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Hope for a classic?
I'M DELIGHTED to read that no less a person than Vice-Chancellor Pon. Kothandaraman has stated that the restoration of that classical bit of Indo-Saracenic architecture, Senate House, will begin shortly. I'm particularly happy because it was this Vice-Chancellor who disappointed me no end by, no sooner he assumed office, washing his hands off the Senate House restoration plans that had dragged on during the 1990s, and dissolved the expert committee set up to draw up plans for restoration in a fundamentally correct conservationist manner. Now that he's got himself interested in the true home of the University again, I hope that he'll ensure the work is completed before his term is over; too often in the past, vice chancellors have got some activity connected with the restoration going, only to find their term of office over before any real progress was made, and then their successors would begin to look at things differently.
One of the issues of difference that had slowed progress in the past was over who had the capability to do such work and another was whether Public Works Department norms could be strictly followed when it came to rates. I note that Vice-Chancellor Kothandaraman has now got the Public Works Department's Building Research Station involved in the restoration.
I hope they have done sufficient research in how brick and mortar buildings of the past were constructed, in Madras mirror finish, in discovering what exists under layers of paint, in traditional wood-and store-work, in special textiles for `false ceilings', in stained glass, and in the acoustics necessary for a multipurpose hall. Conventional PWD rates do not take any of these into consideration, so it is to be hoped rates are looked at in consultation with an experienced conservation organisation like the Archaeological Survey of India. Conventional PWD research does not also look at such `out-of-date' aspects of construction. Which is why it has long been suggested that the PWD, under whose purview come over two-thirds of the buildings likely to be on any Heritage List prepared today, set up a special Heritage Building Cell and staff it with engineers given special training in heritage conservation.
No matter how these issues are sorted out, there should be a commitment from all concerned to restore Senate House in a classical manner — and that is certainly not in the way the University has painted the exteriors of its Centenary building. The earlier committee had gone to the extent of ordering from the original manufacturers, the Commonwealth Trust that had succeeded the Basel Mission in Farokh near Kozhikode, bricks identical to those originally used in the building in order to serve as replacements where required. The bricks have been lying exposed next to Senate House for months (or is it years now?) while vice chancellors came and went. The ordering is the kind of commitment that is needed from the University and the PWD when they start work on Senate House; the storing is not.
Another commitment should be maintaining Robert Chisholm's 1874-79 classic in a manner fit for one of the major landmarks of Madras. Restoration needs only money, knowhow and skill; maintenance needs sustained commitment as well. And that, in a restored building, would be found only if the building is put to best use.
Such as the Vice-Chancellor once again sitting his office in that splendour, holding University Senate meetings in it, and giving it out for prestigious conferences, concerts, etc. How many other such halls are there in the city with a 1,600-seat capacity and such splendid acoustics?
Donald Insall, a major international figure in the conservation movement, on seeing Senate House in the 1980s, described it as "a work of sheer genius". And he was referring to the skilfully integrated 1884 and 1889 additions too. Surely such a building deserves model restoration.
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