Question

Adaptive reuse of gandhi smarak sangrahalaya ahmedabad

Answer 1

This memorial museum is located in the ashram where the Mahatma lived from 1917 to 1930. Housing his books, letters and photographs, this modest and humanlyscaled memorial uses brick piers, stone floors and tiled roofs to find a contemporary expression for the spirit of swadeshi.

The commission was the architect's first important work in private practice. In order to reflect the simplicity of Gandhi's life and the incremental nature of a living institution the architect used modular units 6 metres x 6 metres of reinforced cement concrete connecting spaces, both open and covered, allowing for eventual expansion.



The modular simplicity of the structure is continued in the use of basic materials: stone floors, brick walls, wooden doors and louvred windows devoid of glass, and riled roofs. The units are grouped in a consciously asymmetric manner to be analogous to the Indian village with its pathways and seem­ ingly randomly placed buildings and its meeting points; in this instance the central water court.



The initial construction con­sisted of 51 modular units. Some of the units are enclosed by walls; the exhibition spaces so created counterpointed by areas for rest where the visitor can sit ... Since its inaguration by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1963 the units have been added to, extending the existing pattern.



In this work Correa demonstrates the uncompromising execution of an idea as a powerful statement of form, an approach found in many of his works such as the ECIL Office Complex and the later Kanchanjunga apartments - where single overriding con­cepts become the major organising element of the architecture.

This document is embedded in ...

Correa, Charles. "India: from a Philosophy of Ages, Architecture for Today." Museum International 41, no. 4 (1989): 223-229.

Charles Correa, Edited by Hasan-Uddin Khan. Architects in the Third World. Singapore: Concept Media Ltd., 1987.

"Roots – Culture as deep-structure." In Vistāra - The Architecture of India, Catalogue of the Exhibition, edited by Carmen Kagal and MN Ashish Ganju. The Festival of India, 1986.

Chatterjee, Malay. "I. 1947 – 1959: Options after Independence, the Evolution of Contemporary Indian Architecture." In Architecture In India, 124-131. Paris and Milan: Electa Moniteur, 1985.

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