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Design Museum at Kala Ghoda
Architecture and Drama are two languages that are profound at creating an impact, evoking emotions and engaging the user with the setting plot, environment, characters, materials, spatial quality, volumes, movement, depth of space and related phenomenon. A parallelism is achieved between the two, where the user and the senses are the central catalysts.
Drama in architecture is achieved through unison of a varying elements. Scaling of objects in proportions, not standard, or distorted spaces or voluminous spaces, Textures that sensitize and engage the user, light quality that evokes and triggers the senses, colors add to the effects and the accentuation of form is haven to this Drama. These elements how much ever varying are never capable of being dramatic alone, and are stitched by a narrative. Architectural Language plays an important role in brining this drama alive. It consists of components like unity, orchestration of spatial progression and many other.
Cities are haven to events, these events in future form, the base of narratives, history and become a strong memory. This amalgamation of narratives, memory and phenomenological outcomes achieved thereafter are the essence of Drama that a space then executes.
The architecture of Kala Ghoda stitches narratives. Whether it is the Watson Hotel defying the rules of the Venetian, Gothic and Gothic Revival Architecture and making a statement of it’s own by creating a change in the urban context or the art deco movement making it’s mark and spreading like wildfire in the precinct accentuating the current architectural context or the pavement gallery, not bound by ant walls but bound by a datum and art on all sides or the annually held Kala Ghoda Festival, all these events hold strong narratives and leave certain gaps for intervening in the architectural context to create and add to a NEW DRAMA to the EXISTING DRAMA.
.To create drama and the dramatic effects, it is essential to understand the origin and the context. It is equally important to know the direction in which the narrative is headed and what kind of sequence is being followed. While looking at architecture through this lens, it is essential, thereof, to dismantle a structure, understand the mechanism and then design a piece of work that defies the set of rules created, by finding gaps to create an element of shock, and curiosity and to create engagement by breaking monotony. The approach to design would be to study the selective factors of deconstruction that create Drama and apply those to aid achieve the desired effects.
The change in the face and urban fabric of the site will lead to an arrival of new systems, new technologies, integration of several theories and methods. The outcome of which, as suggested by the research will be focusing mainly on the experiential qualities for dramatic effects. The Architecture is sequential and builds a “preview” and a narrative. Museum will commonly adopt storytelling in it’s interpretive framework by use of audio-visual techniques to convey the meanings contained within artifacts.
Translate existing structures and elements into an impactful design language, fusing with the memories of the place to forge a compelling narrative of the endless possibilities.
Bhagyashree Amle
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