The design of three pavilions by Delhi-based Space Matters is constituted through shared positions and enquiries on interpretations of cultural ideas, identity, representation, publicness et al, with the process taking on many flowing forms.
The structures of contemporary practice insulate these engagements within typologies as ‘pavilions’, ‘installations’ ‘temporal structures’. It may be that these structures have no visible unifying style or do not belong to the apparent fixity that architecture has, or a physical context it is rooted in, but they are seated in an interesting position, astride on a threshold of a kind, between the conventional and a more experimental, experiential, interdisciplinary approach to architectural expression. Oscillating between the question of space and the question of representation, they exist in an open field of OBJECT possibility. Their narratives speak of a larger relationship with the society, culture and politics.
In these projects, there lies a value – the value in search for an idiom, the value of collective authorship, the value of making connections the value of a new spatial contract between private and public as a meeting place for architecture and ‘citizens’, and at times, just the value of disseminating an artistic tradition.
THE JAPANESE TEA HOUSE AND CULTURAL CENTER
In 2005, this was one of the first projects undertaken by Space Matters. Designed for the India Center Foundation – an NGO working on Indo-Japanese cultural relations and trade promotions, the space was to be curated conceptually around the Japanese tea ceremony, with meeting facilities, spaces for interaction. The architects got involved with the project at an ambitious threshold of its opening. In all sense of the word, the pavilion is about tangled narratives of architecture as a tool of ‘exchange’. The project expresses the posterity of simple ideas. Ideologically, the discussions set out within this brief gather a hybrid form of expression – grounded in the core concepts of ‘Wabi Sabi’ – “finding beauty in the incomplete, imperfect, a philosophy that deeply influences Japanese aesthetic, notably traditional tea houses”. A wooden ground-storeyed Tea House predominantly made with locally sourced materials mixed with a select palette of Shoji paper and Tatami Mats summarises the position that this pavilion occupies as a physical space. The landscape was planned ‘as a series of journeys with pauses in pathways and playful elements in the greens.’ This imaginable-scale vision of interpretation and information situates the form, atmosphere and place of the pavilion.
It was important to find a common ground between the different cultural requirements, reconciling functions, site conditions and availability of materials and craftsmanship, with the proportion, aesthetics and essence of tea houses.
Amritha Ballal, Principal Architect
THE NORWEGIAN EMBASSY PAVILION
Extended over 2000sqft, a porous framework of pine wood defined the design of the Norwegian Embassy Pavilion in 2010. To commemorate the occasion of the Norwegian Constitution Day observed on May 17 every year, the temporary entrance pavilion was commission by the Norwegian Embassy in Delhi. The structure brings attention to the spatial and cultural context of Norway, where the Norwegian streets ‘are riotously decorated in the country’s flag colours of red, blue and white on National Day’. A serendipitous visual connection was formed by the architects – “this drew our minds to similarly festive scenes in Indian streets, with the tradition of flying kites on our Independence Day. We chose to combine motifs representative of the two countries, Norway and India.” Suspended in this narrative, a diaphanous, floating cloud of kites crown the long, taut ‘a strict rhythmic, almost engineered, geometry’ of the wooden frame. It is a literal and metaphorical evocation. Sourced from the old city, they are influenced from a local interrelatedness, the translucence of the kite’s paper enables for a diffused light to filter through and was also used as a site for the colours of the Norwegian flag to be projecting on. It is a visual agreement between two cultures – a visual conversation with multiple authors, the context of Norway and India, the materiality, the sensorial play of light and sound by the rustling kites, each adding a layer, owning a part of the narrative.
The Pavilion is not only a backdrop – it is engaging, telling stories. The people interacting with it form a real dependency. So the fact that it can reach out and communicate is a really rewarding feeling.
Amritha Ballal
The cultural approaches in architecture lie not in status of separate styles, but as part of a relation of ideas, materials, and spaces. These pavilions are reminders of that exchange – one whose understanding goes beyond the elements of light, climate, fundamentals to the making of a building. One which merges the tactile with the visual, the tectonic with the scenography. There is a component of exchange in the afterlife too – with a reuse mechanism being in place.
