Urban Temple |Undergraduate thesis
My thesis on an urban was an attempt at reimagining a Hindu temple in terms of space requirements and formal expression while retaining its essence and cultural significance. Apart from being religious centers, temples were also spaces for social, educational, and cultural gatherings. Temples highlighted the architectural and construction advancement, wealth, and grandeur of an empire. South Indian temples have exhibited vast diversity in ornamentation, form, geometry, iconography, and form depending on their context. Large temple complexes could employ a high number of people anywhere from priests to potters. Temples were also being used to treasure wealth and as fortifications after cities got attacked and raided. The temple would double as a fort with weapons and armament storage. Temples were a practical project.
The progression towards the main shrine is from light to darkness climbing through levels, passing through layers, and symbol drenched doorways. Space is centralized but also follows a hierarchy. we get an overview of how temple plans multiply from simple plans to plans with multi-directional porches and colonnades. We also see the evolution from a single shrine to a multiple shrine complex. Multiple temple plans usually display axial symmetry and shrines can be grouped together without being directly joined, which became popular from the eleventh century onwards. Another common feature of the Dravidian temple is the enclosure wall and the gateways. The Temple compound may get molded with the topography of the site or can even be a formal enclosure. This wall usually has multiple cells of smaller shrines. Gateways belong to concentric enclosures and progressively increase in height. Sacred temple tanks are informally related to the other spaces in the temple complex.
Designing a temple is more like trying out an inexhaustible number of forms and modules. The endless number of permutations and combinations one can apply in this particular typology of the building is extremely vast. One can learn the ways of designing, as the process followed can be varied from one design to another and each of these will give a different result. Through the design process, I have learned that the process of designing the temple will go on till the last detail irrespective of the approach one takes, be it form-based or experience-based. The amount of development and transformation which can take place in designing a temple can never get exhausted. Apart from the architectural forms, a temple is all about the perception of the user, it is a building typology that is strongly rooted in our culture, and reinventing the wheel might not be the right solution but, maintaining the thin line between innovation and tradition will benefit both the user and the maker. The endless potential in this topic paves way for future modules of temples that can mark the age we live in, a temple that reflects the lifestyle, technology, people, and architecture of the era we live in, a temple that sits on the perfect balance of culture and modernity.