Feature
The Ideal Home and Garden August 2019 | 81
Dating back to early 1900’s, the land belonged
to contractor T C W Skipp, which was sold
to the now owner K R Kanakarathna few
years after Skipp’s death. This 30,000 sq ft of
heritage property was a popular venue for
entertainment and cultural shows and then
became a cinema hall by current owners. The
property’s popularity as a cinema hall came
to an end in late 1980’s and in 2016 Samsung
signed a lease with the property owners to give
a new avatar by calling and introducing it as
Samsung Opera House by 2018.
“Firstly we wanted to give back to the city a
centre for art, culture and entertainment that
the heritage property was originally known
for. We also zeroed down Opera House
for opening our first experiential store in
India because Bengaluru is a hot bed of tech
innovation. The city has the fastest growth for
tech start ups in the world,” says Mohandeep
Singh, Senior Vice President – Sales & Retail
Marketing, Samsung Mobiles. With an aim to
revive this historic building, and bring back
its glory for the people, the brand decided to
restore and renovate the property without
changing the architecture essence it has. The
structural changes were done using the natural
materials like natural stones and granite, etc.
The beautiful roof of the Opera House was
originally built in terracotta tile and therefore
the brand procured it from a Manglore based
company. However the major challenge was
to introduce air-conditioning ducts which
was later sorted by keeping them under the
balconies so that the air can be distributed to
both ground and first floor. Apart from the
interiors, the exterior of the property highly
maintained and the evenings are always
buzzing with people and music!