THE BONJOUR INDIA EXPERIENCE
A travelling exhibition, the Bonjour India Experience pavilion was commission by the Embassy of France in India as part of its eponymous exhibit celebrating Indo-French collaboration. It was curated as a month-long process, open to an unprecedented gathering of 180,000 visitors across three iconic sites in India – India Gate in Delhi, Cross Maidan Garden in Mumbai and Salt Lake Central Park in Kolkata.
The design evolved under the overarching thematic focus of the festival – ‘Creativity, Innovation and Partnership’. The layout binds together three interconnected pavilions under these themes that intersect at the core. Six curves corralled together in a 9m high rise over 8000sqft feet volumetrically form these three pavilions.
The metal curves, arranged in a modular symmetry spiraling out from a central core, consisted of a rhythmic arrangement of staggered, self-supporting steel members draped with 20,000 square feet of hand woven steel mesh. The massive self-supporting structure is designed down to the last joint to be flat packed and largely hand installed in the shortest possible time. The metal members and mesh provide for varying gradations visual permeability, allowing the structure to weave into the urban surroundings, both emerging from and merging into the context.
An open-to-sky central space ties the three galleries. This space represents the strong sense of cross-pollination in the interpretation of the three themes as each of these ideas are always present in consonance with the other two – true innovation is at the confluence of creativity and partnership, and so on. The pavilion had to be conducive to easy accessibility, dismantlability, visual impact and diverse multimedia experiences. From inside it acts as a passive receptacle. Conceived as a sealed exhibition space, a secure environment was detailed, replete with digitally responsive engagements for the visitors. The engagements are tactile, visual and virtual. At various points in the exhibition, multimedia art installations help shift the visitor experience from information to abstraction, capturing the essence of exchange between two distinctive cultures. “How does the exhibition make diverse information accessible to an equally diverse audience – varying in age, linguistic preferences, educational background, and ranging from informed Francophiles to curious passer-bys?” Instead of an overarching narrative, the exhibition provided the visitors with different choices for a multifaceted experience based on individual interests. “Combining sound and light, optical illusion and augmented reality, tactile and virtual, the pages of books and the pixels of LED screens, the exhibition creates an atmosphere of wonder and discovery, provoking a playful sense of curiosity in the visitor.” The visitor was therefore envisioned as an active participant instead of a passive observer.
THE CRITICAL TO THE CREATIVE
While the pavilions function as discrete entities and programmes their own right, the emphasis is on a process that is formed. ‘It has been absorbed into our practice – the virtual space, the storytelling, the research; it is very much part of an extension of how we deal with any physical space,” emulates Amritha. With these pavilions, the process is more a sign of creative authorship than the market. It inherently plays out in these new forms of economy, learning and making. It reflects in something that Amritha says in passing, “The distinction is not whether a project is temporary or non-temporary because temporality is there in all projects. To underscore point, it is a practice that is more conceptual than in an aesthetic. At the same time, it also hints at sustaining the preservation of a process, that is supported less in the conventional practice of architecture owing to its patronage and commitments – an allowance to experiment with materials, concept and publicness of architecture⊗”
SPACE MATTERS is an integrated design practice with architecture, interior, urban design and habitat research capabilities based out of New Delhi. It was founded in 2005 by architects Amritha Ballal, Moulshri Joshi and Suditya Sinha, friends, collaborators and alumnus of School of Planning & Architecture. The firm’s work spans a variety of scales and contexts. These range from public institutional projects such as the award winning Bhopal Gas Tragedy Memorial and revitalisation for the post-disaster industrial complex in Bhopal, urban planning projects including one of the first Integrated Development Plans (IDP) for urban villages in Dwarka, New Delhi to designing commercial and residential spaces for leading corporates such as Titan, DLF Retail and Jindal Steel. Space Matters has established research collaborations with the School of Planning and Architecture, Research Council of Norway, NTNU, Norway, University of Gothenburg, Sweden and the University of Tokyo.
