KEY WORDS: Pondicherry, Critical , Indian Modern, Antonin Raymond

Golconde: India's First Modern Building

Smita Dalvi Tekton Volume 3, Issue 1, March 2016 pp. 46 - 63

ABSTRACT

This paper is based on an eponymous exhibition held between 09 February & 11 March 2016, at the lobby of Army & Navy Building, Kalaghoda, Mumbai -- a collateral event with the 'State of Architecture' exhibition at the NGMA, Mumbai. The curatorial text by Smita Dalvi is based on Smita Dalvi is a founding faculty of MES ongoing research on the building and the early modernism in Pillai College of Architecture, Navi India. The drawings for the exhibition were prepared by Raj Mumbai and the editor of Tekton. She Singh and Amit Dhanawat, as documentation being means of has been teaching architecture and aesthetics in Navi Mumbai and Mumbai. unravelling the logic of the building. Her research areas are in Architecture, Golconde was built in the French colony of Pondicherry, History of Art & Culture, Urban Heritage India, as a dormitory for the Aurobindo Ashram, between the and has read and published papers and late 1930s and early 1940s. Embodied in its process, product essays in conferences and several and upkeep are the philosophical precepts of Beauty as architectural and cultural journals. Her understood by the architect, clients and its eventual users. area of special interest is Islamic Golconde presaged '' in India two decades architecture and aesthetics. In 2007, she was awarded the fellowship of 'Fulbright before . Although, reinforced concrete was Visiting Specialist: Direct Access to the already in use in India, Golconde can claim to be one of the Muslim world'. Presently, she is pursuing earliest 'modern' buildings in India. her doctoral studies at IIT- Bombay.

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46 TEKTON: Volume 3, Issue 1, March 2016 TEKTON: Volume 3, Issue 1, March 2016 47 Critical Modernism 1914 and became his chief disciple. Known as 'The Golconde (1935 - 1945) was built in the French Mother' she had envisioned a 'beautiful building to 1 colony of Pondicherry, India as a dormitory for house her children'- the ashram disciples. In 1935, on the Aurobindo Ashram, presaging the 'high the recommendation of Pavitra (Philippe St. modernism' that would be seen much later in India. Golconde's design, execution and The Mother’s brief for the subsequent life over the next seventy years dormitory consisted of living and reect universalism, yet critical modernism; a sleeping accommodations, work notion of beauty that simultaneously is and and utility rooms- designed to keep transcends its physical presence. the interiors comfortable without mechanical aid in the tropical heat Golconde is representative of an axis in the and humidity of Pondicherry. history of the subcontinent when the Hilaire), a French engineer at the Ashram, the conuences of several strands of world culture Mother commissioned architect Antonin crisscrossed throughout the country like a sea Raymond to design a building to full this wind. At the time, imperialism dream. Her brief for the dormitory consisted of internationalized the colonial space in an living and sleeping accommodations, work and unprecedented manner. The narrative of utility rooms- designed to keep the interiors Golconde was shaped by cultural forces that comfortable without mechanical aid in the transcended nationality and tradition. It is, on tropical heat and humidity of Pondicherry. An the face of it, a babel of subcultures, and yet endowment of One Lakh Rupees came from Sir the building itself speaks with a clarity that Akbar Hydari, Diwan of the princely state of belies all these backgrounds. Hyderabad and for this municence, the dormitory was named 'Golconde'.2 This paper attempts to recreate the narrative of this remarkable building, its design and An Eclectic Team: Raymond, construction, and contextualise its position in Nakashima, Sammer the history of Indian modernism while Antonin Raymond was born in discussing its relevance in the search for and trained in as an architect in the rst criticalism in architectural responses. decade of the new century. He was disillusioned with the architecture in Europe that he described A 'Beautiful Building' to House Her 3 as “sentimental imitation of forms long out-lived”. He Children went to the US in search of the new. There, he Sri Aurobindo, educated in Britain, became a worked with briey and revolutionary upon his return and in 1910 took accompanied him to Japan in 1919 for the refuge in French Pondicherry. Here, he founded an Imperial Hotel Project in . This was a international commune based on the philosophy turning point in Raymond's career. He stayed on, of 'Cosmic salvation through spiritual evolution'. Mirra impressed with the philosophy of traditional Alfassa, a Parisian artist and occultist joined him in in which he found what he

48 TEKTON: Volume 3, Issue 1, March 2016 TEKTON: Volume 3, Issue 1, March 2016 49