From heritage to high-rises, how Chennai grew taller
“Andha kalathula ellam…” [In those days...] is how many memories of Chennai, or Madras, begin. We all grow up, and inevitably, so do our beloved
“Andha kalathula ellam…” [In those days...] is how many memories of Chennai, or Madras, begin. We all grow up, and inevitably, so do our beloved cities. Every goodbye is followed by a hello: old buildings are torn down for new high-rises, beloved theatre screens go dark, garden houses become apartments, and corner shops give way to malls and multiplexes. Relatively flat for most of its early development, the city today has tall buildings and skyscrapers vying with each other in certain parts. Swept up in the business of being a metro, Chennai grew wide and tall; and as it did, it changed the memories that different generations carry of home. “In 1962, I would cycle from my quiet residential area of Teynampet towards the Mambalam station to board a train to Ambattur for work, meditatively gazing at weirdly coloured homes — pink, green, yellow — with political party signs on plastered walls. I would cycle across the massive T.I. Cycle campus to the canteen for hot idlis. Back then, T.I. Cycles, T.I. Diamond Chain, Dunlop, and TVS were huge. They were sprawling complexes, unlike the tall, glass-paned facades of this day. My father worked near The Mail newspaper on Mount Road, next to The Hindu — both beautiful Art Deco buildings,” says 88-year-old M.L.N. Bharathi. “Now, if I were to make a similar commute to Semmenchery in an office cab, [I would pass] glass towers, high gated communities, malls, choked restaurants chasing online virality, with fleeting glimpses of my old Madras buildings — some miraculously intact, others fading and worn out,” he said with a sigh. Meanwhile, Srivatsan, a Gen-Z resident, holds onto the memory of his parents moving into an independent house in the 2000s, his mother and grandmother sitting peacefully on the porch, watching the passers-by and birds chirping. “I finished school about a decade ago, but whenever I see the building, flowers falling from the trees on the campus, it takes me on a nostalgic trip.
Same with my alma mater, Loyola College — a beautiful campus dating back to the old Madras period. As entertainment moved more online, recreation became spending time at indoor sports facilities, and people hang out more at cafes and sometimes, theatres — I still prefer a Sathyam Cinemas screen over one at a mall, but not all do,” he said Chennai’s lavish garden homes Chennai’s residential areas was a marriage of native bungalows and European villas, defined by colonnaded verandahs and cool Madras terrace roofs in places like Clive House, Cottingley, Purasawalkam House, Palm House, and River House. One can spot windows still have the Mughal-inspired floral pattern or gothic arches in T.Nagar and Nungambakkam, homes similar to Prairie style of architecture in Boat Club. With IT boom, blinding glass-fronted towers that ignored sustainable architecture with vernacular materials and the sweltering reality of Chennai’s climate. If one wanted to time-travel across the different eras of the city, one could visit the modern LIC building — the first multi-storey structure of Chennai — on Anna Salai (then Mount Road), the white Ripon Buildings, Victoria Public Hall, and Madras High Court complex of the colonial times; the San Thome Church in Mylapore and St. Lazarus Church in R.A. Puram, which recall the Portuguese style of construction; the grand Parthasarathy and Kapaleeswarar temples; the Panchapandava Cave Temple in Zamin Pallavaram, cut during the reign of Mahendravarman I (600 A.D.-630 A.D.), that reflects Pallava architecture; and the open Palaeolithic site at Pallavaram that marks the early days of human settlement. At the red-brick colonial Tamil Nadu Archives building in Egmore, if one were to pick The Early History of the Madras Region by K.V. Raman, they would learn that Francis Day, an administrator for the East India Company of the British, arrived in 1639, north of the San Thome Church, in the little village of Madraspatam, which “according to the Dutch Dagh-Register, 1640-41, consisted of some fifteen to twenty fishermen’s huts”.
By April 1645, the British had transformed the simple settlement by setting up Fort St. George. “This newly-risen town of Madraspatam with its fort became the seat of the Agency in the place of Masulipatam from 24th September, 1641,” the book reads. “Industries developed here, and over time, the city’s centre moved further down the south, today extending till Chengalpet. But North Chennai, which is industrial and has low-income housing, has remained largely unchanged,” said Nischal Buddhavarapu, an architect and urban designer. His father, architect-planner B.S. Murthy, founded PADGRO Consultants Pvt. Ltd., which designed the Panagal Building near Marmalong Bridge in Saidapet. It has a three-storey sloped roof, a marvel in the 1990s. The earlier colonial Panagal building, used by the Chengalpattu Revenue Collector and District Magistrate, was constructed with brick, sand, and limestone, and featured teakwood frames, stained glass windows, and marble flooring. The architect — who also designed the interiors of the Southern Petrochemical Industries Corporation (SPIC) office in Guindy, and BHEL building in Pallikaranai — said the buildings were now uneven and lackluster, unlike those he admired from his car window in the 1970s. There was the grandfather’s familiar sigh: “Then, a land in Thiruvanmiyur was just ₹1,500. But I didn’t buy it. It would have been useful to you, kid.” Nischal said the dot-com crash in the U.S. forced many software technology workers to move back to India, and they wanted the same global aesthetic, continuous air-conditioning and break spaces, all in one building. Glass, although a detrimental material for Chennai’s climate, provided that feel. Chennai still had unique buildings such as the curved BHEL office in Pallikaranai. “Off-late, clients, mostly developers, demand architects to simply generate modules with AI references. Since occupants keep shifting, be it among the 500 homes in apartment complexes, the office spaces in Sholinganallur or even aesthetic spaces like resorts — the end user ultimately cannot imprint their character on the facade.” “Developments have brought amenities such as shops and pharmacies closer to home, even door-delivered, but necessities like water, sewage line, and electricity remain unevenly distributed across localities.
A family living in K.K Nagar will not have the same needs as a bachelor IT techie renting a flat in Chromepet or the office spaces in OMR. Apart from the Third Master Plan, area-wise plan with a study on the available resources must be done, similar to that in Sydney, Australia,” he said. Spencer’s Plaza, once the red-bricked Spencer and Co. store with teak beams and ornate ceilings, became Chennai’s first mall, and home to its first escalator — “which, till date, sends chills down my wife’s spine,” recalls Mr. Bharathi. For Mr. Nischal, it was where people could shop for books, clothes, exported toys or watches under one roof, or just spend time. Mr. Srivatsan remembers it as a “cool” place where he hung out with his parents, but now views it as a heritage site, unlikely to attract his younger cousins, even though it may be a fascinating piece of history for them. And perhaps, that is Chennai’s enduring charm — constantly changing and reaching for the stars, yet somehow leaving each generation with its own little piece of the city: whether you missed buying a now-priceless plot, chilled at a mall with friends, hunted for the next café on social media, or arrived from afar in search of greener pastures, Chennai finds a way to become yours.
The BriefWire