Craft: A Narrative Barometer for Interior-Architecture Specific Focus on Stone Crafts in Religious Buildings of India

Abstract

According to existing literature, the design culture is prominently dominated by two different approaches—‘non-rhetoric design’ and ‘story-telling design’. This paper discusses the latter, with focus on craft and narrative (the analysis of narrative is an important branch of semiotics). Craft has the potential of becoming a strong narrative barometer for Design (here, Interior-Architecture). Narrative Barometer refers to a medium that has a potential to measure; create; carry forward and deliver narratives or Narrativity. Moreover, every craft has a narrative framework and a narrative structure (grammar) underlying it that contributes to design semantics and visual language in Interior-Architecture. It is simpler to study the narrative framework and structure in the literary narratives. But, in the non-literary narratives like paintings, relief works, sculptures, folk performances, crafts; it is difficult to do study the same. This research focuses on the non-literary narratives, specifically stone crafts in the religious buildings of India. Very few efforts have been made to study the narrative framework and narrative structure within crafts and design. This paper is an attempt to translate various models and codes deduced from different theoretical perspectives into Interior Architecture, with narratives being the centre and stone crafts being the medium. It aims to contribute to an inter-disciplinary research on Narratives, Narratology, Craft, Design, and Interior-Architecture.