Part I: A Habitable Art for All
Review Authored by Edgar Demello
When the Bangalore International Centre design competition was floated by its promoters some ten years ago, and the winning project by Hundredhands was announced, my first reaction on seeing it was that it had broken new ground. Here was a building that challenged the brief and evolved not in plan but in section. Split apart vertically at the centre of that section, it created what I can only call an open-ended plaza in the air. The project had the makings of what Corbusier has called an architectural promenade; but with a difference. It navigated the inside as well as the outside, that culture and climate make possible in our city. It was an idea (whose time had come?) that had the vitality to challenge the formal, offering multiple ways in which cultural events could be curated.
Drawings representing five of the total eighteen design iterations that were made over a period of four years as the design developed. The transition of the scheme from a ‘rhetorical’ podium for public life to the real one as the plan makes space for the vital central spine that connects and augments the functional areas of the project.It accepted that there had to be a fluid interchange between their diverse manifestations. Folk, popular, classical, experimental and the alternate; with space for the formal proscenium stage as well as for the spontaneity of the street and square. A meaningful architecture that reclaimed its mandate of being a public art. An inhabited art that is equally accessible to, and enjoyed, by all. Even in its ‘face to the city’ it proclaimed, in its architectural form, a rather cocky resistance to the conventional, to the predictable. It was literally sticking its neck out with delightful irreverence and chutzpah.
What would the Centre Pompidou be without its massive plaza that is equal to the footprint of the building? Or the elegance of those floating escalators? Spaces more popular than the rest of the enclosure! What would the BIC be without its ‘plaza in the air’? That’s what this piece is intending to investigate. And to say it at the start, it was a lost opportunity. Here was an architectural concept, for which the project must have been singled out in the first place, unable to recognise itself in built form. To use a tired cliché, something was lost in translation.
But well… all was not lost. What has finally come to pass, via an elaborate series of iterations, is an intimate, elegant box in which the volumetric moves, not vertically but diagonally across the three floors and onto the terrace. It is a seductive scene on entry, the promenade rising all in one total visual experience. But the sense of mystery and the shifting of the movement (inside to outside) imagined in the older scheme has gone. The foyer is expansive, in area and volume. Sometimes an assembled set of tables positioned to overlook a Matisse-like lily pond; at other times a small exhibition mounted on moveable panels. But mostly a large concourse for an interchange of people and ideas. Often over a coffee or a snack at a giant table. The restaurant and bar, exquisitely appointed, are go-to places for the cognisant in the city. The entrance foyer is their immediate threshold.
But somehow the emphatic material and spatial quality of the first level diminishes the higher you go. Maybe the Exhibition Gallery on the top floor should have partly broken through and connected to the roof to allow for the display of various forms of art and sculpture, including large installations. Just like the Library does, with its deep terrace, for casual interactions. There was apparently a healthy interface with theatre luminaries on the technical requirements for the auditorium. I’m wondering whether artists were consulted as well? Not likely. And when one arrives at the terrace all seems incoherent, like an afterthought. I think this single large open space at the BIC could do with a serious rejig.
To be fair there is usually a prolonged, and sometimes torturous, rite of passage for buildings of this nature. Often the role of an architect is usurped by the well-meaning but ill-informed. But the BIC has had a different set of problems. For a start, it was found that the site had ‘shrunk’ and therefore some requirements of the brief had to as well. The guest suites were dropped (so well positioned in the earlier design), and the auditorium, that found a new location, was made much smaller. But it remains, by far, the most exciting (and used) part of the BIC. Accessible from two floors it is taut and functional, with a very non-intrusive aesthetic. The relationship of audience to stage to volume is apparently ideal for most types of events. Dance, music, theatre, panel discussions, films in many genres and languages. The programming is very in-depth with the richness of our diverse cultural manifestations on full display.
Front Elevation of the BICThe structure, and the material that expresses it, is in raw unadorned concrete that creates an interesting rhythm on the front façade. This is Layer one, facing towards the East, that allows for larger openings as it receives the soft morning sun. Together with plastered white planes it reflects a certain spartan assemblage, a single plane devoid of any trickery; a wide, coarsely knitted cloak, one might say, that conceals and displays, in equal measure, the goings-on within. And then, Layer two: the sweeping, curved brick wall. A robust presence, it also opens and conceals spaces behind it. The services for one and the entry to the seminar hall. A marvellous counterpoint to the wall one has just entered through. Franky my liking this wall is because it makes no pretence to eco-virtue which is often a faux-label in many an architect’s tool-kit. It sits there like a drape, fluid and haptic, creating an earthy breeze in an otherwise orthogonal, grey enclosure.
