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| Amphitheatre: Near Banglar Haat / Food Court of Eco Park (Photo courtesy Sanjit Sharma) |
The same day, Minister will also be requested to flag off a special sightseeing tour from Eco Park. This will operate on Sundays to start with. It will leave Eco Park at around 4-5 pm and take tourists to Rabindra Tirtha, Najrul Tirtha, Financial Hub, Artes Acre and Hajra Kalibari, besides showing around the sculptures and other attractions of New Town. The tour will be on bus and the ticket fee is being worked out. I think the tourists will be back by two hours or so.
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Here is a screenshot of an article published in the internet edition of Times of India:
Sir, I have nothing against the person who designed the amphitheater. However, my suggestion would be that in future endeavours, please employ architects of repute through invitation or competition for designing projects rather than engineers.
ReplyDeleteIt might seem artful to you, but in actual sense, this is what the general public call as "PWD design"! To create a park of international repute you need to have aesthetically pleasing structures. In fact if I recall correctly you started well with the Eco Park being designed by the famous urban design firm Pradeep Sachdeva. I would only request you to to carry the same momentum of inspiration.
It is said that when Eiffel tower was built, Parisiens treated it as an ugly structure. Now they love it. For kind info, the amphitheater HAS been designed by an architect. He will be hurt to see this comment. Some may even find Nazrul Tirtha distasteful but I think Abindesign the young architect has done an amazing job. Condemning anything PWD is also something I find slightly unacceptable.
ReplyDeleteSir,
ReplyDeleteI do not intend to hurt anyone. If at all it has done so, I have my sincere apology.
It is good to know that an architect was indeed roped in for the amphitheater project.
Saying so, I myself believe that Nazrul Tirtha is a tasteful building inspired from the rebellious poet's thought in a deconstructive design style- 'Brutallistic' as it is often called and perhaps one of the few such attempts made in India. In fact, I have done my internship at Abin Design during the tenure when the design was being conceived.
Every city has a distinct architectural style influenced by various schools of thought and also by its socio economic history. I am pleased to see that NewTown authorities are investing time and money on architecture and none of their buildings (the ones that I have seen on this website) look typically 'government' ones. And I am also glad to see that you have not restricted yourself to 'Bengal' blue colour when it comes to the paint job.
ReplyDeleteI applaud the team involved. There would always be a difference of opinion and that should fuel creative thinking. But end of the day, that is what would make NewTown architecture a class apart from the standard glass and steel structures that we see in and around Kolkata.
Way to go!
Regards,
Sowmik
The ampitheatre itself looks pretty good, but the stage floor and canopy could have been designed better. The stage floor probably needs brighter color instead of the dull grey "neat cement" look. And I am really thankful that it does not have the Bengal blue white paint theme here !
ReplyDeleteI think PWD got a bad reputation because their buildings are typically not aesthetically pleasing - very utilitarian design - all straight lines. This is probably because they are designed by PWD civil engineers who think making a building is all about making it structurally sound. They do feel the need to engage a creative mind of an architect in building design.
Nazrul Tirtha is a very creative piece of architecture in my opinion. In general all of the architecture sponsored by NKDA around new town looks pretty visually appealing - from Hidco bhavan to the bus shelters and cafe/toilet complexes. None of them have the typical PWD look - I am sure NKDA must be having good architects on their payroll.
One cannot actually blame Aritra for his first comments because of the photograph posted in the blog. I would like to request Mr Sen to kindly upload a few more photographs of the amphitheatre from different angles.
ReplyDeleteBengal has come a long way when the government departments began appointing architects (may not be "of repute") for their projects now a days. These architects may not be producing only aesthetically pleasing designs but a few of them may also want to revive the ancient wisdom of "Form follows function". So their buildings may not be attractive at the first glance but their utilisation of space may have scored good marks for their projects. And architecture like any other form of art is bound to attract different opinions from users.
I think Sudipta will appreciate that there are a few more constraints for an architect while working under any government department in comparison with those faced while working for a private client, particularly if the architects are not "of repute". It is agreed that the stage indeed seems a little dull with respect to the adjacent gallery.
The architect fraternity should be overjoyed that New Town has provided them with a happy hunting ground in Bengal. The trend has changed from the time when an architect is only asked to "design" a "beautiful elevation" for a building already under construction. But still in government projects, even though one can find the names of the department engineers and executing agencies you cannot find the name of the architects mentioned anywhere.... Hopefully this will also change in near future.