A photobook documenting the spatial landscape of Narayanapura, a settlement in Karnataka, India. It combines analytical drawings, field sketches, and observational photography to capture both the tangible geometry and intangible atmosphere of the village. The work prioritizes people as the foreground and architecture as the evolving background, exploring vernacular resilience and how spaces hold…
This photobook is an architectural record and experiential reflection on the spatial landscape of the settlement of Narayanapura, Karnataka. It began as an academic exercise in measured documentation and became an immersion into the site's rhythm, prioritizing the people as the foreground and architecture as the evolving background.
The volume combines analytical drawings, direct field sketches, and observational photography to capture both the tangible geometry and intangible atmosphere of Narayanapura. It documents vernacular resilience, showing how spaces hold memory, community, and continuous adaptation.
The text describes Melukote, a town perched on the rocky hills of Mandya, centered around the Cheluvanarayana Swamy Temple. The temple's sun-bleached gopurams and carved granite pillars dictate the daily rhythm of the town, from morning bells to twilight lamps reflecting off the sacred Kalyani tank.
Generational weavers, temple priests, artisans, and villagers share a sacred rhythm dictated by the temple's festivals and daily rituals. The temple serves as the gathering place, memory keeper, and witness to a town bound together by heritage and devotion.
The document also explores the porous boundary between wild sanctuary and human settlement in the sun-bleached village. Timbered farmsteads emerged as shared stages where cattle and wildlife wove into daily life, and as modern masonry claimed the horizon, the spatial choreography adapted rather than shattered.