The Intersection of Art and Architecture: 5 Public Art Installations in Urban Spaces
These 5 urban spaces are examples of integrating pieces of the city with its inhabitants through small and large scale markers.
In a context of rapidly deteriorating public spaces, neighbourhoods and cities, urban art aims to hold the fabric of the city together through cultural, social and national threads.
1. Lodhi Art District, Delhi
Lodhi Colony was the last housing estate build by the British, which bears a rich history in Delhi’s timeline for its iconic architecture. Since 2015, 50 renowned street artists from across the world have been invited by St+Art India Foundation to create the Lodhi Art District making it India’s first art district now visited by the every day individual to foreign tourists and international dignitaries.
2. Veer Balak Smarak, Anjar, Gujarat
Designed by Design Factory India (DFI), ‘Veer Balak Memorial’ has been built in remembrance of 185 school children and 20 teachers who died during the 2001 earthquake at Anjar. The Smarak was built over an area of 3.15 acres and divided into cultural and social spaces including a museum and memorial amongst others. It invites the local residents of Anjar to commemorate the memory of the lost souls and the younger generation to prepare them for the future.
3. The Lightbox – restroom for women, Thane
‘Restroom’ is not just a polished word for toilet at Agasti, a social enterprise working in urban sanitation in Mumbai. Here a Restroom is a public toilet that is unique in terms of both form and function. Beyond the obvious toilet blocks, the Restrooms aim to provide women an exclusive social space, something that is a typical of urban landscape in India. “As architects and planners we look at cities as buildings and streets, but cities are about people and events. A history of a city is not the way it looks but what happens there, what happens there are the places where people meet. That is why public spaces in a city are important where people meet and interact. It is a place of mental interaction where new ideas are born.” – Rohan Chavan, Principal Architect
4. National War Memorial, Delhi
The memorial designed by WEBE Design Lab, Chennai is the newest addition to the historical Rajpath in Delhi. The design aligns with the axis established by the President’s residence and the India Gate. The design creates a 42-acre vast expanse of a landscaped public arena meant as much as a memorial as for pure public recreation. The simplicity in its design configuration and yet the distinctive quality achieved through the successful articulation of the design program creates a new expression of design that is restrained and yet robust.
5. Sprouts, Delhi
Designed to showcase India as a ‘World city’ for the commonwealth games in 2008, Indian based designer Vibhor Sogani‘s ‘Sprouts’ is symbolic of the feeling that the South Asian country is rising after 60 years of independence. They powerfully convey the message of growth, of the city and of its people, from a small community to a global community — sprouting from the ground.
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