Kiran Keswani Citizen Matters, Blogs

The plague goddess, the Ashwath Katte and the CITY

April 19, 2020 Kiran Keswani

In an article in LiveMint, ‘Of plagues, people and the everlasting impact of short events’, Anurag Behar, the CEO of Azim Premji Foundation writes, “We have not dealt with anything like this before, individually or

The Chitra Santhe as an urban space

February 12, 2020 Kiran Keswani

The annual Chitra Santhe was held on 6th January 2020 in Bengaluru this year. Since 2003, the festival has been celebrating traditional and contemporary art and making it accessible to the public. It has brought

Internship program at Everyday city lab

October 22, 2018 Kiran Keswani

We are looking for two Full-time interns for this research project in Bangalore on: Ashwath katte (tree worship) as a sustainable urban space The research will look at the practice of tree worship which continues

The logic, decision & actions of a street vendor: a study in Russell Market

October 11, 2018 Kiran Keswani

While there have been attempts to formally plan the growth of a city, this has not proved to be successful in many parts of the world. Informality does play a significant role in several cities,

Walking in the Basavanagudi neighbourhood

May 2, 2017 Kiran Keswani

On Sunday morning, we did a walk in the Basavanagudi neighbourhood. It was not an “early morning walk” but a walk that started only at 9am after breakfast was done. Just to make it a

Trees, Culture & Urban Design: a CEPT Winter School in Bangalore

April 4, 2017 Kiran Keswani

In December 2016, a workshop on ‘Trees, Culture & Urban design’ was held in Bangalore as part of CEPT University’s Summer Winter School program. The focus of this 10-day winter school was to study the

The ordinary & the everyday : street corners at Russell market

November 18, 2016 Kiran Keswani

On the afternoon of 28th april 2014, I had set myself the task of observing two street corners at either end of Noronha road at Russell market in Shivajinagar – a corner at the Broadway

The Samosa mela at Shivajinagar

July 5, 2016 Kiran Keswani

The Samosa Mela at Shivajinagar is a study conducted as part of a CEPT-CPP Summer school on The Everyday City that was held in June 2016 at the IIM Bangalore campus. It was a collaborative

What is the ‘Everyday City’?

April 26, 2016 Kiran Keswani

The idea of the ‘Everyday city’ is based on the concept of Everyday Urbanism that was proposed in 1999 by Margaret Crawford & others, wherein the city is seen above all as a social product

How porous can the city become?

March 15, 2016 Kiran Keswani

In a discussion on ‘The City in the World’ as part of the IIHS City Scripts festival in Bangalore, K.T.Ravindran, Professor & Head of the Urban design department for the last 20 years at the School

The only city that has a TREE STORY to tell…

March 9, 2016 Kiran Keswani

How do you begin to like Bangalore when you have moved here from elsewhere? I remember when we first came here 8 years ago, I yearned for anything that would remind me of Bombay, where

The Story of Everyday Practices

February 12, 2016 Kiran Keswani

The story I’m about to tell here is about the discoveries at the Everyday City workshop at the School of Architecture & Planning, CEPT University. This workshop was held as part of CEPT’s Summer Winter

A Way of Seeing the Everyday

September 10, 2015 Kiran Keswani

In his classic book, ‘Ways of Seeing’ John Berger says, “The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. “Each evening we see the sun set. We know that the earth

‘The Everyday City’ workshop

August 31, 2015 Kiran Keswani

The Registrations for the CEPT Winter School in Ahmedabad are now open! There’s a wide variety of courses and one of these is ‘The Everyday City’. Sharing the details of this course below. Dates: 1st

You can map your own neighbourhood katte HERE

April 5, 2015 Kiran Keswani

The focus at Neralu this year was on Trees & Public spaces – including ashwath kattes, neighbourhood parks and streets. Alongside that, MapUnity developed an online platform where people could upload the location of their neighbourhood kattes, with photographs and a story. Please