tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54797600493302116262012-01-13T05:37:52.097-08:00Exploring Goa's varied architecture from mudhouses and mannerism to modernism!Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.comBlogger331100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-77665757240843830302011-04-23T06:07:00.000-07:002011-04-23T07:15:10.934-07:00

A chapel on the roadside at Saligao. Hundreds of chapels dot the country side in Goa, attached to the village parish churches. This one sports familiar Rococo curves at its apex, common among the churches and chapels of Bardez, dominated by the Franciscans in the heydays of Portuguese rule. The porch seems to have been a later addition. The road must have been much narrower when this chapel was

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-25765654579141692992009-06-13T07:43:00.000-07:002009-06-25T01:46:38.883-07:00

.... ..St. Augustine's Tower at Old Goa. The ruins of Nossa Senhora da Graça, the church of Our Lady of Grace. I visited the ruins with Dr. José Pereira, Professor Emeritus of Theology at Fordham University in New York, and a passionate fresco artist. His work adorns the sacristy vault of the St.Joaquim Chapel at Borda, Margao and the main vault of Our Lady of Rosary Chapel at Fatorda, Margao.It

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-33985526365791315662008-12-03T02:09:00.001-08:002009-01-05T20:19:42.103-08:00

.Aren't there times when you wish I would just quit giving my sermaos on architecture yo ho hum...? Enjoy these images of the Cross at Curtorim in Salcete,South Goa. A picture is worth a thousand words they say, a sequence of pictures tells its own story.... Last photo from David Doyle

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-44352940694895619552008-12-03T02:06:00.001-08:002009-06-21T09:20:33.862-07:00

....Ibrahim Adil Shah, the ruler of Bijapur built 27 mosques in the Ponda taluka around the year 1560. The Safa Shahouri Masjid situated at Ponda is the biggest and most well known of them. A masonry colonnade once adorned the outer periphery of the mosque's platform, surmounted by finials. Of those tall sentinels, today only stubs of varying height remain. .Adjacent to the mosque is an

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-9680223680536761442008-11-20T04:34:00.000-08:002009-06-21T07:23:13.371-07:00

..Back after many months. Let's browse some of my favourite buildings of the time just before Liberation in 1961, when the Art Deco style of architecture raged in Europe and made its echoes felt here in our tiny but style-conscious Goa.The Mandovi hotel, one of the oldest Art Deco period buildings in Goa. I like the 'lightning flashes' of the railing metalwork. The corner is rounded and so are

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-78818032311748361472008-06-16T22:22:00.001-07:002008-12-13T02:04:27.029-08:00

. Assolna village in Salcete, South Goa is famed for its magnificent monument to Christ de King or 'Cristo Rei'. Many church compounds in Goa have a Cristo Rei statue alongwith a grotto of Our Lady. But the one in Assolna is large and awesome in its detail. Marble statues of the four apostles of the Bible: John, Luke, Mark and Mathew stand at four corners. Cherubs, coats of arms, a central Holy

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-23035766002549410192008-06-09T07:52:00.000-07:002009-06-25T05:45:45.239-07:00

-.We have seen the Towers of Light or Deep Stambhas of the Mahalsa Temple at Ponda in an earlier post . Let's take a look at the glorious towers of the other prominent temples in Goa. Here is the six-storied deepstambh at the Shantadurga temple at Kavlem. Arched openings in an octagonal plan with capitals, cornices and moulding give it a classical Neo-Roman look...The Ramnath temple (below) has a

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-46762328744353680042008-06-02T23:01:00.000-07:002008-12-13T02:04:34.296-08:00

. Let's take a random stroll around some locations in Goa. Here is a lecture hall block of two classrooms at Goa Engineering College. This is where we took our first classes as first year students, FE for short. In between lectures in June and July, the seniors would take over the class for their initiation exercises, ragging for short! FE bastards!!!....they would yell at us..The block design is

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-1607016078688251572008-05-30T23:47:00.000-07:002011-09-09T07:09:59.274-07:00

. The newly completed Ravindra Bhavan stands near the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Fatorda,Margao. This complex for the performing arts will provide Margaoites and Shasttikars the cultural space required for large events, a need barely fulfilled by the Gomant Vidya Niketan auditorium presently. But does Margao's equivalent of Panjim's Kala Academy reflect an ethos in its architecture as well as

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-65721453354422639382008-02-15T06:20:00.000-08:002008-12-13T02:04:41.212-08:00

.The Fontainhas and Mala area is often called the 'Latin Quarter' of Panjim. I went strolling through Fontainhas, Mala, Rua de Ourem and Altinho. The architecture of these old houses, some of them nicely restored, is pleasant on the eye. This area is a Mecca for tourists in Goa who wish to saunter back in time. Fontainhas is the heritage quarter of the capital city of Panaji, lying along the

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-5776227864866802242008-02-02T04:25:00.000-08:002008-12-13T02:04:42.454-08:00

