Did you know that Mylapore has houses that are among the finest brick-and-mortar expositions of neo-classical architecture, and houses built with wrought-iron balustrades and those constructed in the art-deco style with a distinct geometry?
On August 25, Madras Inherited, an initiative spearheaded by a group of architects and volunteers that seeks to unravel hidden architectural gems through heritage walks, led a group of 35 people to rediscover Mylapore, one of Chennai’s key historic enclaves.
Starting at the entrance of Kapaleeshwarar temple, the group explored Nadu Street, Kutcheri Street, East Mada Street and South Mada Street and other important landmarks.
In Tamil, the word nadu means centre The traditional settlements of Mylapore were centred around the temple and the houses were arranged in a linear manner, wall-to-wall with the temple on one end or with the temple in the centre with the streets forming a ring around it, as in the case of the Kapaleeshwarar Temple.
The columns, the pitched roof in the balcony with wooden decorative eaves over the verandah, the pediment in the roof of the verandah are some of the characteristics of neo-classical architecture. The movement reinterprets the original classical styles of Greek and Rome and gained prominence in the late 1800s and early 1900s. There are houses whose design point to influences of neo-classical architecture. Most of the houses based on neo-classical architecture have been constructed with Madras terrace roof, which after the industrialisation period and the invention of steel was replaced with other forms of roofing.
After the 1830s, the architecture of Mylapore started changing and slowly evolved to accommodate the art-deco style.
Art deco, a popular international design movement that flourished between the 1920s and 1940s was adopted in cities such as Bombay and Madras almost immediately.
While Chennai may not have had a uniform art deco skyline the way Mumbai does, it has significant pockets in Mylapore, Royapettah and Nungambakkam that are clearly art-deco.
The symbolism in art deco style architecture is characterised by the repetitive use of lines/ geometric forms/ bold curves/ curved balconies/ decorative cement plaster on the facades and the usage of sun-burst jallis. This was a style that denotes the coming of the modern world and the celebration of industrialisation and uses materials such as concrete, stained glass and cement plaster. The houses set in the art-deco mould can be seen predominantly in Mylapore.
Further, the walk helped participants understand the history behind the P.S. School, Lady Sivaswami School and Rasikha Ranjani Sabha. It also gave a contextual understanding of the history of East Mada Street and South Mada Street and the important personalities who stayed on these streets which included the Dewan of Travancore and the Dewan of Indore. The South Mada Street is also home to important landmarks such as the Mylapore Permanent Fund.
(Tahaer Zoyab is the chief architect and founder of Madras Inherited.)