T Nagar House Designed by Benny Kuriakose - CASE DA ABITARE
October 31, 2004 at 6:30:00 PM
This residence of Mr. P. Chengalvaraya Chettiar, the owner of Kumaran Silks, which was designed by Benny Kuriakose and Associates, was featured in the Italian magazine, Casa Da Abitare. It is located in the heart of Chennai, in T Nagar. A very humid, warm, and colourful house where the sacred coexists with the profane and the human with the divine. The article in Italian in the quarterly furniture magazine talks about Benny Kuriakose’s projects from a different perspective that sees the contradictions in design and lifestyle in a Madras household. Captured by Toni Meneguzzo, the photographs depict the duality that exists in Tamil Nadu and South India in general: Doric columns and Vedic deities, Indian architecture and European tiles, and so on.
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The unbearable climate of Madras is the land that gave birth to various industries, including silk, tourism, commerce, and spirituality. Indian architecture is described as a fusion of multiple cultures, like the various spices that coexist in a hot curry. The article gives an outsider a picture of what the ancient yet modern city seems like—the beaches and the streets. The old city is beautifully portrayed through metaphors that perfectly describe the town on which the house is built. The athangudi tiles, free-standing Chettinad pillars, and the eye-catching painting of Superman on the ceilings are sights that are worth seeing and capturing for an international magazine like Casa Da Abitare.