Pandal
Creating a piece of temporary architecture with the use of Bamboo, cloth, rope ,nails and plywood is a highly skilled craft form existing in India- centred in West Bengal.
Remarkable likeness of buildings and historical monuments are created using this unique skill.
This is a highly labour centric form that has been taken to amazing heights with the additional use of plywood, Paint , Paper mache , thermocol etc.
A basic skeleton is made of Bamboo or wood over which metres of cloth is stretched to creates walls and ceilings.
The craftmanship operates at three levels.
• the façade,which usually repliacates a monument or existing building
• the interior which is covered in pleated contrasting cloth
• the exterior decorations using Shola pith sculpture, terra cotta , beadwork, metalwork and a whole range of hand crafted forms.
The pandal is built to serve as a temporary shrine to house a religious idol for community worship or to serve as a temporary auditorium for social activities such as weddings, feasts, musical soirees etc.
THE PROJECT
It maybe approached in two ways.
• To replicate the building method in a workshop environment, open to public view by traditional craftsmen
OR .
• To build a knockdown version of a traditional Pandal locally in Kolkata and rebuilt onsite by a local crew with the help of a reduced number traditional Pandal builders.
Remarkable likeness of buildings and historical monuments are created using this unique skill.
This is a highly labour centric form that has been taken to amazing heights with the additional use of plywood, Paint , Paper mache , thermocol etc.
A basic skeleton is made of Bamboo or wood over which metres of cloth is stretched to creates walls and ceilings.
The craftmanship operates at three levels.
• the façade,which usually repliacates a monument or existing building
• the interior which is covered in pleated contrasting cloth
• the exterior decorations using Shola pith sculpture, terra cotta , beadwork, metalwork and a whole range of hand crafted forms.
The pandal is built to serve as a temporary shrine to house a religious idol for community worship or to serve as a temporary auditorium for social activities such as weddings, feasts, musical soirees etc.
THE PROJECT
It maybe approached in two ways.
• To replicate the building method in a workshop environment, open to public view by traditional craftsmen
OR .
• To build a knockdown version of a traditional Pandal locally in Kolkata and rebuilt onsite by a local crew with the help of a reduced number traditional Pandal builders.