.Some of the Municipal buildings in Goa show the passage of time and architectural style. The old Municipal building of Margao located near the Old Market looks like a typical old Portuguese mansion. It had shops on the ground floor and a large hall on the first floor. I don't think the young lady waiting for a bus knows that blood was once shed at this place on September 21, 1890 when Portuguese

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-31330275081719430512008-01-26T01:43:00.000-08:002008-12-13T02:04:46.007-08:00

.This is the entrance of the Palazzo del Lorenzo in Rome. Fluted columns with Corinthianized columns rise to support a Greek style trabeate roof with a dome at the centre.Oops! It's actually the TB Cunha Memorial at the Azad Maidan in Panjim, the capital city of Goa. It was built by the Portuguese and originally housed the statue of their great adventurer, Afonso de Albuquerque. Today it holds

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-76011556471010121632008-01-21T06:01:00.000-08:002008-12-13T02:04:48.001-08:00

The three cinema theatres of Margao were built in the sixties and bear influences of the Art Deco period. Cine Vishant on the Aquem road has a flamboyant asymmetrical form where abstract curves and linear elements coexist quite happily. A pity the building is not well maintained. Some restoration work needs to be done keeping its bold Moderne spirit in mind. Vishant was a regular haunt of our

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-24443532478354552332008-01-09T00:04:00.000-08:002008-12-13T02:04:51.241-08:00

The 'crib tableaux' created all over Goa during Christmas season offer interesting insights into the imagination of their young creators. These village boys and girls build models of a broad range of architecture ranging from rustic timber huts, houses on stilts and mud houses to multistoried mansions, 'Herod's Palaces' and medieval castles. Architectural features like turrets, gables, spires,

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-79429310762250204722007-12-30T06:30:00.000-08:002009-06-25T05:57:00.967-07:00

Long long ago, in the mystical land of Mardol, there stood a tower tall and stately. It towered alone over the Mahalsa temple in Ponda taluka..But it woke up one day and found that the temple devotees had erected another gleaming tower next to it. Twenty two levels of oil lamps rose into the air, with this glorious metal pillar resting on a brass turtle's back.The solitary glory gone, the tower

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-45088353771331972142007-12-29T23:00:00.000-08:002008-12-13T02:04:54.411-08:00

.What kind of homes are people building in Goa today? Here's a colony of villas at Sinquetim, Navelim in Salcete. An imposing front with double height columns crowned by a broken pediment. Traces of Neo-Roman memory from the Portuguese era persist. A variant of Ionic capitals decorates the columns and there's even a symbolic keystone over the arched window. I liked the sequence of these houses in

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-59295652620371301142007-12-23T05:17:00.000-08:002008-12-13T02:04:54.793-08:00

.Goa has been moulded by a myriad influences over the last thousand years. Yet, in modern times we have been blessed with a tradition of living together harmoniously - Hindus, Christians, Muslims and all other faiths. The Shantadurga Temple at Kavlem, Se Cathedral at Old Goa and Safa Masjid at Ponda stand tall in testimony to this universal faith in humanity. .Here's wishing all my fellow Goans

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-7874046779737330962007-12-20T05:22:00.000-08:002009-06-18T11:08:37.359-07:00

.St.Peter, Prince of Apostles - SAN PEDRO, TiswadiVery old church erected about 1543, as one of the eight parish churches of the Old City of Goa, besides the Cathedral parish. Today it is the only survivor. It was built at the cost of the public treasury by workmen from Portugal.These early buildings, before around 1590, were built in a relatively unsophisticated, late Portuguese Renaissance

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-7834569194630994142007-12-14T00:40:00.000-08:002011-09-08T01:49:19.700-07:00

.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

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-1891708866124050402007-12-08T07:38:00.000-08:002009-06-18T11:11:41.895-07:00

. ....Let's take a stroll down three roads in Margao. Padre Miranda road is a busy two-way road stretching from the Margao Municipal Garden right down to Holy Spirit Church. The newly renovated Ana Fonte garden, Hospicio Hospital, Hotel Nanutel (next to the once famous Cine Metropole), Clergy Home and the Margao cemetery line up along this route..The houses were grand with a small garden and an

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-68244367917044827462007-11-27T19:51:00.000-08:002008-12-13T02:05:04.384-08:00

"The Palace of Maquinezes or Palacio dos Maquinezes was built in 1702 and originally belonged to two brothers, Diago da Costa de Ataide e Tieve (a squadron leader) and Cristovam da Costa de Ataide e Tieve, known by the name of Maquinezes. In 1842, the Portuguese used the nearly 150-year old Palace to house a medical institution -- Goa Medical College which was later occupied by the Dept of Food

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-39038484352726994432007-11-23T07:33:00.000-08:002008-12-13T02:05:05.400-08:00

The Seventies were a time when fins were highly fashionable and they bristled all over the place. Intended to protect the building from heat and rain as well as for light distribution, these vertical concrete fins combined with horizontal chajjas to produce interesting effects... .The Education Department building on 18th June Road in Panjim is three sided. This 'Trigon' has sheer flat corners

