A question of equality

The Auroville architects, in a rare expression of solidarity, have categorically rejected a recommendation of the Funds and Assets Management Committee (FAMC) to limit their architect fees to 3.5% of the total costs of any Auroville construction project with an overall cost of over Rs.1 crore (Rs.10 million or € 125,000). The Auroville architects questioned why the recommendation was made without consultation, and demanded to know why the FAMC proposed to overrule the scale of charges as recommended by the Indian Council of Architects. The topic raised a spirited discussion on Auronet.

The ‘trigger’ for the FAMC’s recommendation is a planned major housing project where the architect’s fee will be 5.5 % of the cost of the construction (Rs 550,000 – € 7,000, for a project costing Rs 1 crore), and the fee for the project manager another 2%.(Rs 200,000 – € 2,500) Both percentages are part of the house costs to be paid by future residents, who are Aurovilians. Housing is a basic need. Is it acceptable that some Aurovilians make a profit on the basic needs of another Aurovilian? If architects enjoy the benefits of Auroville’s economic model, such as free education for their children provided by teachers who only get a community maintenance of Rs 12,000 a month, cannot they too limit their income?

“We believe that the present situation is untenable, it only increases the existing gap between Aurovilians working in different areas with regard to their income and living conditions,” write Joseba and Anandi on Auronet. But why has the FAMC targeted the architects and not all the others whose income exceeds Rs 12,000 a month, such as executives of Auroville’s commercial units and guesthouses, those who have an income from large bank accounts or rent out “their” house in Auroville or elsewhere in the world, or those who have an income from work outside Auroville or enjoy a pension?

The situation of Auroville architects

“Frankly, it upsets me that Auroville architects are suddenly made scapegoats,” says architect Fabian. He explains that most architects in Auroville run their offices as a commercial unit of the Auroville Foundation. Each unit has its own infrastructure – an office space with uninterrupted power supply, computers, and printers – and some units employ co-workers depending on the number of assignments. A small office with three or four employees can cost upwards of Rs 60,000 a month. If the unit makes profit, it will contribute 33% to the community, like all other Auroville commercial units.

But do architect units make profit? “Getting wealthy is certainly not the driving factor for running an architect’s office in Auroville. No Auroville architect I know has become rich from working for Auroville projects, nor from their work outside Auroville,” says Fabian.

Being an architect, he says, is a highly responsible and therefore at times taxing job. “Talk to an average architect and ask him how many weeks or months it takes to get a concept finalized. There’s all the dreaming, conceptualizing, talking, drafting, and endless changing till it all fits together, only to change everything again because some parameters have changed. This is even more so in Auroville where we try to stay away from standard solutions because we dream of a new architecture befitting the “City the Earth needs” – sustainable, open-spirited and ideal to live in, suitable for people coming from all different cultures, affordable, maintainable, beautiful, with spaces for the individual as well as the community.”

And often, all the work is for nothing. “Go and ask how many times the work ends in the dustbin because the project has been shelved, or because some ‘cheaper’ option has been found, or because the architect got fired following a dispute with the all-powerful project holder and is replaced by a non-Auroville architect who then works for an undisclosed fee!" says Fabian.

Not enough work

Another issue is that Auroville has insufficient work for all its resident architects. A few architects have, on their own initiative, taken up creating entire communities, which implied getting the Auroville bureaucracy to approve the project, conceptualizing the community infrastructure, finding clients, designing all the individual houses and apartments, making bills of quantities, interacting with the contractor, supervising the work and doing the entire project management. It is an exhausting job, and some architects have sworn never to do it again. “Taking up such a project is always a gamble and not easy. This is why quite a few architects prefer working on projects outside,” says Fabian.

