Darshan

19

How the Mother Selected the Bharat Nivas Design (Alain Grandcolas)

the Bharat Nivas Design

Alain Grandcolas

I would like to recollect for you my visit to the Mother's Room for the selection of the architectural model of Bharat Nivas. [Bharat Nivas is the name of the Pavilion of India in the International Zone of Auroville.] It may be interesting to know how was selected the wooden model which became a little bit controversial considering that after 30 years there are several buildings but not much life. On the wooden model, which is exhibited in Bharat Nivas, we can see a big auditorium (which is existing and used), a rather huge restaurant (which is existing but not used), and twenty identical pavilions in a mushroom form which are meant to house the various states of India. In each pavilion, the living space is within the top of the mushroom—may be twelve meters higher than the ground—and the access is through a staircase inside or lift. This is the final product which has not yet been constructed. How such a model was selected?

When it was decided to start 'Bharat Nivas', we thought that since it was the Pavilion of India, we would have a competition among Indian architects. I was asked to take care of the competition. We sent some four hundred invitations to the most known Indian architects inviting them to compete. I do not remember how many architects have expressed interest but finally we received in Pondicherry more than twenty models of size at least one and a half by one and a half meter. A jury was constituted, with Roger Anger, Ramanathan, Anjani Dayanand (Chief Secretary, Government of Pondicherry), the Governor of Pondicherry, Piero, with the mandate to select three amongst the twenty models. And amongst the three selected by this jury, the Mother would select one. No names were there on the models, so that the jury

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would not be influenced by the Architect's name and I remember that one of the models which almost got number three was by a team of Ashram students. We took the three models to the Mother's room. It was quite difficult because the models were big and the staircase was quite small but they entered the room.

Roger's selection was the model with mushroom-like pavilions and all other members of the jury didn't like this model and had other selections. Roger was supposed to present all these three models to the Mother, describe their advantages, drawbacks, the specific features etc. So, I very strongly told Roger before entering the Mother's room, "You know Roger, if by chance you show your preference while describing the three models to the Mother everyone will know about it!" And Roger presented the three models one by one, in an absolutely beautiful manner, and even myself who knew what his selection was, could not tell which one could be his favourite choice. Then Mother looked successively at each model with intensity. On each of them She asked some questions and always Roger answered in a very impersonal way. After looking at them two times, She stopped in front of the Chakrapani's model—the mushroom type model which was Roger's selection. Then She said: "This one. It is more supple."

She said it was more supple. Some people have understood lately that She was giving permission to change the design, which, according to me, is a wrong understanding. In all the other models, each state pavilion had its own architecture. For example, Tamil Nadu state pavilion had Tamil Nadu's architecture and Kerala state pavilion had Kerala's architecture. But in Chakrapani's model, all the pavilions have the same architecture, and none of this architecture was reminiscent of any Indian architecture. So I understood when She said it was more supple, it meant that if some new states merged with India then it would be easy to accommodate the new states.

This is how the present architectural design of Bharat Nivas was really selected by the Mother among the other models.

His only sunlight was his spirit's flame.

Book II, 5

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