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Article: Architecture of Goa : Seeking Vision and Identity -- the Current Scene
Text by Sarto Almeida and Jaimini Mehta
Abstract:
Interestingly, this concept of , Goanness is still being evolved; we will
'know' what constitutes Goan architecture only when we see it expressed in
temporal forms. A survey of architecture in the forty years since independence
shows various strands of this search for expression; this essay, however, will
examine not just the present architectural trends but also trends that began to
reveal themselves in the last years of Portuguese rule.
Keywords:
Evolving Architecture,
Goa,
Overview,
view all keywords
+ Coverage: Goa, India
© the Author.
in @ Az|Core: Category Research Abstracts and Texts (primary)
'With Goa, independence from centuries of Portuguese rule, and the
subsequent political integration with India, have led to a curious dilemma:
While Goa seeks to be part of the larger Indian polity, culturally our society
has become more conscious of its Goan identity, and wants to preserve and
express it. Like music and literature, architecture has sought to express this
"Indian yet Goan" character.
Interestingly, this concept of , Goanness is still being evolved; we will
'know' what constitutes Goan architecture only when we see it expressed in
temporal forms. A survey of architecture in the forty years since independence
shows various strands of this search for expression; this essay, however, will
examine not just the present architectural trends but also trends that began to
reveal themselves in the last years of Portuguese rule.
In the past, Goa's identity was defined by its beautiful natural environment
together with the prevalent Indo-Portuguese and vernacular styles of
architecture. Since architecture mirrors local material culture, and there had
been little change in that culture for centuries, Goan architecture remained
relatively static until the 1960s.
However, a few stray examples of a far different architectural style did crop
up. The earliest, the Mandovi Hotel at Panaji, was built to cater to the influx
of visitors expected to attend the Exposition of St. Francis Xavier in 1952.
There being no architects in Goa then, the hotel brought them in from
Bombay/the designed the Mandovi, our first multistoried building, in the Art
Deco style then prevalent in that city. The Art Deco style may thus have been a
necessary steppingstone to a more robust modernity.
A truly modem building, the original airport terminal at Dabolim, came up in
the mid-1950s when Benard Geddes was Goa's Governor. The word "modem" is used
here to mean something more particular than "contemporary"; it means the new
type of architecture that is contributing to the art of architecture. The
designs were prepared in Portugal, as the project was under the Overseas
Ministry. Making extensive use of large glass areas, wooden partitions, and
hollow block external walls, it was one of the finest small airport buildings
in the world. Unfortunately it is now off-limits to the public as it has been
taken over by the Naval Air Wing.
Simple plans, functional design ...
The last few years of Portuguese rule, under Gen. Vassalo e Silva, saw quite
a lot of construction undertaken by the government. The Governor, an engineer
by profession, indeed several bright architects from Portugal and Goa into the
Brigada; their simple and functional designs made use of the latest structural
methods and materials. Examples of this were the one­room village school,
the Junta godowns at Cortalim ferry, the military barracks at Ponda, and the
military chapel at Rawanfond, Margao.
The prototype school, rectangular with a small verandah, used hollow-block
walls, operable glass louvers, and a reinforced cement concrete roof; a mural
of glazed blue decorative tiles flanked the entrance. The simple chapel plan
featured a steeply sloping reinforced cement concrete roof slab over
hollow-block walls with pre-cast grilles for light and ventilation.
In the same period a plan for Old Goa included landscaping the area between
the Se Cathedral and the Born Jesus church and installing a statue of the poet
Luis de Camoes. Stating that the facade of Born Jesus was meant to be in
exposed laterite, the engineers and architects had the existing plaster
stripped off. Now we know that the plastering . helped protect the walls from
weather and also conformed to the rule that churches had to be painted all
white.
Building spurt followed Liberation lull
With Liberation, an initial lull was followed by a spurt in building very
undistinguished Bombay-style storied apartment blocks, a way of living hitherto
alien to Goa. The architects were either from Bombay or had been trained there.
At that time even the very poor in Goa had a house to live in; it might have
consisted of just mud walls and a coconut thatched roof, but it was still a
house. Middle-class families had good homes in salubrious environments in the
villages. But with good schools, cinemas, and other recreational facilities
coming up in towns, and the public transportation system very poor, people
opted to move into the towns.
Thus, apartment blocks proliferated. This brought in a breed of developers
who, to maximize their profits, built cramped flats with rooms like cubby
holes, which unfortunately were quickly snapped up; and so it continues till
today. Still, two notable exceptions can be listed. The first group-housing
scheme of its kind in Goa, at the Patto Bridge in Panaji, consisted of
individual two-storied houses in a well-planned layout. . Another exception,
the Cosme Matias Menezes building at Margao, had well-planned spacious flats on
each floor and the company's retail outlet at ground level.
With storied blocks coming up, sloping mangalore-tiled roofs gave way to flat
reinforced cement concrete slab-terraced roofs. This trend carried over to
individual bungalows as well. Though apartment blocks in general were very
undistinguished, there was much innovation in other building types.
In the 1960s, the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary at Siridao was the first
to break away from the prevailing Indo-Portuguese style. It followed a simple
cruciform plan; the equally simple external elevations expressed the volumes
within. The church with its attached bell tower sits surrounded by fields and a
waterway.
