-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Book Announcement: 'Calcutta's Edifice'
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 11:06:42 -0800
From: Brian Bach <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
All,
Just a note to announce the appearance of my latest book,
'Calcutta's Edifice: The Buildings of a Great City'
published by Rupa & Co., New Delhi, India. ISBN: 81-291-0415-6, 734 pp.
over 600 illustrations, chiefly colour, 8 maps. Price: Rs 3500. Prices
in other currencies vary.
The book is primarily devoted to architectural appreciation and
description, but I mention it on Maps-L because of its map context.
Because my associate, Dr Joel Andress, a cartographer of considerable
talent, who provided splendid pen-and-ink maps for my first book,
retired to rural Vermont, I had to come up with a series of simple
outline maps of core Calcutta. They would have to show sites (both
architectural and concerning the infrastructure) that were dealt with in
the body of the book. My wife Sandra joined forces with me, and we
embarked on a process that mixed low-tech with middle-tech methods to
achieve our goal. Taking a 1916 outline map of the city as the base, we
scanned it into Photoshop and utterly altered it into an updated and
simplified index map. From this transformed index map, seven sections
were formed, allowing for textual inserts identifying sites. Of course,
Photoshop is hardly a cartographic tool of consequence, but it does
bring out the 'graphic' in map making. I suppose such a 'home-made'
approach is heretical in the purist sense, but I think we stumbled into
a usable set of purpose-built maps.
From the flyleaf of the book:
'Calcutta, the Star of the East, is a great city, a city of palaces,
of people, and of 'joy'. Calcutta's buildings command attention in
a compelling sense - akin to a great epic drama. When their serious
pictorial sense is also considered, they become a grand display gallery.
Because of its political and economic history, the city and its
background have been lavishly documented. As a matter of record, it has
considerable awareness of its own architectural heritage. Yet,
Calcutta's Edifice allows these buildings to 'speak for themselves'.
Illustrated by the author, the book strives to achieve a point of view
not of a judge, but of an appreciator. With notes on the past and
seductive speculations on the future, it examines the architectural and
associated apparatuses of Calcutta, the great city, as it is.'
Firsthand encounters with both buildings and populace were accomplished
during several long visits to Calcutta, followed by extensive research
of gathered source materials. The selection of illustrations resulted
from reviewing hundreds of the author's original photographs and
sketches.
At the 2006 Calcutta Book Fair in January, the first copy of the book
was presented to the Chief Minister of West Bengal state, Sri Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee.
Despite the official name change (as it appears in Roman type) to
'Kolkata', I chose to remain with the time-honored spelling Calcutta,
which will continue to be used in various contexts for the foreseeable
future (including many within the city itself).
For an interesting discussion of the name change issue in India, please
see:
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~easwaran/papers/india.html
All best,
Brian
Brian P. Bach
Documents/Maps
Brooks Library
Central Washington University
400 E. University Way
Ellensburg, WA 98926-7548
USA
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