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Before you zip, a zany look
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Hyderabad will no longer be just the city of Charminar, but also of an eccentric elevated cobweb of pillars and concrete structures. SERISH NANISETTI discovers at a photo exhibition
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Now, 2008 Hyderabad’s Town Hall in 1913, now State Assembly, built by the money collected by Seth Dewan Bahadur Ramgopal
“Kya pasand hai hamara fly-over nagar,” says one bloke to another sitting in the shade under one of them as the Metro project weaves a web of elevated structures that will transform the way Hyderabad appears.
“Parsoanch jhadan thein? Ab kahan gayen?” wonders another auto driver as he zips under an elevated metro line.
Comments, visuals, images, thoughts, optimism, pessimism all come together in a zany way as architects give their inputs to two photographers who click their way through the city and a graphics team adds its concepts to visualise how the city and is likely to be transformed once the Metro rolls out and spreads its wings in the city.
Visualised near the Parade Ground is the intersection of line 3 and line 2 of the Metro with the point raised about the visual chaos and also the fact that line 3 is going to run parallel to the Parade Grounds where several National functions are celebrated.
It is a witty way of looking at things before they begin to exist. But the smile is erased as soon as you see the image of Assembly building in its alabaster grandness and beside it is another image of the building being blotted out by a green glass structure.
Later, 2012 Where has the Legislative Assembly disappeared one year before its centenary?
It is not just the disturbance of visual aesthetic that is raised as an issue, even security and threat to heritage structures (trains will be running every three minutes) is raised as a point by the series of photographs
“The boards and signs about Metro are already there on the medians, but not much thought has gone into how the city will appear once the project takes concrete shape,” says B. Shankar Narayan of the Indian Institute of Architects who contributed to the Metro Impact project.
“We are concerned about the impact in physical, aesthetic and structural way. Security is an important concern. In Delhi when the Metro was conceptualised, they put it underground near Rajghat so as not to disturb the aesthetic view and also factored in the security concerns. The Assembly building is a heritage structure we should not allow its beauty to be marred by concrete pillars and glass structures,” says Shankar Narayan. “Or take the case of Begum Bazar, the equivalent of say Chandni Chowk, it is a pedestrian area all of which will go in road widening and some of the facades of the houses will disappear for the Metro,” he says. Interestingly, Begum Bazar dates back to the time of Qutb Shahis where one of the Begums had a right on collection of tax on ganja and arrack, and hence the name.
The collection of photographs and graphics throw up an interesting question not just about how the city is likely to appear but how the identity of the city will be changed. Are we ready to sacrifice the way the city appears and its 400-year heritage for the animal comforts of faster commute and better life? The exhibition is on show till April 27 at Goethe-Zentrum near the Assembly.
Project Metro
71-km twin track elevated rail system in three lines.
Rs. 9696-crore project to begin in August and ready by 2012.
AC coaches, automatic doors, lifts and escalators to enter elevated stations.
Stations to be connected to Bus Rapid Transport System.
Metro Impact
Security concerns near Assembly and near Parade Grounds.
Aesthetic eyesore near heritage structures like Public Gardens, Begum Bazar and Mozamjahi Market.
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