Up close and personal, with Malleswaram

Malleswaram Parichaya, an exhibition of documentation of Malleswaram, will be held on Saturday

This weekend, you can get up close and personal with one of Bengaluru’s best known localities. The BMS College of Architecture (BMSCA) is holding “Malleswaram Parichaya,” an exhibition of documentation of Malleswaram, on Saturday from 10 am to 6 pm at HVN Heritage Bungalow.

“The plan is to spread awareness to the public and spark belongingness towards preserving the town’s culture and heritage. Also, we will be restoring the HVN Heritage bungalow, transforming it into a museum for Malleswaram,” said Yashaswini Sharma, faculty at BMS college.

Students from BMS college, as part of their architectural design studio, are studying and documenting the neighbourhood of Malleswaram. They started studying the area in terms of administration, layout, history, heritage buildings, morphology, democracy and development. They also studied the residents, the vendors and aspirations of the people. “We want this exhibition to be helpful for the students and for the public to better understand their neighbourhood,” said Ms. Sharma.

Based on the urban study and documentation of Malleswaram, students of BMSCA have come up with several urban interventions addressing infrastructure issues plaguing the neighbourhood on a macro scale, and designs that reimagine unused spaces on a micro-scale. Besides this, they have also looked into the treatment of the surroundings of Sankey lake, rethinking the markets, and arrived at trails through the neighbourhood based on history, heritage, food culture, etc. They have found solutions to closing the gaps in the town’s layout for better mobility and liveable condition, and are presently working on architectural interventions.

Explaining about the area, Ms. Sharma said the name “Malleswaram” is inspired by the original name of the area, ‘Mallapura,’ as inscribed in the inscription abutting the famous Kadu Mallikarjuna Temple. Taking this as reference, students have arrived at a heritage trail. “The planning of the layout was conceived as a solution by the Mysore Kingdom to decongest the Pete. The layout was finalised in 1895 after several deliberations before the breakout of the plague. The first documented history of Malleswaram is found in the inscription of Venkoji dated to 1669 CE. Venkoji, who ruled over Bengaluru at the time, was the stepbrother of Shivaji, and the son of Shaji, the Jaghirdar of Bengaluru. Venkoji makes an endowment of a nearby village, Medaraninganahalli, as manya to the deity in this inscription. This village which was earlier host to bamboo workers i.e., Medaras, is now part of the IISc land parcel,” she explained.

The speciality of Malleswaram’s architecture is the Later Vijayanagara temple architecture and a fusion of Colonial Gothic and Mysurean architectural elements seen in older bungalows. Tudor arches used in the Bangalore Palace seem to have inspired buildings like the H V Nanjundayya heritage bungalow. Besides this, one can observe rose windows and Victorian Baroque filigree in the mouldings. Materials of foreign origin like clay and patterned tiles, Victorian etched glass is also noticed in such buildings indicating material exchanges between England and other countries, and the Kingdom of Mysore, she added.

“Malleswaram has a strong socio-connect that runs through the residents of the town. Their sense of ownership, culture and belonging to the land has preserved the town’s heritage,” said Ms. Sharma.