RECLUSIVE
SPATIAL HISTORY
MENTORS : ANUJ DAGA, PRASAD KHANOLKAR
INSTITUTE OF INDOLOGY, AHMEDABAD
-B.V.DOSHI
In the mid-1950s, Muniji Punyavijaiji Maharaj, a Jain monk, contacted Kasturbhai Lalbhai, who wished to donate to him a magnificent collection of ancient manuscripts on the condition that they be properly stored and preserved. Lalbhai responded positively and the idea was expanded to include a research institute with a museum. The Ahmedabad Education Society donated a 3.7 hectare plot near Gujarat University and Doshi was invited to submit a design. Traditionally, ancient texts were kept in the basements of temples. The new building could not be air-conditioned, as the manuscripts would soon have been destroyed. Doshi therefore placed the library semi-underground, letting indirect light in through angled windows and reflecting it on a pool of water that also served as insulation.
DIAGRAM ANALYSIS
CHHATRAPATI SHIVAJI MAHARAJ VASTU SANGRAHALAYA
In 1904, some leading citizens of Bombay decided to provide a museum to commemorate the visit of the Prince of Wales, the future King George V. The foundation stone was laid by the Prince of Wales on 11 November 1905 and the museum was formally named "Prince of Wales Museum of Western India". On 1 March 1907, the government of the Bombay Presidency granted the museum committee a piece of land called the "Crescent Site", where the museum now stands. Following an open design competition, in 1909 the architect George Wittet was commissioned to design the Museum building. Wittet had already worked on the design of the General Post Office and in 1911 would design one of Mumbai's most famous landmarks, the Gateway of India. The museum building was completed in 1915, but was used as a Children's Welfare Centre and a Military Hospital during the First World War, before being handed over to the committee in 1920.
The museum building, built of locally quarried grey Kurla basalt and buff coloured trachyte Malad stone. It is a three-storied rectangular structure, capped by a dome set upon a base, which adds an additional storey in the centre of the building. Built in the Western Indian and Indo-Saracenic style of architecture, the building accommodates a central entrance porch, above which rises a dome, tilled and modified well "tiled in white and blue flecks, supported on a lotus - petal base". A cluster of pinnacles, topped with miniature domes surround the central dome. The building incorporates features like Islamic dome with a finial along with protruding balconies and inlaid floors, inspired by Mughal palace architecture. The architect, George Wittet, modelled the dome on that of Golconda Fort and the inner vaulting arches on those at the Gol Gumbaz in Bijapur. The interior of the museum combines the columns, railings and balcony of an 18th-century Wada (a Maratha mansion) with Jain style interior columns, which form the main body of the central pavilion below the Maratha balcony.
SITE ANALYSIS THORUGH DIAGRAMS
