CHENNAI: Heritage in Chennai is not just in the ‘red’ of the Indo-Sarcenic buildings that dot the city, but also in Art Deco style.
From the buildings on NSC Bose Road to Alliance Francaise and unoccupied houses, Sujatha Shankar, architect and convenor of INTACH Chennai, in her lecture on Sunday, took the audience through the vestiges of the Art Deco buildings in Madras.
Art Deco does not represent merely a building style, but an era of mechanisation, concrete and technology. “The Art Deco era in Madras was short, nevertheless left behind many buildings which do exist now, but are vanishing,” said Sujatha. The style has soaring verticals and clean geometry, with the buildings in Chennai having Indian influences like jharokha balconies. Prominent Art Deco buildings in Chennai include the EID Parry headquarters, the National Insurance Building and the LIC building.
“Theatres, especially, responded well to this style, as cinemas too were a celebration of fantasy and went well with this idea of modernity and new technology,” said Sujatha, showing examples of buildings like the Casino Theatre.
The influences came in from America even into things like Tamil font and posters, as all of this represented an upward growth. The potential of concrete over the older ‘Madras terrace roof’ was explored with newer possibilities like cantilevered porches and taller structures.
Although house owners are attached to this style of building, most of the elements are disappearing - things like ara kadhavu, the half-door ideal for privacy and air circulation, she said. A lot of buildings, Sujatha said, had been modified without being sensitive to the style, like brick buildings painted green.
“It is possible to adapt the building design without compromising on the structural and aesthetics of the original construction,” she says.
What INTACH can do, she said, is to document and create awareness about the buildings.
“Now, the value of land is more than the value of a house and this is why most of the old houses in this style are vanishing,” she says. Making people aware and proud of the value of heritage buildings could go a long way in historic preservation.