclear and this change in social structure has also influenced the structure and
layout of spaces in the domestic environment.

Toys meanwhile had also changed from indigenously produced wooden and bamboo The image on the left is from
2009. It shows a variety of things
toys, to Barbies , GI-Joes and hot-wheels . The visuals on the television were dictating co-existing in the house today.
the toys that children played with. Today, the scenario is completely different with Existing alongside the custom
the playstation, X-box 360 and the Wii. The visuals on the television are no longer made furniture, made by the
local carpenter, you see the
dictating the toys, gaming itself has become an industry. Especially for the Wii and Vernor Panton chair from Vitra.
Speakers
X-box 360, space has to be made around the television set and the gaming console, for
it requires physical body actions to play. This has changed the way we view our The bold colours of the space
The laptop
have been chosen by the
entertainment space. Some houses today even have a mini home theatre. Others inhabitants themselves - three
have a special TV room for this purpose and some of the others, all depending upon different colours for three
different people - yellow, blue
peoples economic capacities, have a little bit of free floor space around the television and pink. The space has been
set. further personalized by posters,
photographs and paintings on
the walls, as illustrated by the
The computer marked another shift in the urban interior environment. The last two following images.
decades have been the decades of information technology. The computer became The Verner Panton chair
personal sometime in the early nineties. This was also the time when people were
shifting their businesses from manual to the digital interface. There was in general, The Vernor Panton Chair:
It is the first single unit
the need to learn this new efficient tool, therefore, hundreds of computer training cantilevered chair made out
centers blossomed around the city, 'APTECH', being one such center. A special place of moulded plastic in 1967.
had to be made in the house for the computer. In the beginning, a simple table was
1967-1979: produced by
used to house the computer. After a while, the computer table became important and Herman Miller and
was mass produced in different designs. Fehlbaum

1999-present day: produced

by Vitra
2009 - Mumbai
 2009 - Mumbai 2009 - Mumbai
Personalization of the space. The posters show the influence of cable
television and the opening up of the economy to let entertainment from
other countries come into the Indian market.
The wall finishes have undergone a substantial
in the past two decades. From simple white
lime finished walls to special paint and
textures on todays walls. People have started
using bolder brighter colours and textures on
their walls. Companies like Asian Paints have
not only reinvented their technology, but also
redefined the way in which the urban India
home is coloured.
2009 - Mumbai 2009 - Mumbai
 1991-Kolkata 2009 -Mumbai 2009 -Mumbai

In the above images, notice the change in the floor pattern and tiling. Both the houses are apartments - parts of larger community dwellings,
building. The house in the 1991 image is on the third floor of a five storey
The windows - punctures in our box like homes have also changed. The building. The present house is on the eleventh floor of a thirteen storey
image from 1991 shows a grilled window in the background, with a hinged building. The view from their respective windows is starkly different.
frame system. In the image from 2009, the window lacks a visible grill on the
inside. The glass is smoky black and not transparent, mounted on a sliding
window system.
There has also been a change in the choice of upholstery for
the sofas. This being influenced by a greater variety of fabrics
available in the market and also the changing trends - of
matching the upholstery to the wall colours and textures.
1996-Kolkata
2009 -Mumbai
THE KITCHEN

The kitchen is an important part of the Indian home. With progress and change
technology, the space of the kitchen has been transformed. In the beginning of the
nineties, kitchens used to have a stone slab for its working surface, a separate washing
area, sometimes in the balcony adjacent to the kitchen, a ventilator fan, a gas cylinder
and the cooking stove with two or four units. Today, one would struggle to find a
kitchen without a microwave, an electric chimney and black granite platforms in the
urban, 'upper middle class' homes.

In cities like Mumbai, the gas cylinder has been replaced by pipeline gas. The big red
giant in the kitchen has been removed. However, one still finds the humble clay 'matki'
in most homes, usually sitting on an elevated platform in one corner of the kitchen.In Transformation of private space by the telephone - The larger private
addition to this, the availability of complete modular Kitchen systems has Telephone set from 1980s space of the neighbourhood 1980s
totally transformed the Urban Indian kitchens.
In the early 1980s, the telephone was a luxury. There was an eight year
THE TELEPHONE: CHANGE IN TECHNOLOGY CHANGING IN THE STRUCTURE OF waiting list to get a telephone connection** and the device itself was big and
SPACES AND THE NOTIONS OF PRIVATE SPACE IN THE URBAN INDIAN HOUSEHOLD. bulky. Telephonic conversations were few and far in-between. There would
usually be one connection in the neighbourhood, which would be freely
The past two decades have witnessed a huge transformation in used by the by the owners and his neighbours. The telephone owner and its
telecommunications, in terms of technology, accessibility and availability. The neighbours shared a larger common 'private ' space with peoples private
telephones have progressed from being a luxury, to a necessity and then to spaces generously overlapping and extending into each other. The social
becoming the ubiquitous mobile phone. An advertisement from Reliance (one fabric was dense with such overlaps.
of the major mobile phone service providers in the country) some time ago
placed the cell-phone network next only to the three essentials of survival
In the mid-1990s, when the
'roti, kapda, makaan'. This advertisement slogan 'Roti, Kapda, Makaan,
telephone more accessible and
Network', clearly spells out the importance of this technology in our daily lives.
affordable and the long waiting
lists vanished, each household
The telephone revolution began in India in the 1980's, with Sam Pitroda* in the neighbourhood now had
coming in and offering Digital switching for the then analog technology. Since a telephone connection. Since
then, the technology has progressed in leaps and bounds and the form of the people were no longer sharing
product has been radically redesigned. The telephones have transformed not the technology, their private
only the physical spaces we inhabit, but also our notions of private space. spaces shrank to the confines
of their own respective homes.
*Sam Pitroda( born 16th November 1942) is an inventor, enterpreneur and policy maker. Currently advisor to the
Prime Minister of India on Public Information Infrastructure and innovations, he is widely considered to have been Transformation of private space by the telephone - proliferation
responsible for India's communication revolution. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Pitroda) of the telephone to more houses 1990s.

