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The goal of design was to give form to the formless. Artists used stories, metaphors, symbols, and natural
elements to make these ideas understandable. They mapped abstract ideas to real-world elements like the
human body or the five elements of nature—fire, water, earth, air, and space. This process helped create
meaningful, structured designs that were consistent across centuries and regions.
In this chapter, you will explore how ancient Indian knowledge systems used the given powerful design
process to create temples, sculptures, manuscripts, dances, and patterns—and how you can apply these
timeless methods to design thinking today.

Metaphorise the Give a Basic Form
Realising an abstract (Using (Using Proportion,
Abstract Idea symbols and Hierarchy, and Grids)
metaphors)

Detailing the form
Reflection (Using Fractals and
Ornamentation)

Abstract vs Real
Indian design often begins with a formless mental image. These abstract ideas are hard to describe or see
directly. For example, cyclic time, abundance, and grace are not things which can be seen or touched, but
they can be represented visually.
Temples, for instance, are designed to represent a reflection of the universe. The Garbhagriha, the innermost
part of the temple, symbolizes the navel of the cosmic being (Purusha). The structure around it represents
other parts of the body—feet, shoulders, arms—and together, the temple becomes a sacred metaphor for
the universe.

Realism Abstraction

Study the given three architectural examples. The first is a fisheries office in Hyderabad, which has been
designed in the exact shape of a fish. This is a realistic representation where the idea and the form are almost
the same. The second example is the Beijing Airport, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. Its roof is shaped
like the wings of a bird, it doesn’t look exactly like a bird, but it captures the feeling and movement of flight
making it more of an abstract representation. The third example is a Hindu temple. It does not look like any
particular object making it more abstract representation highly abstract form. It represents the universe on
Earth using many meaningful layers like, mapping the human body onto the temple structure. For example,
the temple’s center represents the navel, the door is the mouth, and the base symbolizes the feet.

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