What about the – very few – larger buildings funded by donations or government grants? “According to my experience, Auroville has no selection process to speak of,” says Fabian. “Project holders as well as Auroville working groups such as the Housing Service select the architect they like and that’s it.” He feels – and many architects agree – that Auroville should tender the designs for all public buildings, whatever their intended use in an open competition. “Architects should be invited to come up with a design and, if the project budget allows for it, be compensated for their work, even if they are not selected. A team of qualified people should make the selection. That’s the process which is pretty much followed everywhere in the democratic world.” Alternatively, he says, a group of Auroville architects could be invited to jointly submit a proposal which would then be evaluated by a peer group. “That might lead to a design which is better than any individual would be able to come up with.”

The collapse of the maintenance system

It’s clear that restricting an architect’s fee, as recommended by the FAMC, would do very little to improve Auroville maintenances. “From the discussions on the Auronet one gets the impression that those who object to Auroville architects earning ‘that much’, while teachers etc. are only earning ‘that little’, seem to believe that if only the architects would stop ‘making big bucks’ on their Auroville projects, all the problems of the Auroville’s maintenance system would be solved. That’s nonsense,” says Fabian. “The failing of the maintenance system is not due to the architects.”

What then, exactly, is the problem? The major one is that Auroville’s income is insufficient to carry the costs of all the services. In consequence, those working in the service sector receive incomes (called ‘maintenances’) which are substantially lower than the income of those who work in commercial units or who support themselves on an income from outside. Over the years, the increase of these service sector maintenances have barely kept up with inflation.

To what extent such an income inequality is acceptable and how the inequality could be addressed are questions that have never been answered. If the FAMC believes that architect units earn too much on Auroville projects and that an Aurovilian shouldn’t earn a profit over the basic needs of another Aurovilian, then why did the FAMC not target executives of commercial units that produce basic needs for Aurovilians? If the FAMC believes that a too large income inequality is not acceptable, then why hasn’t the FAMC asked all those who have an income exceeding the community maintenance to contribute a percentage of the difference to the Maintenance Fund? Why has it acquiesced in the present-day reality that those who solely depend on a community maintenance are left to fend for themselves and, if they need more than their maintenance, have to figure out how to earn a second income outside the maintenance system?

Fabian mentions some consequences of the present Auroville maintenance system. “Those who live on an Auroville maintenance have less and less chance to afford some of the nicer things of life. This includes even the products made in Auroville such as cheese, peanut butter and jams (which cost more than their counterparts in a German fair-trade or certified-organic shop). Neither can they enjoy a nice meal in a restaurant in Auroville or Pondicherry, or simply repair their motorbike. Life is even more challenging for those who come from a culture not based on a daily dose of cheap food like idly and sambar or dhal and chawal, but who want to have more expensive organic and healthy food on the family table.

“Last year we travelled to Europe. We hadn’t seen our families for years, and a part of our travel expenses was paid for by my architect unit – which is my only source of income. But do I have to feel bad because my unit can afford this, while someone who lives on a maintenance cannot? Or should I, at 45, have asked my parents to pay for the tickets of their son, his wife and their children because they live in Auroville? Keeping contact with aging parents and other family members is part of my minimum needs, which should be taken care of.

“Am I worried that at one point of my life I have to depend on the goodwill of our Auroville economy and social system because I have reached 70 and maybe am too tired to work like I do now? Because I have decided to be part of Auroville, worked within the framework of the system and put the last financial reserves I had into my life here? Yes, I am. But I also trust that Mother’s grace and people of goodwill will solve it. But part of me still wonders, shouldn’t we start talking about social security for when we all are old and in need of support, now that some of us have given almost everything to Auroville?”

A community review is badly needed

For Fabian, it’s high time that the community has an open, non-judgmental discussion about all this. “There is so much hypocrisy. Instead of continuously shooting at one group of professionals or another the community should put all these topics on the table and discuss them openly.”

Joseba and Anandi also ask for a community review. “The present inequality puts in danger essential Auroville values such as equality, solidarity and fraternity that should prevail in all Auroville economic activities,” they write. “This is the big contradiction in our economic model today and it is calling for an urgent revision and an aligning with the values that have been developed already in a good number of other areas of Auroville.”