India plans its own colossus

Mike Nizza in The Lede on the Maharashtra government’s grand plan to build a huge statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji (1674-1680) at an estimated cost of $4.5 million. When complete, it will be taller than the Statue of Liberty.

When a proposal emerged to build an immense statue on an island off the coast of one of India’s largest cities, there was no point in denying a nod to New York: “It is true that the Statue of Liberty was perhaps an inspiration a little bit,” one official told Reuters.

While the technical specifications differ just a little — the new statue is to be clad in bronze, not copper, and to rise about 4 feet higher — there are big differences in theme and posture.

Lady Liberty welcomes the tired, poor and huddled masses, but the new statue off Mumbai will feature Chhatrapati Shivaji, a 17th-century warrior king who has lately been embraced by nativist parties who oppose immigration. And where Liberty stands on her own feet, Shivaji will be depicted riding a horse, the International Business Times reports.

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The world’s costliest home? Mukesh Ambani’s Mumbai skyscraper

Mukesh Ambani’s 27-storey, $2 billion, vaastu-compliant skyscraper, Antilla in downtown Mumbai, when completed, will be the world’s costliest residence. Matt Woolsey has the story in Forbes.

While visiting New York in 2005, Nita Ambani was in the spa at the Mandarin Oriental New York, overlooking Central Park. The contemporary Asian interiors struck her just so, and prompted her to inquire about the designer.

Nita Ambani was no ordinary tourist. She is married to Mukesh Ambani, head of Mumbai-based petrochemical giant Reliance Industries, and the fifth richest man in the world. ( Lakshmi Mittal, ranked fourth, is an Indian citizen, but a resident of the U.K.)

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Take a tour of the world’s costliest home in pictures here.

Beyond Bawa: Modern masterpieces of Monsoon Asia

In Spectator, Christopher Ondaatje reviews David Robson’s book on Sri Lankan born architect Geoffrey Bawa (with photographs by Richard Powers, Thames & Hudson, 224pp, £39.95)

Although there have been many architectural books featuring the works of Geoffrey Bawa, the Sri Lankan born architect, most notably a first monograph authored by David Robson a year before Bawa died in 2003, a second book, Beyond Bawa, also by Robson, is a biographical and artistic revelation. What is surprising and different about this new edition is that it reveals an extraordinary biographical account of the talented younger son of a wealthy Moslem lawyer and his Dutch burgher wife; and also illustrates the legacy of perhaps one of the most influential architects in south Asia in the 20th century, by discussing how his inspiration has continued in a number of younger architects who worked with Bawa in his practice and who have continued his creative force today known globally as ‘tropical modernism’. Examples of his genius can be found in Sri Lanka, Singapore and Bali, as well as in resorts and residences throughout Asia.

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Oops, we did it again

Another wardrobe malfuntion at the ongoing Wills Lifestyle Fashion Week in Delhi. This time it’s Belgian model Debbie during a showing of designer Rajesh Pratap’s Fall-Winter collection.

Meanwhile, AFP has a report on the Asian influence on the show:

Models clad in kimono-inspired dresses and sarong skirts influenced by the Orient strut down the ramp at India’s premier fashion event in New Delhi.

It’s all about making a break from the West, says one of the maestros of Indian fashion at the country’s biggest style show, which began on Wednesday here in the national capital.

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The state of Indian design

India’s advertising industry is soaring, and a graphic design community is emerging. The country’s most exciting creative talents talk about what the future might hold. Eliza Williams in BusinessWeek:

(A poster from Ogilvy India’s ongoing campaign for Fevicol glue.)

For a designer or advertising creative, India is a pretty exciting place to be right now. Rapid commercial growth has prompted an unprecedented client demand for design and advertising skills, while those creating the work find themselves in the exhilarating position of being able to shape and redefine India’s new identity, both within the country and internationally. All this change has occurred rapidly, however, at a pace that is perhaps too fast for an industry, in graphic design at least, that is still finding its feet. Design is still often misunderstood as a profession, and with a dearth of decent design schools in the country, graduates are finding that they often receive their real education on the job, a position that stretches already overloaded designers even thinner. The bounteous amount of work has also led the lines between advertising and design to blur, with ad agencies, which are far more established and recognised within the country, tackling aspects of assignments more traditionally found within the design domain. And, of course, overseas networks and companies are also edging in, keen to pick up a slice of the action.

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Body politic

Sri Lankan Kali Arulpragasam uses her dramatic jewellery to make political as well as personal statements.

Images from her studio Super Fertile website:

Story in TIME:

Once upon a time in the East

In Mint Lounge, Sumana Mukherjee visits the the creative hub of Virgin Comics in Bangalore to see how young Indian designers are redefining superheroes:

In the eighth year of the new millennium, in a tall and forbidding white tower on Haudin Road, Jeevan J. Kang bends over his artwork with the diligence of an ascetic. In a corner niche of the great hall, with nothing before him but a blank white wall, Ram takes shape in 2B pencil, piercing eyes and muscled forearms, speed and strength seemingly evident in every gesture.

“That’s the thing: You imagine the studio like a Mario Miranda cartoon, with people and speech bubbles. But artists work in isolation,” Kang says. The star illustrator of Virgin Comics’ Bangalore studio has torn himself away from the gestating issue of Ramayan 3392 AD for a freewheeling chat on heroes and hero worship.

Spinning out of the heads of artists such as Kang is the defining look of the day’s superheroes: Devi, Snakewoman, Gamekeeper. Virgin Comics-the brainchild of spiritual guru Deepak Chopra, film director Shekhar Kapur and maverick billionaire Richard Branson-has taken the lead in introducing the stuff of Indian legends-as opposed to Chinese, Japanese and Korean myths-to an international audience, with high production values and cutting-edge artwork.

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Only in China

Bangalore will have a new international airport in March. Delhi will have one in time for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Till then, take a look at Beijing Airport’s Terminal 3, designed by British Architect Lord Foster. The new terminal, said to be a modern representation of both the Chinese dragon and the Forbidden City, is 2.9 km (1.8 miles) from end to end and took just four years to build. It’s bigger than all Heathrow’s five terminals put together.

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Does Chandigarh deserve World Heritage status?

Jonathan Glancey in The Guardian.

Le Corbusier had long dreamed of building an ideal city. In the early 1920s, this most inventive and controversial of all 20th-century architects even suggested demolishing half of Paris to build a city of modern towers, set in an urban parkland.

As fate, and Indian independence, would have it, the Swiss-French genius eventually got his chance - on the blisteringly hot plains of the Punjab. Today, the city he built there - Chandigarh, 250km north of Delhi - is one of the world’s most distinctive and beguiling places. It is a city set around a vast artificial lake, composed of abstract 1950s civic buildings and public monuments that look like Picasso paintings made concrete. Based on a super-rational, Modern movement grid, it is European in spirit, yet owes nothing to the Raj. It has parks, bird-life, flowers and sweet-smelling roses in abundance. Chandigarh is as intriguing as it is unlikely: a Corbusian dream realised far, far from Paris.

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