Photogenically right, but not right for Goa
During this same period, three buildings strongly influenced by Le Corbusier
came up: the Minor Seminary at Pilar, the Goa Chamber of Commerce and
Industries at Panaji, and the Carmelite Monastery Church at Margao. The first
two, with their elevational treatment and structures for recreational
activities on the roof, were photogenically very appropriate for architectural
magazines, but actually not suited for Goa. The exposed concrete walls
accumulated heat and became badly disfigured after the rains due to fungus
formation.
Graphically designed fenestration enhanced the Carmelite church's very
sculptural quality. This building was planned according to the new liturgy
being introduced in the Catholic Church; the fan-shaped seating focused on the
altar, which had brilliant light flooding it from windows set high in the bell
tower.
The Don Bosco Church at Panaji, built in the 1970s, also had fan-shaped
seating; roof beams converging over the altar reinforced the focusing effect.
Later, when the church at Bambolim was built in the 1990s, the lightness of the
wonderfully airy space within it was emphasized by the Mangalore-tiled roofing
over a light steel structure. Because of its proximity to the national highway,
a high blank wall serves as the roadside facade against which the altar sits.
From this, its highest point, the roof slopes down gently on all sides.
Stylized temple columns, rooted in history
No comparable breakaway from the traditional has taken place in Hindu temple
architecture. Existing temples have often been subjected to inappropriate and
tawdry additions and alterations; and even new temples are being built without
seeking to find a way whereby temple architecture would speak to our new and
very different age.
For a notable exception we must turn to the Shree Salisthan Gokarn Partagali
Jeevotham Math in South Goa. Here, the contemporary stYlized forms of the
columns in verandahs and courtyards have been derived from the post-Chalukyan
period, while the roof's pyramidal shapes speak of local temple architecture.
With tourism flourishing, hotels have proliferated, especially along the
coast. Ironically, this sector did not innovate and explore elementS rooted in
the cultural milieu; instead, seeking to attract rich Western tourists, the
luxury hotels indulged in ostentatious decor bordering on the ridiculous when
they depicted a distant period in history or even another exotic country.
Gulf expatriates brought new wealth into Goa, resulting in increased demand
for planned housing developments. Unfortunately, tasteless and overly
decorative bungalows took center stage, vying to outdo each other.
By the 1970s, the modem International Style had come to be identified with
the functional but characterless 'box', devoid of all cultural references;
fortunately, it never found a niche in Goa.
Hotel all clustered Village, art academy as open ...street
The search for an appropriate architectural response will thus have to be
looked for elsewhere, and the answer could be in the popular Hotel Cidade de
Goa in Dona Paula, a serious attempt to reinterpret Goa's vernacular
architectural language, by overlaying it with Portuguese urbanism. The
plan-form is a simple parallel wall structure placed perpendicular to the
contours; subtle variations in the projections of the facades create an
impression of a clustered Mediterranean village.
Another example, built around the same time, is the Kala Academy, a large
cultural institution on the banks of the Mandovi at Panaji. The Kala-project
undertook significant innovations in spatial organization. A modernist
plan-form of post and beam construction on an orthogonal grid offered the
architect the necessary variation in dimensions demanded by a programme that
makes use of several performance halls, exhibition galleries, informal public
gathering places, etc.
The relatively low rise mass is spread horizontally and organized around an
innovative ground plan with an open 'street' going through the entire building.
This allows one to enter the building without being self-conscious about
entering; it makes an otherwise serious public institution seem less
"institutional" and more relaxed and appropriate
Both these projects are significant as they created an identity of
contemporary Goa and did not merely express a commonly held idea of what Goa is
all about. In a contemporary context, they reinterpreted elements the
clustered village and the public
street---that have only an indirect association with Goa, derived mainly from
the Portuguese past. However, they speak of a large and remembered part of Goa
and to that extent are credible and successful attempts at defining and
expressing our identity.
These lessons were lost with the advent of the Post-Modernist style.
Exuberant columns, pediments, entablatures and the like were pasted on to
facades giving rise to an architecture that would be more appropriate in
Disneyland. Fortunately this trend seems to be petering out and the task of
identity formation goes on. .
It can be seen particularly in three projects: the-hotels Nilaya at Arpora,
the Pousada Tauma at Calangute, and the Coconut Creek at Bogmalo. Together they
represent a conscious attempt at organizing this type of building in a new way
by splitting it into smaller pavilions spread around the site, interspersed
with lush Goan landscape and water. One sees the whole only as so many
fragmentary images that are still in harmony with nature; landscape becomes a
very important partner in place-making. The boundaries between what is nature
and what is man-made are blurred, as is the case in rural Goa.
The "Houses of Goa" Museum, located on a small triangular traffic island
within private property, is a highly personal statement by its architect, and
houses a private collection of elements of Goan residential architecture. The
building flares out from its small base creating a projecting ship-like prow
where two bulging sidewalls meet, so locals have nicknamed it the "Titanic".
The flaring-out provides additional exhibition space on each successive upper
floor. These areas are further augmented by floors projecting out of the
building, supported by metal pipe brackets.
The museum's bold character transcends the limitations of its small size. It
seeks no justification on the basis of functionalism, or the application of a
new technology. Rather, it presents itself as a possible icon of Goa, with a
"take it or leave it" attitude; it presents a bold and confident Goa.
---------------------------------
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