December 4, 2004
James Glass
The Indianapolis Star
As part of the annual Spirit and Place Festival
sponsored by the POLIS Center of IUPUI, a group
of people recently gathered at North United Methodist
Church to hear Indianapolis architect and artist
K.P. Singh talk about his drawings of historic buildings
and his philosophy of life.
Raised in India as a member of the Sikh religion,
Singh studied architecture and city planning at
the University of Michigan and came to Indianapolis
in 1967 to work as a planner for the city's Department
of Metropolitan Development. He soon found himself
in an odyssey discovering the historic architecture
of his new home.
Singh also noticed that some of the key landmarks
of the capital city were being demolished. When
one of his favorites, Union Station, faced destruction,
the young planner joined forces with fellow architect
Don Perry; Robert Braun, then executive director
of Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana; and
others to form a committee to save the station.
They discussed ways to create public awareness
of the threatened building. One idea was for Singh
to create a line drawing of the structure that could
be reproduced and distributed. The drawing's popularity
led Singh's friends to suggest that he depict other
Indianapolis landmarks to increase public appreciation
for local heritage. New drawings of the Morris-Butler
House at 12th and Park Avenue, the Indianapolis
City Market, the Kemper House at 10th and Delaware
and the Maennerchor Building at Illinois and Michigan
soon found eager buyers.
In 1972, after a visit to India for reflection,
Singh decided he could both make a contribution
to his new home state and make a living by creating
drawings of Hoosier architecture from the past 175
years. His goal was to build public acceptance of
the idea that, like Europeans and Asians, Hoosiers
have a heritage with meaning and value. Over the
past 30 years, Singh has traveled throughout the
state, the United States, the Western Hemisphere,
Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe to seek
out the defining landmarks of each locale. His primary
audience has always been Indiana residents, and
he has prepared drawings interpreting the architecture
of many communities' cultural and civic institutions.
One of Singh's ways of interpretation has been
to collect facades and details of notable buildings
associated with a particular community or institution
and arrange them in composite drawings. The lesson
has been that -- along with new skyscrapers, libraries,
stadiums and city halls -- the identity of each
place lies in Romanesque-style courthouses, Italianate-style
Main Street buildings, Renaissance-style cathedrals,
Gothic college buildings, and turn-of-the-century
fountains.
In 2003, he collected a selection of his drawings,
accompanied by essays and poems on the universality
of architecture and its capacity to enrich individual
lives. One of his particular interests has been
the architectural expressions of human spirituality
throughout the world. His book, "The Art and
Spirit of K.P. Singh," contains several composite
drawings in which the holy structures of many faiths.
In between are drawings of historic Indiana places
of worship. The message is that the human quest
for understanding the infinite and worshipping the
Supreme Being takes many architectural forms, all
equal in value and importance and all sharing certain
attributes. For Hoosiers, Singh implies that the
architectural expressions of our religious heritage
have their own validity and essential role to play
in our lives.
One of his beliefs is that buildings have souls.
They contain something of the life force of those
who designed them, built them, lived or worked in
them, and visited them. Singh believes that when
we encounter the landmarks of our past, we also
encounter something of the people who have preceded
us. One of the participants in the discussion session
at the Spirit and Place event agreed that buildings
have their own spirits, expressed in their art and
architecture, and are even living beings. As such,
she thought it unforgivable when soulful buildings
are demolished.
Singh agreed, saying that architecture can indeed
be something that pulsates with life.