**Das, Gurcharan. 'India Unbound From Independence to the Global Information Age,'
Penguin Books, 2000. Pages 208.
At this point of time, the television and phone used to occupy centre-stage in This is also the time when the
most homes. They were usually placed in the main hall or the 'drawing room.' 'Intercom' evolved. Rooms in the
The phone was usually kept on a small mat, on a side table surrounded by a same house had separate devices
telephone directory and a writing pad and a pen stand. Often, one could also all connected to a single
find photo-frames and show pieces around the device telling of the telephone number. Incoming calls
importance that the device occupied in out everyday lives. could be transferred from one
room to another at the push of a
button. There was no longer a
need to call out to the person.
This caused further segregation of
the private space within the
house and the family. The private
spheres of people shrunk from
being the entire houses, to being
Intecom individual rooms within those
houses.

The cordless
phone

The design of the actual device has also changed from the turn dial to the push
button. The telephone looked as if it had undergone a rigorous diet
programme and had become sleek and lightweight. The cordless phone
evolved some years later and made life free from wires. This was the precursor
for the mobile phone. It meant mobility within the house even when on a
telephonic conversation. Kolkata - 1996
Simultaneously, at about the same time and more so in the late 1990s, the
mobile phones had also stepped into the Indian market. They were expensive
luxuries then, with exorbitant incoming and outgoing call charges. The device
itself was a bulky mobile phone with antennae and a fraction of the features
that the i-phone offers today.

However, with competition in the market and the advent of technology, mobile
phones have now become ubiquitous. As families have nuclearized, its
members feel an increasing need to stay connected and to feel the security of
that connection. Mobile phones networks are a physical manifestation of this
connectivity.The landline telephone is slowly on its way out for the urban,
upper middle class home and so is its function of tying and unifying people and
spaces in the urban household. In many households today, all its members
possess mobile phones, sometimes in a group tariff plan that suits their needs.

To conclude, the mobile phones have better connected the world, but have
simultaneously further defined the boundaries of 'private-space' within the
home. The number of phones per-capita have substantially increased and
parts of this private sphere have also proliferated into the virtual world
through online social networking. One can now reach the required person
directly, without having to pass through the family members. With the merging
of the technologies of the internet and the mobile phone into one small
handheld device, this segregation of private space within the house has
become even more prominent today.

Http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/
58/Nokia_5110.jpg/450px-Nokia_5110.jpg] Http://kottkegae.appspot.com/images/iphone-parallels.jpg

The evolution of telephones over the years - form, function and technology.
REFERENCES

Books

Das, Gurcharan. 'India Unbound - From Independence to the Global Information Age,' Penguin
Books, 2000.
st
Varma, Pavan K. 'Being Indian - The truth about why the 21 century will be India's,' Penguin
Books, 2004.

Web references

Communications in India: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_in_India

'The Indian Telecom Industry', report by Vatsal Goyal and Premraj Suman ,Consulting Club,IIM
Calcutta: http://www.iimcal.ac.in/community/consclub/reports/telecom.pdf
'Sam Pitroda's OneWallet: Doing It His Way,' case study by Enric Gili Fort, Dan Greene, Rishabh
Singh & Albert Wang, Illinois Institute of Technology, Institute of Design. Spring 2006:
http://trex.id.iit.edu/~enricg/portfolio/case_study/OneWallet_Case_Study.pdf
Sam Pitroda Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Pitroda
'The telecom journey', by B.S. Padmanabhan:
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2020/stories/20031010005111800.htm
'Enhancing telecom access in rural India: some options', by Subhash Bhatnagar Indian Institute Of
Management, Ahmedabad. Paper presented at India Telecom Conference, Asia-Pacific Research
Center, Stanford University, November 2000.

Image Credits

All other images have been taken by Sumegha Mantri and other members of the family, unless
specified otherwise.