Kala Academy - A Cultural Street

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Stroll down the Campal road and you cannot miss the Kala Academy, Goa's premier center for the performing arts. Designed by Charles Correa, one of India's best known architects, it was built over 1973-83.

Sarto Almeida and Jaimini Mehta describe the spirit that imbues this landmark of Panjim. ."...Kala Academy, a large cultural institution on the banks of the Mandovi at Panaji. The Kala-project undertook significant innovations in spatial organization. A modernist plan-form of post and beam construction on an orthogonal grid offered the architect the necessary variation in dimensions demanded by a programme that makes use of several performance halls, exhibition galleries, informal public gathering places, etc."

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I like the interplay, almost a jugalbandi, of the cleanly organised parallel lines of the roof and the organic chaos of the tree branches.

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Illusion and reality merge in the spaces of the Kala Academy. Murals on the high walls turn visitors into actors, 'performing' as they walk from art gallery to canteen. It is perhaps a tribute to 'tiatro' a highly popular and successful form of Konkani theatre. The realistic perspective of the street murals resemble the elaborate backdrops of a typical tiatro.

Are the windows, doors and stairs real or illusions? Some are real, some are not. But then as the ancients and the makers of Matrix would have us believe, yeh saab maya hai! All is illusory.
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" The relatively low rise mass is spread horizontally and organized around an innovative ground plan with an open 'street' going through the entire building. This allows one to enter the building without being self-conscious about entering; it makes an otherwise serious public institution seem less "institutional" and more relaxed and appropriate."

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The long 'streets' of Kala Academy have truly achieved their aim of informal gathering. On a busy evening people will be striding down, chatting with friends seated on the low sit-arounds and whiling away time enjoyably waiting for the concert or play to begin.

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The transition from the outside to the inner streets is gracefully achieved by the high ceiling at the entrance. The laterite pebble-dash surface unifies the various blocks of this large institution with a rustic simplicity.

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The large wall expanses evoke the great walls of the forts of Goa, built in laterite that weathers beautifully.

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A Ganesh idol made of coconut shells put up for the recently held film festival.

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A lounge for artistes and dignitaries, an exhibition hall and the wing entrance to the auditorium. The Kala Academy houses an administrative block, a black box for smaller events, an amphitheatre seating about 2500, an art gallery, an exhibition hall and the Dinanath Mangueshkar AC auditorium which seats around 900 people.

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Bougainvillae hold court between a performance square and the open-air canteen. The Reis Magos Church and Fort stand on the opposite bank of the Mandovi river.

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The jetty built for the International Film Festival extravaganza. Not being used much now, except by occasional furtive lovers gazing into the blue skies and lusting for those gorgeous yachts.

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"Both these projects (the other being Cidade de Goa also designed by Correa) are significant as they created an identity of contemporary Goa and did not merely express a commonly held idea of what Goa is all about. In a contemporary context, they reinterpreted elements — the clustered village and the public street---that have only an indirect association with Goa, derived mainly from the Portuguese past. However, they speak of a large and remembered part of Goa and to that extent are credible and successful attempts at defining and expressing our identity."

In an essay titled "The Blessings of the Sky", Correa discusses the history of Indian architecture and its relationship to the surrounding environment; he holds that environment, be it natural or man-made, influences new architectural design and develops this idea in his own work.

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Though a Western-educated architect, who earned degrees in architecture from both the University of Michigan and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Charles Correa practised modernism in his native land, a non-western environment. The sand dunes, laterite forts and bustling yet laidback streets of a Goa that is dear to him are all there at the Kala Academy. So is our love of art and the joy of a good song & dance!

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For queries pertaining to Kala Academy, please contact:

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Kala Academy Goa, Campal, Panaji, Goa

Phone 0832 2420451/52/53/54 , Fax 0832 2420457

email: kalaacademygoa@yahoo.co.in