Thursday, April 26, 2007

Mr. G. Shankar – The First Meeting at HTG

There are very few architects in Kerala who are able & willing to work on old buildings. Mr. G. Shankar is one of them. But as the protégé of the great Mr. Laurie Baker, and as the founder & Chief Architect of Habitat Technology Group, he is a very, very busy man.

Acchan & Amma finally managed to meet Mr. Shankar on 11th April 2007. As discussed over the telephone, they had gone to his office in the morning accompanied by Rajesh from Changanasseri, to chalk a plan of action.

While waiting for Mr. Shankar to return from another meeting, Rajesh had expressed his skepticism about retaining the old wooden structure -“It is better to dismantle the old stuff…I could help you find some buyers..”.

Thankfully, Mr. Shankar took an altogether different view. His logic was simple, “You have come to me because you are interested in preserving the old house, its memories and sentiments... First of all I would like Rajesh to make a precise sketch after taking measurements. I would then visit the site before the next course of action”.

What about the Nelavara – the old, airtight, wooden granary at the center of the house? The storage space below it was getting infested with rats…Would it have to be dismantled?

“Oh, that won’t be a problem…we could perhaps replace the mud floor with something less vulnerable to gnawing rats. As for the Nelavara, we could make sliding windows into it and make it an airy space. But let me see it first.”

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