Emerging Market and the Architect

India, no doubt, is a hub of opportunities right now but the opportunities come with the difficulties of an emerging market. Consumer has more purchasing power than ever before as far as products are concerned but he is still not developed enough to shell out money to hire professionals. Because for a serving middle class, paying for a service is still a big deal. It is only when the class changes that the awareness through peers brings about a change in the attitudes. But I'm glad that the scenario is changing for the architect. Ten years back the concept of hiring an architect was limited to the public and big business institutions and that is why the practice of architecture was quite underdeveloped in India.
This can explain the exclusion of India from the race of Modernism in Architecture in the past decades. And this is true for all developing economies excpet those which either stuck to their colonial past by virtue of their racial proximity like Brazil and Mexico or those which upheld and embraced the ideals of capitalism and open market and in-turn got rewarded by the riches of Modern Architecture like Japan, Korea and Singapore.
And now as India enthusiastically and forcefully enters the global market economy, its middle class aspires to have more. Unfortunately the middle class of an emerging market is often compared of that of a mature market, which I feel is unjustified. Infact the upper class of an emerging market is equivalent of the middle class of a mature market. So, it is still hard for a vast majority of Indian Upper Middle and Upper class to patronize architects and get a "designer home" for themselves. They are still more than happy to pretend that they know everything and spending on an architect is foolishness. Because, infact, this is their real class exactly - middle, mediocre and, in harsher words, cattle.
<190420100942>