Errol Reubens, Jr.

Masters in Architecture with Distinction, with specialisation in Architectural Theory & Urban Development and Regeneration Thesis on ‘Hetero Urbanism – An approach to generate better democratic cities in a post-modern era’, 2006 My master of architecture thesis studied issues surrounding the global-local debate, focussing on the ‘lack of identity’ and the sense of ‘placelessness’ in ‘modern’ cities. It also dealt with celebrating cultural diversity and difference to counter oppression in terms of ‘people’ and ‘architecturally subdued forms’. It reinforced these ideas by looking back at medieval city types for their sense of pedestrian scale and socio-spatial character, aided partly by their incremental organic development. My approach combined the pedestrian-scaled urban space of medieval cities with a contemporary-architectural language derived from the existing city architecture, to create a ‘sense of identity’ tested in regenerating a deprived area in Wroclaw, Poland. Study on Ahmedabad Mills Owners Association Building (Le Corbusier) – FIT Misfit-Fit in Ahmedabad, 2005 This study started off as a criticism of Le Corbusier’s Modernistic Mill Owner’s building in Ahmedabad, particularly regards to it being an eye sore in the city of Ahmedabad in line with the style of Brutalist Architecture. On further research, the buildings ability to take a lot of abstract Indian thought process in its design and detailing, however modernist it might appear to be was critically reviewed The notion of buildings being out of place or fitting in the cultural context was taken now to a different level in a theoretical sense and was explored. Workshop on The Liveable Cities, Wroclaw, Poland, 2004 The Wroclaw School of architecture, together with the Lincoln School of Architecture jointly hosted the Liveable Cities’ workshop in Wroclaw. Problems in architectural urban space of Post War Poland were studied to create various theoretical solutions to their lack of identity, as a people, and in terms of architectural desolation seen across the city.

Bachelors in Architecture with Distinction Dissertation on ‘The Barcelona Pavilion to the Rooftop Remodelling: Change in the Notion of Architectural Form’, 2004 My bachelor of architecture dissertation primarily studied the similarities and dissimilarities of the two buildings. Although, both buildings were from different ages (1920, 1989), and by different architects (Mies van der Rohe and Coop Himmelblau), certain spatial parallels were seen in terms of contextual notions, grids, lightness and heaviness, relation to art, form and structure, fluidity, boundaries and connection to the sky. To go deeper into the making of both buildings, I looked at other influences in the works of the architects like art, architectural history, psychology and other possible influences that might have influenced their making.