Wandering / Sanctuary: Perceiving Learning Spaces Through A Tamil Sangam Lens

Abstract

The role that architecture could play in shaping our world and hence our lives is undermined - and the role that it already plays in ingraining values promoted in a society is skimmed-over. For the complexity of any given society is a culmination of various societal, political and cultural values fueling it. Architecture then, becomes a by-product of these said values - thereby playing considerably the most consistent role in influencing the masses. A niche of this framework that this work focuses on is education and school architecture. To understand how school architecture could influence students’ education, it becomes essential that a good understanding of the educational values of a society is required. This is done by taking a critical look at the current educational values of our society.

The Sangam literature is a body of Tamil literature belonging to the Sangam Age (circa. 300 BCE - 300 CE) - a period of history in the southern part of India and parts of Sri Lanka. This body of work is a compilation of poems that deal with various aspects of life - philosophy, governance, ethics and many love poems that give vivid descriptions of the lives of these poets and their surroundings. Through analytical research of existing publications and some original works, the people of the Sangam Age are traced through these poetry to have had an epistemological approach to life, and their knowledge being deeply rooted to their context - where nature herself was considered The Greatest Teacher. These poems and the philosophy they embody are adopted as spiritual and cultural mentors and guides to get an understanding of how education and its context coalesce to form a school.

To embody the values of the Sangam texts, the city of Vellore in Tamil Nadu, India is chosen as the context to synthesise this hypothesis. The Vellore fort has in its unmaintained peripheries beyond its moat, pockets of memories from my childhood, and plots of land that are now dilapidated parks. Looking through an architectural lens, such a culturally significant “plot” deserves regulation and a typology of architecture that would propel the place’s heritage - while potentially enriching the culture of the city and its people.

This Master of Architecture thesis proposes an institutional complex in Periyar Poonga (one of the dilapitated parks inside the Vellore Fort complex), while trying to answer this question: How can the spatiality of a pedagogy contribute to culturally enriching it?