If you’ve ever been to Commercial Street or the busy shopping areas surrounding it, you may have noticed an odd colonial building peeking out from behind a plastic hoarding, or caught a glimpse of an intricately carved wooden door painted in a fading green or blue, behind bustling shopkeepers and tourists. Originally developed in the 19th century as a shopping district mainly for British residents, it’s no small wonder that these colonial buildings have remained around Commercial Street, waiting to be noticed. The 150-year-old school on Kamaraj Road, founded and currently owned by RBANM’s Educational Charities, was one such building, falling apart for over 15 years after the school stopped operations in the 2000s. Now, as it’s back to its former glory after two years of restoration, walking into the space is like slipping through a crack in time.
Now an arts venue called ‘Sabha’, it’s impossible to imagine the approximately 7,500 square foot space – a large building with a pitched roof, a smaller one with a Madras terrace roof, and two courtyards – as a derelict school. But architect and partner at Hundred Hands, Bijoy Ramachandran, recalls what he saw when he was brought in. “The interior was divided into several classrooms using wood and masonry partitions when we first got there, and the buildings were in a very bad shape. The roof was damaged or had caved in, the plastering on the walls was all but gone, the masonry was cracked and opening up in places, and all the windows were in a very bad shape. It was decrepit in the dictionary definition of the word,” says Ramachandran, adding, “We also had to deal with a lot of water seepage even in dry months as there’s a very high water table in this part of the city because of its proximity to Ulsoor lake.”
Apart from fixing the flooding with a power drain system redirecting water to a stormwater drain outside, the space saw changes mainly to uncover the understated beauty of the building itself. “These old buildings are incredibly well-proportioned and beautiful in their essential condition. And that really comes to light now that we’ve removed all the insensitive additions made over the years – you see the structure for what it is,” says Ramachandran .
Ramachandran, and V Ravichandar, trustee of Ammini trust, which manages the venue and spearheaded the project, made it a priority to reuse the original materials as much as possible and when it wasn’t, to source replacements close to the original. Techniques like ‘stitching’ were used by contractors specialising in restoration projects to correct some of the structural damage, notes Ramachandran, saying, “They inserted stone pieces to tie masonry where the walls had large structural cracks and packed up places where portions of the old brickwork had been eaten away by moisture or fallen off, with resized brickwork, matching the old courses, set in traditional mortar and finished in plaster, both with lime mixed on site.”
The timber work is another fascinating architectural element of the restored structure, with a combination truss roof (timber and steel) in the pitched roof building and stunning central pillars in the Madras terrace building. “It’s actually all in the joinery and the way that the structure has been put together – the skilled carpenters were making new variations on traditional methods of joining timber, mixing the old and new timber while replacing the damaged parts of the structure,” says Ramachandran.
While retaining the original look, brand new additions have been made to make Sabha functional as an arts space with a retractable platform, chairs, air conditioning, a lighting system, and a sound system, while the building has naturally lent itself to good acoustics. “We have had piano and clarinet sessions, plays, talks without mics… the top notch acoustics have been a great surprise,” says Ravichandar. He continues, “Glass facade structures are the standard model today but you also need something distinctive.”
The cost of a project such as this was no pittance either, with Ravichandar noting, “The cost of doing conservation and restoration projects is 30-40 per cent more than a new greenfield project.” The space was ‘soft launched’ by hosting a few performances during Blr Habba in December, but will fully kick off operations with an official inauguration on April 12 and 13, open to all.