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-45537906995019030902007-11-21T06:10:00.000-08:002008-12-13T02:05:05.754-08:00

.You could walk through these portals and still be standing outside!The first church of Sancoale, which lies in Mormugao taluka today, was founded in 1606 and dedicated to Our Lady of Health. It caught fire in 1834. Its frontispiece still stands on the banks of the Zuari river. The erstwhile Portuguese government had declared it a national monument on 19.3.1937.Very intricate facade with

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-51900305984551892532007-11-20T08:25:00.000-08:002008-12-13T02:05:07.171-08:00

An all time favourite on travel brochures, the St.Augustine Tower at Old Goa is a spectacular sight. The electrical lines in this photo look like skewed lines of perspective. The boards put up by the ASI (Archaeological Survey of India) tell its story.CONVENT"Friars of Augustinian Order arrived in Goa in 1572 and built a small convent on Holy Hill and later it was enlarged. The Convent building

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-80025889329696918562007-11-17T22:59:00.000-08:002008-12-13T02:05:07.794-08:00

From steel and glass towers, let's jump back a few centuries to the rammed earth houses of Goa. Built by ramming moist earth within simple wooden formwork, these mudhouses are still standing in every taluka of the state.This old sentinel is perched on the left side of the Margao-Varca road at Benaulim. Door and window openings were framed by laterite masonry. The window of this house has a

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-66887976780075368012007-11-16T02:33:00.000-08:002008-12-13T02:05:08.946-08:00

Let's take a stroll down to Patto Plaza in Panjim, the capital city of Goa. Projected as Goa's Nariman Point, Patto Plaza has been slow in shaping up and some of the buildings out there seem quite dismal. But the new generation of slick towers with their glazed and panelled exteriors do give the place a bold look. .The Dempo Tower looks strikingly like an oceangoing luxury liner. Its long flat

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-39155974764649761472007-11-06T06:08:00.000-08:002009-06-23T10:40:05.518-07:00

. The 2nd of November was All Souls Day. On the previous day which is All Saints Day, in Goa every cemetery is filled with people decorating the graves and niches of their loved ones. People haul in flowers, candles and bags of lime to give the usually desolate place a colourful look. The candles glow through the night.The cemetery in my village Velim is an elegant Art Deco structure! The church,

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-49578237291564782492007-10-31T06:33:00.000-07:002009-06-23T10:02:42.471-07:00

........................ .........One of the uniquely Goan innovations in church architecture was an optical illusion.............. The churches shown in the photos here seem to have a large dome crowning the apex. The churches are Santo Aleixo (St.Alex) at Calangute, Santo Estevão (St.Stephen) at Juem and N.Sra da Imaculada Conçeicão at Moira. .............In this type of a cupoliform façade,

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-24695391618687349032007-10-30T08:08:00.001-07:002009-06-22T20:45:26.741-07:00

.........From modernity let's take a giant somersault back many thousand years!Goa has many sites of Stone Age rock art, notably at Pansaimol, Kajur and Mauxi. The photo above is of a geometric design of concentric circles at the Pansaimol rock art site near Rivona in South Goa. There are over a hundred carvings in the lateritic rock bed there, which were buried under almost a metre of silt. They

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-72878791431497387862007-10-29T07:38:00.000-07:002009-06-22T20:39:31.065-07:00

............Another post on the architecture of Margao! Though the last few posts have been Moddgonv-centric, they also show the varied genres we have in our towns. The three schools in the photos, Fatima Convent, Presentation Convent and Loyola High School were built in the early/mid 20th century. This was a time when the Art Deco style was ushering in the Modern era. The Fatima Convent façade

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-40402329874085622332007-10-26T06:47:00.000-07:002009-06-22T20:26:38.304-07:00

19 arches span the long side of the Margao Municipal Council building. Sporting a striking red colour, probably since it was built, this edifice stands at the southern end of the Margao Municipal Garden. The garden was formerly known as Praça Jorge Barreto after the distinguished Mayor of that time. The MMC building houses the Margao Municipality and the Municipal Library. Until a few years ago

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-76916436111342548902007-10-24T08:56:00.000-07:002009-06-22T20:13:48.453-07:00

.....................................From a simple mudhouse to a Neo-Roman masterpiece. The imposing Holy Spirit Church (Espirito Santo) at Margao in South Goa features as one of the Baroque Quintet of Goan Churches in Dr.Jose Pereira's book Churches of Goa (Oxford University Press, 2002).....Church architecture in Goa has seen many Neo-Roman phases: the Manueline style (Portuguese Gothic), the

Jose Lourencohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16734035394938669454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479760049330211626.post-18291480199816399872007-10-23T09:23:00.000-07:002009-06-23T20:26:38.557-07:00

.. ..................Goa is a little state on the west coast of India. It is popular as a tourist destination for its sandy beaches and whitewashed churches and colourful temples. In this blog we will journey through the nooks and corners of this 3702 sqkm state and discover its varied architecture. I am a civil engineer based in Goa and I never cease to be fascinated by the charm of my own land,

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