Church Street is a paranoid body. Colonialism is a wound which festers. Colonialism birthed Capitalism.
What is Church Street like?
Church Street (Site C) connecting the Un-Academy (Site A) and the Nugget of the City (Site B)
Site C
Site B
Site A
What does a city full of memories and migrants look like?
The city of Bangalore is defined in recent history by its IT boom. It attracts hundreds of people from all over the country resulting in a conglomerate of people with no memories of this place except the ones created by the homogeneity of the capitalism that ties different metropolises together.
The iconic buildings of this city are thus reduced to iconic imagery inaccessible in memory beyond the façade.
European legacy in Bangalore is one of revivalism and replication
Shrungar Shopping Centre
Nugget of the City- occupies the site of the now-dilapidated Shrungar Shopping Centre
The project uses colonial motifs and the tartan grid of the setback regulations that have shaped the city to make its impact. Along with that, it uses references from the immediate context like the 13th floor restaurant (the most expensive restaurant on the highest building in the skyline) and recreates the 6.5th floor café emphasizing the myopic and elitist view of what is “important enough” to be Bangalore.
Nugget of the City in Site B- keeping alive the collective memory of the passage between MG Road and Church Street with a void in the place of Shrungar Shopping Centre's drum
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View of the Nugget from Church Street- the screen, 6.5th floor café and extracted grid
Grid extends onto the Church Street (Site B)-what sits on the street abets capitalism. The grid becomes furniture and makes the campus spill onto the city
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The Un-Academy
Site B- Church Street
Instagram pink and the Instagram grid are Corinthian capital’s only worthy opponent.
Ground Floor plan of the Un-Academy-Annex to Stracey Memorial
Section/Elevation of the Un-Academy-What changes from Day to Night?
Views of the Un-Academy
When the capital becomes seating
When the motif of colonialism serves the colonized
capitalism is the great equalizer
Or, is Capitalism the new colonizer?
The learning space is meaningless unless it too luxuriates in its setting and uselessness. Education, after all, benefits from commodification.
Shrungar Shopping Centre, now on the line of demolition, was a beloved precursor to malls in Bangalore. Through an internal passage around its famous round central structure full of tantalizing retail fronts, it connected the parallel MG Road and Church Street.
The generation that formed memories with the shopping complex has moved to the convenience of Amazon. In a city that has spread like crabgrass, the migrants and the youth have memories that are not theirs and have arrived after the party's over.
Church Street is a wonderland- signage, retail, a Las Vegas right in the heart of a city that keeps growing like crabgrass. The intervention, therefore, rightly annexes the surrounding buildings- a promise to increase commerce- the only promise that has ever mattered here. Church Street is a paranoid body
Bangalore is an Indian city that is shaped by British occupation. Colonial architecture has deeply (or superficially) impacted almost every city it has touched. The urn balusters and out-of-context neo-Classical columns have plagued the imagery of these cities for decades now.
Studio:
Studio Mentors:
Project Description:
Architecture Design
6th Semester, 2020
Deepa Suryaprakash, Madhuri Rao, Meera Vasudev, Smaran Mallesh
Design of a campus for learning in Bangalore's Central Business District
Wonderland
- A Satire on Colonialism, Capitalism, and Nostalgia in the heart of Bangalore
This project was developed as a part of a studio that focused on creating a face of the city as well as a learning space in Bangalore’s central business district. It was to be an offering to the city- but inevitably, it also has to address the layers of history (or the hollow foundation) of this place.
Shrungar Shopping Centre, now on the line of demolition, was a beloved precursor to malls in Bangalore. Through an internal passage around its famous round central structure full of tantalizing retail fronts, it connected the parallel MG Road and Church Street.
The generation that formed memories with the shopping complex has moved to the convenience of Amazon. In a city that has spread like crabgrass, the migrants and the youth have memories that are not theirs and have arrived after the party's over.
