The Subtle Art Of Influence

A walk through the architecture firm Mancini Enterprises brings with it not just the age-old charm of architecture but also questions of its influence within personal and societal narratives.

- Vani Sriranganayaki Vanamamalai

From a design point of view, a building is a lot more than a stack of walls and roofs. Always a product of social and cultural developments, a building is essentially shaped by ideas, values, beliefs and relationships – not just of the people designing it or the people inhibiting the spaces, but of society at large, where its built environment is as instrumental in shaping the collective identity as is its history or its people. We don’t really have to look too far for evidence of this connection. In his book Analysing Architecture, British architect and writer Simon Unwin examined buildings as results of interactions people have with the world around them; and defined architecture as the ‘identification of place’. He stated that, ‘people make places (or have places made for them) in which to do things they do in their lives – places to eat, to sleep, to shop, to worship, to argue, to learn, to store things, and so on and on. The way people organise their places is related to their beliefs and their aspirations, their world view. As world views vary, so does architecture: at the personal level; at the social level and cultural level; and between different subcultures within a society. Launching design into conditions like these is an adventure only to be undertaken by the ‘bravehearted’. Meeting Niels Schoenfelder, the principal architect of Mancini Enterprises brought back Unwin’s words to me and made me wonder about the subtle influence of architecture as a profession and the role of the architect within society at large.