You'll regret it if you get married, you'll regret it if you don't get married. You'll regret it if you have kids and you'll regret it if you don't. Kierkegaard said this 200 years ago as follows - whatever you choose, you'll regret it, because the problem isn't in your choices, it's in romanticizing your life. A person always finds an untravelled path alluring and mysterious. That's why the issue isn't making the right choice. It's choosing and deciding which regret you'll live with. In life, we must choose our regret.
This song in 1980 caused ripples in the Catholic Church to the extent that the Vatican asked the Bishops in DRC to intervene. Mobutu also stepped in to curb the spread of the song. Most of us black Africans who don’t speak Lingala did not know what the song was about until now that it is subtitled in English. This is a rendition of the original song, but the lyrics and music are unchanged. Happy Sunday Bazalwane
This is what it looks like when an architect refuses to apologize for where they are.
Beth Eden in Wayanad, Kerala sits on a linear plot surrounded by rubber trees and palms, and every material used to build it is left exactly as it arrived: exposed red brick, raw concrete ceilings, solid teak wood crafted by local carpenters into doors, shutters, wall panelling and furniture. The gabled roof projections mark the entrance and living zones without ornamentation. The generous overhangs handle the monsoon without asking anything extra from the structure.
The veranda has a bench and a plant. That’s the whole design decision. Brick wall behind it, concrete above it, teak in front of it. Nothing performing. Nothing pretending.
Inside, the vaulted ceiling follows the gable profile exactly as it was built. The living room teak was custom made. The windows were made by local carpenters. The house cost what it cost because the labor and materials were already there.
Africa has laterite in the ground, hardwood in the forest and craftsmen who know exactly what to do with all of it, and what we need is not another glass tower in a capital city but more brick kilns producing standard fired brick at scale so that our architects stop reaching for cement blocks every time they need a wall.
Design: Forge and Furnish | Ar. Liz Tomy | Sulthan Bathery, Wayanad
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