Civic-dwara

contemporary investigation of the Sikh Gurudwara

undergraduate thesis 2019 | thesis advisor: prof. amrita madan; thesis co-ordinator: prof. himanshu sanghani
published by Kooz/Arch, RIBA future architects, the artemist, studio alternativi; university distinction in undergraduate thesis (sushant school of art and architecture)

Synopsis

In treating the Gurudwara– a place of worship for the Sikhs– as a civic space, the project civic-dwara seeks to expand the typologies and topologies of gurudwaras and civic spaces in urban environments by allowing their phenomenological and programmatic structures to be imagined, built and rebuilt over time, in order to be perceived both as the content of their architecture and the architecture itself. The thesis is thus a contemporary investigation of the Sikh gurudwara, the gurudwara as a civic space.
The architectural intervention reimagines the Gurudwara complex of Rakab Ganj Sahib, next to the Parliament House of India, building phenomenological ideas of threshold, congregation and interface using ephemeral programmatic elements of architecture: the hearth, the base, the roof and the enclosure, hence allowing for more interventions and interpretations, allowing for multiplicity — for the people, one that is religious yet secular, lasting yet ephemeral, experiential yet functional.