Museum of Knowledge

An international competition called for an idea level design for a site reserved for  ‘Museum of Knowledge’ right in the centre of Corbusier’s Capitol Complex in Chandigarh. The idea adopted was that of a non-building subdued in the presence of Corbusier’s legacy. And so the museum is proposed below a landscaped roof garden that softens the experience of traversing from a building to another, in the harsh sun and the expansively paved plaza that offers no refuge. A subterranean path to access the museum arrives at a point under a large pond of glass with natural light refracting through the water – symbolic of seeking knowledge from depths of earth to the endless sky. The path branches off at various points in the axes of the capitol buildings and the resulting in-between spaces form the museum galleries, a library, theatre, laboratories and other public facilities. The path continues further as a gesture to ‘seek’ the hills in the backdrop of the capitol complex.