In Afterlife, an article on the genesis of the BIC written by the Principal Architect of Hundredhands, Bijoy Ramachandran, one reads quotes from the writings of David Chipperfield, the architect who had staged a powerful Biennale in Venice in 2012 with the theme Common Ground. I have also chosen to end this piece with a quote from his writings. To me it throws light on the conundrums, the ambiguities, and the uncertainties every serious practitioner is confronted with in interpreting our contemporary reality.
We must resolve the possibilities of a shapeless future with the significance and meaning of established form and experience. That which has been with that which could be, memory and imagination…
The making of the BIC has been like a voyage, as Hundredhands has shown in those iterations. A long and arduous one with pitfalls and bad weather along the way. But, like in Hemingway’s novella The Old Man and the Sea, sheer grit and determination with a large doze of creative passion has brought the boat ashore. Although I sometimes ponder on that which could have been, this cultural destination, the BIC, has become an important architectural landmark of our city; one that has ‘significance and meaning’.
Part II: The Enfolding of Urban Space
Written by Ruturaj Parikh
The Bangalore International Center represents the emergence and vitality of a new model for civic institutions that may fill in the lacuna left by the absence of state patronage for culture and intellectual exchange in India. The shrinking of spaces for democratic dialogue have created a yearning for meaningful platforms fuelled by private patronage and independent curatorial intent. The Bangalore International Centre (BIC) is an institution found by a group of citizens who were able to mobilise an enormous effort to raise funds for its realisation and organised an open competition for its architecture.
Hundredhands, the Bengaluru-based architecture firm that won the competition worked through a gruelling process that involved change of the dimensions of the site, alterations in the core programme of the building and an incremental funding. As the design moved through the numerous iterations of the process, the architectural icon – a scheme that was originally imagined with a large urban podium and a structure hovering over – started morphing into a pensive space that prioritised an urban section cutting through the building thereby assimilating and connecting spaces within the BIC. This unprogrammed spine has now become the thriving core of the institution.
In the plan, the structure resembles a ‘family of rooms’ that arrange themselves around the central space. As one reads into the evolution of the plan, one appreciates that by deliberate reduction in programme, this meandering volume is released. This space eventually takes the form of a single, amalgamated public spine connecting the floors and enabling light to permeate into the sanctum. The otherwise benign façade of the building comes alive in the section, complementing the defined programmatic spaces within the building and supporting their holding capacities. This space is often employed by the BIC to host exhibitions, pop-up markets, performances, events, and public gatherings. The spirit of BIC is captured within a meandering street in the sanctum of the built form.
Longitudinal Section of the BICThe Bangalore International Centre makes its most significant contribution in the articulation of a new architectural language for the contemporary civic space. Open, welcoming, and designed with quality spatial and material thinking, the BIC can potentially represent the new spirit of cultural spaces in Indian cities. Vividly curated by a passionate core team, the BIC supports and platforms programming that ranges politics, literature, design, public policy, and the arts.
Acoustic Analysis of the BIC AuditoriumIn the original scheme, the space was imagined to be a formal podium for public life. If built in its competition-winning avatar, the BIC would have made a grand urban gesture towards this ambition. However, in the long and iterative process that followed, this conceptual ambition is transformed into a porous receptacle for public encounter and exchange.
View of the BIC AuditoriumIn contemporary architectural practice one seldom confronts a possibility of producing meaningful work in the realm of the public. With increasing pressure on space for dialogue and the slow corrosion of our platforms for democracy, architecture has withdrawn into the private realm foregrounding the exclusive and the luxurious. As a contrast, the Bangalore International Centre presents itself as a unique case-study for the conceptual and programmatic framework that the institute proposes as well as the quality and thoughtfulness of its spatial expression: a new architecture perhaps for a public place⊗
HUNDREDHANDS, founded in 2003 is a multidisciplinary design studio with projects ranging from large scale master plans to architecture, interior design, environmental/graphic design and film. The studio’s two partners, SUNITHA KONDUR and BIJOY RAMACHANDRAN have bachelors degrees from Bangalore University and masters degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and have wide ranging experience in the design and management of large housing, commercial and academic projects both in the United States and in India.
The studio’s approach is grounded in the search for contextually appropriate solutions. Special emphasis is given to the response to climate, the existing scale and character of the context, appropriate use of materials and construction techniques, and the development of the project aesthetic as a result of these specific conditions.
THE BANGALORE INTERNATIONAL CENTRE (BIC) is a non-profit institution founded by a group of like-minded civic leaders, educators, professionals, government officials, artists, academics and thinkers. The BIC platform fosters intellectual activity, dialogue, cultural enterprise and innovation through quality programs including talks, discussions, performances, film screenings and explorations on varied subjects since inception.
