Lightness Of Being

Two projects – one, a rehabilitation of a place of significant historical importance and the other a city house – both in the dense urban milieu of Pune, explore the use of mass and light; light not only through illumination, but also through the inversion of visual weight by inventive spatial and tectonic moves.

- Suprio Bhattacharjee

The Handmade Paper Institute was established in Pune prior to independence as an effort to encourage the development of indigenous technologies and manufacturing. Located in the dense Shivajinagar area just off Fergusson College and the Agriculture College, the institutional character of the building’s programme is befitting of the nature of the city itself – a city known as a University town and a place of learning. Within this milieu, the Handmade Paper Institute both manufactures (thus it is a ‘paper mill’) and educates (courses are offered – thus it is also a ‘college’). This particular project looks at the rehabilitation of the historic paper factory building, a place of significant national importance (the Indian Constitution was written on paper from this factory), that still contains the task of enthralling visitors who are offered a guided tour of the paper manufacturing process; now with the need for significant internal remodeling, as well as the complete restructuring of the building’s interface with the city and its people through the re-envisioning of the fairly generous open spaces surrounding the building as a freely accessible public space and cultural incubator. The existing quadrangular courtyard block becomes part exhibition area and shop, part administrative offices, and retains its functions elsewhere as part warehouse and part factory (the manufacturing aspect has since expanded northward through a set of accretionary volumes that were not within the scope of the rehabilitation project). The exterior landscape is redefined through a set of brick walls that form an open gallery for public use and exhibition – free of charge – while another area becomes a large brick-paved plaza shaded by huge old trees, and to be activated in the future with a cafe and other art pavilions – as well as becoming a space of changing character and activities – a free place for cult