Translating the Modern: A Walk Around Santiniketan, Part II

In a spirit of experimental revivalism, within the Uttarayan complex Santiniketan’s architect and design team turned to the enduring prototype of the Buddhist chaitya hall, akin to those at Ajanta and Bagh. This exploration culminated in Shyamali (The dark one, 1935), a name derived from its construction from locally sourced mud, with the earlier Chaitya (Chaiti) serving as its direct pilot project. Its frontal façade and structural plan faithfully echo the chaitya form, characterized by a solid mass with few openings. The surface is animated by numerous relief sculptural panels by Ramkinkar Baij and Nandalal Bose.

Tagore, anticipating his own death due to constant ill health, conceived this house to be his final resting place. The poet wrote to Amiya Chakravarti:

’I have lived in different houses of the ashram at different times – I could never settle in [one place]. The construction of the mud house has begun. I hope this will be my last dwelling place on this earth. The next one will be in the world hereafter. I desire to make this mud house incomparably beautiful. The arrogance of bricks and stones must be challenged.’

In residencies like Shyamali and Kalo Bari, the modern pursuit of an indigenous identity finds profound purpose. It does not merely imitate a historical form but re-interprets it through local materials and contemporary artistic practice. This is the very essence of what scholar R. Sivakumar termed Santiniketan’s ‘contextual modernism’—where modernity becomes a unique stylistic grammar grounded in the immediate environmental context and resonates with centuries-old global and local traditions.

Tagore’s ‘architectural postscript’, Punascha (1936), is a small house distinguished by its southern, roofless, yet enclosed semi-circular patio. The wall of the core room extends outward, its roof sloping down to form a low veranda parapet that defines a unique, open-air room—a room without a roof.

The final house that was created within the Uttarayan complex was Udichi (The Ascendant, 1938) whose first floor can only be accessed by a staircase with lattice railings that dramatically enhances the ‘act of going up’ by the exterior of the house. The windows are designed after foliated Mughal arches, and Jalis adorn the railings. Sanyal draws a compelling parallel between Udichi and Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye, noting their shared principle of elevation on pilotis (Udichi was originally built on four short columns). This conceptual resonance is historically grounded in Tagore's 1930 visit to Paris, as suggested by Saptarshi Sanyal, where he exhibited his paintings while Corbusier's modernist icon was under construction, suggesting a plausible conduit for this avant-garde architectural idea.

Santiniketan’s new UNESCO status brings a distinct risk that architectural historian Saptarshi Sanyal calls the erosion of its 'multi-scalar spatial imagination'—the poet’s nurturing 'nest' hardening into a fixed 'property.' Visva-Bharati’s university designation in 1951 had already set this shift in motion. A similar tension shapes the terracotta temples of greater Birbhum. Dilapidated, repainted, or sustained through community care, these temples risk being severed from the vibrant bazaars and livelihoods that form their living environment once formal heritage accreditation arrives. An attentive, inclusive reading of these sites is now essential—only such engagement can protect their ideological and cultural integrity from a model of preservation that freezes rather than renews, turning heritage into a monument rather than a living tradition.