46
Courtesy Maki and Associates
Courtesy Opolisred flags were raised such that project resolution
was made in quick time.
KM: What were the key design ideas that shaped
this building?
RG: A detailed programme from Lord Cultural
Resources, the museum Master Planners, was the
basis for designing this competition proposal. The
key ideas that shaped the building design were:
a) A concept of designing a spread-out campus
as a collection of buildings against the monu-
mental and iconic nature of building
programme.
b) The creation of coherent diverse urban realm
as a response to the chaotic nature of an
Indian city.
c) The creation of experiential architecture that
involves moving through spaces both inside
and outside through seven courtyards, each
of different scale, having different landscape,
materiality and functional use.
d) The exterior building mass is used to facilitate
buffering of the large interior courtyard from
the noisy streets.
e) The use of Corten steel as a material for the
external façade for its symbolic reference to
India’s prolific excellence in ancient metallur-
gy along with current and future role in inter-
national steel industry. The material transforms
over time, contrasting well with landscape
greenery –a keen component of the project.
KM: Were there any compulsions and constraints
that influenced or affected the design?
RG: The time-period of construction was extreme-
ly tight and hence it required the entire project
foot print to be started simultaneously. In response
to this constrain the building was designed to be
a ground structure, with only the main gallerieshaving one additional floor and administration
building having four floors.
The water table of the site is extremely high (the
Ganga river is a kilometre away), which resulted
in the elimination of a basement and its
waterproofing. In fact, the plinth levels were
determined by the HFL and stressed the impor-
tance of the government building being accessible
in the worst of natural disaster.
KM: What was the working process like, once
you were awarded the project to the completion
of the building?
RG: The constant transfer of data between our
individual offices and site office was the lifeline
of the project. This included the production of
several categories of documents and shop
drawings by the contractors followed by their
approval — after several rejections — at our end.
During the construction period, Maki’s team
conducted a site visit every month, where they
spent at least a week in Patna. In addition to this,
they made frequent trips with the agenda of
finalizing the materials and to visit specialised
vendors across India, especially for Corten steel,
windows, doors and terracotta packages.
We had to meticulously guide the contractor
through various phases including the procurement
of finishing material to achieve high standards
of quality work.
KM: How do you think this building will sit
in the landscape of architecture design in
India today?
RG: The project has been recognised as one
of the most significant post-Independence gov-
ernment buildings and hopefully will set a
benchmark forthe future.
In this media- and image-dominated world, thebuilding attempts to stress upon the quality of
the experiential architecture rather than that
of an iconic or image-oriented building.
It is an architecture that grows over time for the
visitors and aims to be a building block of the city
rather that a monument in the city.
It is amongst a few successfully built competition
projects built in India and hopefully paves the
path for bringing in a healthy procurement
process within the government / private realms
of architecture.
KM: What do you think is most significant in
this project, its design for a country like India?
RG: The creation of a contemporary history
museum to world operational standards is a
significant stepping stone for the future projects
in this country.