The Armature Of Mythical House

- Suprio Bhattacharjee

Expanding its annual architecture exhibition series, ‘SEA Pavilions’ is an initiative by Mumbai’s School of Environment & Architecture to invite an architect to build an experimental structure on its campus every year. The need for this space of experimentation, particularly for the young, is seen in the proliferation of makers’ asylums and co-working spaces that lend themselves as think make hubs. It is here that SEA attempts to plug some of the gaps in the need for such spaces in the city.

Pavilions have historically been outbuildings, tents, summerhouses, sheds, ancillary buildings, semi open structures in the landscape or temporary buildings in trade expositions. From historical examples like Chinese pavilions to the open layout forms of Mughal architecture as seen at Fatehpur Sikri and the pleasure-palaces of Mandu; and from modern structures such as the Barcelona pavilion by Mies Van der Rohe to the recent Serpentine series in London by different architects, the ‘pavilion’ conceptually stands between a functional building and a folie. In that sense it is as useful as it is useless. The pavilion type allows architects to experiment with spatial ideas, freeing architecture from the exigencies and pressures of the market, patrons or utility. In this light, SEA Pavilions can be seen as a testing ground – a laboratory for architects and makers to experiment with prototypical ideas before they take final shape. SEA Pavilions is thus meant to be a live laboratory for space-making.