ARCHED COLONNADES AND HAND-CHISELLED STONE SLABS: MATHEW & GHOSH RESTORE A HERITAGE SCHOOL IN BENGALURU.

For more than 20 years now, Bengaluru-based architects Soumitro Ghosh and Nisha Mathew have been working on restoring the heritage structures owned by the RBANM’s Trust. Their first project for the Trust was the restoration of a 1890s orphanage building in the city’s Ulsoor area, converting it into the quietly charming lifestyle store, Cinnamon. The duo’s work led to a lasting association between them and the Trust. In 2022, as part of their ongoing long-term plan to help restore the heritage structures in the area, they started work on four classrooms on the RBANM’s High School campus. “They had severe leakage problems and were in urgent need of conservation and restoration,” Ghosh points out.

- DIVYA MISHRA

Because modern Bengaluru had never been an independent kingdom or an important trade centre under British rule, the city does not have much by way of heritage architecture. “The only buildings from the colonial era were facilities for the resident British forces—homes, churches, parks and a few institutions,” Ghosh says. In the late 1800s, the RBANM’s Trust began setting up technical and social institutions and schools near Ulsoor Lake. The Trust’s buildings had been designed as per the colonial and urban vernacular of that time—arched colonnades sheltering raised verandas; large, hand-chiselled stone slabs for flooring; and Madras terrace roofs held up with wooden beams. "Steel beams were not easily available back then," Ghosh says.