Culture

A dynamic experimental theatre and multifunctional space opens at the Kanoria Centre for Arts

The Urmila Kailash Black Box, designed by Khushnu Panthaki Hoof and Sönke Hoof of Studio Sangath, is the latest addition to the Ahmedabad's Kanoria Centre for Arts, and embodies the same sense of versatility and exchange as the centre—in architecture, as well as purpose.
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The entrance to the Urmila Kailash Black Box at the Kanoria Centre for the Arts. The Black Box serves as a bridge connecting the decades of buildings that have evolved on the Kanoria Centre campus since 1984. These include the artist studios designed during its inception in 1984, office spaces designed in the early 2000s, followed by galleries from 2010 onwards, which Khushnu Panthaki Hoof worked on along with BV Doshi, as well as a small shop that was added to the campus in 2016 by Khushnu and Sönke Hoof.

In a chance meeting on a flight to New Delhi in the early 1980s, Urmila Kanoria and BV Doshi got talking. The daughter of pioneering industrialist Gujarmal Modi, Kanoria had recently moved to Ahmedabad from Calcutta, and though she admits she didn’t know many people in her new city at the time, she carried a vision for it—its scope to host a centre for the arts. Recalling the power of the many museums, galleries and arts institutions on their varied travels, Doshi and Kanoria were in total alignment. Back in Ahmedabad they convinced the city’s education society of their vision, obtained land on the same campus as CEPT, and opened the Kanoria Centre for Arts in 1984, with a foundation stone laid by artist MF Husain—not too far from where his radical collaboration with Doshi, Amdavad ni Gufa, would open in the following decade. In the minutes of a meeting of board members and some invited guests from September 1983—which included artists and thinkers such as Bhupen Khakhar, Piraji Sagara and Jyotindra Jain—the consensus was on artistic freedom and interdisciplinarity, and the promise of a versatile centre of exchange, where practitioners could interact and learn from each other. Four decades later, the latest addition to the centre, the Urmila Kailash Black Box, designed by Khushnu Panthaki Hoof and Sönke Hoof of Studio Sangath, embodies the same sense of versatility and exchange—in architecture, as well as purpose.

Urmila Kanoria, seen here, came up with the idea of the black box as a space for diverse performances and activities across disciplines.

“The red flowing fabric seen in the photograph represents the dialogue between built and unbuilt spaces as well as connecting the buildings on campus, embodying the fluid relationship between structures and time on the campus,” says Khushnu.

Ishita Sitwala

My mind is always in search of new ideas,” says Urmila Kanoria, who is now in her 80s. In a note on the Kanoria Centre for Arts for AD’s seminal BV Doshi issue (July-August 2018), her daughter and chairperson of the JSW Foundation Sangita Jindal wrote of this pioneering spirit: “The more I think about it, the more I realize how easy it would have been for somebody like her to be like other housewives in the community—interested only in family matters—back in those days. She chose, instead, to pursue her interest in art and create a support structure for the then burgeoning art scene.” In Calcutta, the city that she had married into, Kanoria had been president of the Women’s Interlink Foundation and worked with Child Welfare and Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. It was around this time that interactions and visits to the Sangeet Kala Kendra and Santiniketan prompted her to think in terms of creating a free space for artistic expression, education and exchange. Nearly 40 years later, she is just as invested in her vision for the Kanoria Centre, and it only continues to widen. “A friend told me about the black box concept and I was immediately intrigued. I thought it could be a space for so much diverse activity from being a gallery space to music events and more,” she says. “I talked about it to BV Doshi and he said that his granddaughter Khushnu would help me with this novel concept.”

The amphitheatre connects the Black Box and the adjacent office spaces, and provides an intimate outdoor setting for classrooms and discussions. “This versatile space is frequently utilized by students and faculty from architecture colleges, encouraging interactions,” says Khushnu.

Drawing from the existing lines of the building, Studio Sangath reinterpreted the familiar forms and materials of the surrounding structures in the architecture of the Urmila Kailash Black Box. The modulation of light within was a primary design consideration. The Black Box thus features a sloping roof through which diffused light can enter from below.

For Khushnu Panthaki Hoof, the Kanoria Centre for Arts is the second home of her summer holidays, which were always spent at her grandparents’ place in Ahmedabad. It is where her summer days played out, attending workshops with her sister Jessica, exploring and experimenting freely, sometimes with hands dipped in clay or other materials and imaginations running wild, other times accompanying their aunt Maneesha, whose artistic practice was then based out of Kanoria. “In the evenings, my grandfather would call us to Sangath, and then, on our way home, he would make us walk the long stretch from Sangath to Kanoria, then to CEPT, and finally home. Many times, we would stop at Kanoria, where he would chat with artists, and we’d stand beside him, feeling a bit awkward yet captivated,” she recalls. “Even now, when I visit, there’s a strange sense of comfort, as many of the staff members are still the same.”

It was clear to Khushnu, as well as her collaborator and husband, Sönke Hoof, that any addition to Kanoria had to arise organically. The new structure would have a continuous relationship with the existing environment. A sense of openness, adaptability and collaborativeness, characteristic of Doshi’s architecture for the Kanoria Centre, thus echoes through the Urmila Kailash Black Box. Even as the 1,656-square-foot experimental theatre and multifunctional space is enclosed on all sides, Khushnu and Sönke’s emphasis was on creating an adaptable environment, one that could be opened up as needed, and one that would allow for the play of light. Strategically placed windows, therefore, when opened, enable the modulation of light, and a sloping roof acts as a “pardi”, a solid concrete wall that invites diffused light to enter from below, enhancing the interior ambiance, Khushnu explains.

The design features solid windows that can be opened to let in natural light, to enhance and alter the atmosphere inside.

“In all the buildings at the Kanoria Centre, no façade is considered secondary,” she points out while explaining the significance of treating every part with equal importance while designing any public structure—as opposed to designating a “back”. “This breathes new life into the potential for future extensions,” she adds. Windows facilitate connections to the staircase and artist studios, the main entrance connects to the children’s classrooms, a green room creates a backdrop to a courtyard that was once underutilized but now is a vibrant hub for activity and gatherings—every design decision creates more connections.

Inside the newly opened Urmila Kailash Black Box. Even as the black box needed to be enclosed on all sides, Studio Sangath wanted to ensure the space is in dialogue with the surrounding landscape, as well as that it allows for the modulation of light.

Among the most definitive messages in the minutes from the 1983 seminar is one from BV Doshi. “The participation and the awareness of the society with this institute is an important one. Along with the courses that are going on, the institution will have special seminars and lecture series for…[the] public to create awareness of the same so that finally it would have some impact directly in the society and to the artists.” The Kanoria Centre has always followed this closely.

And now the Urmila Kailash Black Box continues in the same vein. “It’s a space full of possibilities. I’ve seen people come with a clear idea of what they want to do, only to be inspired by the space itself and leave with an entirely new concept,” says Gargi Yadav, honorary director at the centre. “I guess you can call the Black Box a ‘magic box’, a space that unexpectedly inspires creativity and new thinking!”