Picture © vir.mueller architects

golconde research

 Back to Projects list
Year
2003

Sited on the coastal edge of the Bay of Bengal, Golconde, a dormitory for the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India, was designed by architects Antonin Raymond and George Nakashima. Golconde is a remarkable architectural edifice, seemlessly negotiating between the tenets of early modernist architecture while addressing the pragmatic impositions of a tropical context. Espousing radical economy and uncompromising construction standards, it proposes environmental sensitivity as a foundation for the design process. Completed in 1942, Golconde was the first reinforced, cast-in-place concrete building in India and celebrates the modernist credo: architecture as the manifest union of aesthetics, technology, and social reform.

In 2010, vir.mueller architects published a monograph including previously unpublished photographs, construction drawings, and selections from archival letters and journals, of the building.

Other Projects by vir.mueller architects

library in wellesley
Wellesley, USA
asian games village residence I
New Delhi, India
asian games village residence II
New Delhi, India
vasant vihar residence
New Delhi, India
winchester residence
Winchester, USA