The ISOLA Award

The Indian Society of Landscape Architects (ISOLA) recognizes meritorious contributions to the field of Landscape Architecture in India through a series of awards. In its Inaugural year in 2009 at the Delhi ISOLA Annual conference, I had remarked the design of the Award (ofcourse with great trepidation, and  kind permission of the designer) as "sexy". One felt that the award's design lent itself to many readings, most of it quite evident.

The ISOLA logo- evoking the spiral water chute at Neelkanth Mahadev (Mandu)  can be seen in a historical sense, as "-scape" . The spiral as occurring at the Neelkanth Mahadev, is a water chute in a Mughal structure, dating from Akbar's rule. Consecrated as a Shiva Temple, the Neelkanth's spiral water chute receives its water continuously from a spring-fed square tank. The Neelkanth whirlpool is  superb in its precision engineering where water flows in  (counter-clockwise) and then out (clockwise). This geometry has been described in the western world as an Archimedes spiral. This form has also been recorded in  the Orient as pointed out by landscape architect Bill Bensley. In that sense we have an allusion of the confluence of Western and Eastern ideology in the choice of this  motif for the ISOLA award.  Furthermore, Mandu is a great example of water management on a plateau.

The ISOLA award itself is a modified version rather than a true replica- perhaps suggesting looking into the past and deriving some lessons for the present/ future. In bas-relief, the top surface lends itself reading a mass-void relationships. One of the most powerful suggestions contained in this layer is that hands "cupping" the spiral, readable as stewardship of the landscape. It is akin to cupping hands over an eddy of water/ spiral of smoke so that we can sense the evanescent, before it vanishes completely.

The materials which comprise the trophy are arranged sequentially from top as stone, glass, wood and metal  for the award plaque ( on one side on the wood, not seen in picture). In a direct sense they imply the materials which usually find a role in landscape design. In an abstract sense, the fine buff-coloured sandstone can be read as "soil", the glass as "aquifer/ water" and the wood as "parent rock"; or the whole be read as a  soil regolith with various horizons.

In yet another sense, they imply a link between natural (stone, wood) and industrial material (glass, metal). The choice of a cube (and therefore a square in plan/ profile) also pays the due homage to one the most recurrent geometrical shapes in mythology, geometry and architecture across various cultures.

It would not be wrong to say that the award asks many things from those who  will/have rightfully earned it, those who have been given the honour of presenting it to the winners and especially from all of us in the audience- who clap when it is presented.