Arguing intelligently at Bangalore International Centre's new building

Last October, about 20,000 people walked into a luxury hotel to attend talks and music performances during the Bangalore Literature Festival. “To conduct a public event we had to go to a private venue,” rues V Ravichandar, one of the organisers of the lit fest and an urban expert.

But with the Bangalore International Centre, a space meant for the public, finding a permanent address in Domlur, Bengalureans now have a place for events that can’t be hosted in horticulture hubs such as Cubbon Park or Lal Bagh.

A non-profit public institution formed to promote open dialogue and the arts in 2005, the Bangalore International Centre would previously rent a 90-seater auditorium primed for talks. Now in its new home it can cater to a lot more than talks in an area of 48,000 sq ft.

The three-storey building stands seamlessly integrated with its residential neighbourhood, encompassing in its open-floor plan a 180-seater auditorium, seminar rooms, a library, an art gallery, meeting rooms and a restaurant. Founded in 2005, the institution has on its board eminent Bengalureans, among them playwright Girish Karnad. Among its donors are Rohini & Nandan Nilekani Philanthropies, Wipro, and T V Mohandas and Kusumlata Pai. Ravichandar is the honorary director here.

Last November, Sanjay Seth of the Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment Council, a sustainability-rating initiative, had announced that India has less than two per cent green buildings. The Bangalore International Centre, built on principles of sustainability, including a rain-water harvesting unit, will soon receive its green rating certificate.

The design emerged from a competition that the Bangalore International Centre ran in 2012. After 60-odd entries from across the country and 25 from overseas, the one that made it through several rounds of close examination from the institution’s committee members belongs to city-based Hundred Hands. Even as the façade stretches upwards, stopping just short of being overly imposing, the interconnected interiors emerge as capable hosts for gatherings both intimate and public. “Places such as these that have generous open spaces have the power to make one feel part of a larger community,” says Bijoy Ramachandran of the Hundred Hands design studio.

Up until this new building came about, says city-based writer and historian Ramachandra Guha, the city had long been in need of a place for conversations. “Perhaps the major challenges the Centre will face will be how to attract younger audiences and sustaining quality programming over time,” he says. In a few weekends from now, Guha will speak at the institution to mark the hundred years since M K Gandhi emerged as the most important leader of the freedom struggle, eclipsing other leaders, some of whom were older and more popular than him up until then. 

Urban affairs writer and activist Jane Jacobs once wrote, “Dull, inert cities contain the seeds of their own destruction. But lively, diverse cities contain the seeds of their own regeneration.” According to the Bangalore Development Authority’s master plan for 2031, open spaces in Bengaluru have shrunk to a mere 4 per cent. Bengaluru, a palimpsest of different cultures, had about 25 per cent of open space, according to plans drawn up for 1995. “That’s how drastically open spaces are shrinking in urban cities,” rues Ravichandar.

This is where the Bangalore International Centre steps in, as a seed of regeneration. It does so while celebrating neutrality and inclusivity, a tough call given India’s current social and political climate. For instance, when the institution hosted the launch of journalist Rana Ayyub’s contentious Gujarat Files, Ayyub was in conversation with Tejasvi Surya, lawyer and youth leader for the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Karnataka chapter. “What we are doing with this institution is an answer to the polarised world,” says Ravichandar. “This is a place for informed conversations, arts and culture, a place for civilised discourse and contrarian views.”

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