Session 93 summary
Reimagining a Living Museum- ‘Tribal Eco-Village – a Living Museum’ for him, was a new concept. When he presented his thesis during his bachelor’s degree, there were architects in the jury members who had different sort of ideas. They also told Devesh that the concept which he was presenting was not something new to which Devesh replied that ‘Of course it is not something new. We already have a lot of things in India from quite a long time. It is simply something rejuvenating which we already have before.’
Story of how he came up with the idea of tribal eco-village- During his internship in Bhopal, Devesh visited two tribal museums in Bhopal. One of the museums was the ‘Tribal Museum’ designed by Revathi Kamath and the other one was the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya. When he visited both of them, he was fascinated by them after seeing everything which was inside. The Revathi Kamath museum was beautiful and everything displayed there was related to tribal community but one thing which Devesh found missing in those museums was the tribal people themselves. During his internship period Devesh used to visit those museums a lot of times as he was fascinated by the art of the tribal community and when he went there he also observed the people visiting who were seeing/perceiving things in the museum. Some of those people were bored and some took note of the things present there but were not interested in reading about those things, no one was interested about learning about those things because they were not seeing those things live – they were not seeing those things happening live in those museums. So, it was like a static museum where people would go and simply see things then return. During that particular time Devesh thought that why doesn’t he (Devesh) do something dynamic, why don’t he add activities in those museums, why don’t he create something where he can invite tribal people or where the tribal people can live in the area and they run a museum themselves. But convincing his professors and his fellow architects that he was going to design something like that was very difficult because when proposing something like this there is always the question of how much do they earn out of it. After being able to convince them Devesh started researching about it and came to know about some living museums around the world, like the museum in Denmark where they revived the village and started something similar to living museum there. There everyone was dressed up as a historian and people will go there and see all the old activities going on over there and also be able to live those things.
When Devesh came up with the concept he faced two problems; the first one being deciding a site i.e. taking a piece of land and designing a tribal eco-village there. This was quite challenging because when he was initially thinking of creating a tribal eco-village, he was actually thinking of taking an existing village and turning it into a living museum but it was not possible because he had to provide a data, proper analysis of the site, etc. and there were a lot of things with the by-laws, laws of land, etc. and so he was unable to finalise the site or an area on which he can build a tribal eco-village. Then he thought of creating it on the site where Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya is, as that site is around 200 acres and they had a lot of space. There he finalised the 6 tribes of Madhya Pradesh – Korku, Sahariya, Gond, Baiga, Bharia and Bhil tribes. He finalised these tribes on the basis of their population inside the state, other than that the living museum which he was creating was not something for a singular tribe, it was something inclusive for all the tribal communities. he was not going for a singular tribe because it was too much detailed, it is hard to know about culture and traditions of a singular community in a short time, one needs to study a lot, need to visit the tribes and even stay with them for some time to learn and to see what kind of culture and traditions they have, how do they live daily, what do they do daily, there is a lot to see in their lives and so he limited himself to only 6 tribes.
How he came to the conclusion of selecting the site- India is a huge country and there are a lot of laws, building by-laws, natural by-laws etc. and the complexities around it that Devesh reject the idea of acquiring his own site or creating a museum in an existing village. So, he chose a site which was basically used for the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya. There were some existing buildings on the site and the remaining part of the site was totally empty- it’s a 200 acre site and the only permanent building is structure worthy and other than that all other structures were the temporary structures. When he went to that particular museum in Bhopal and talked to the tribal people working in some of the building projects there, he had a chat with them which included questions like: where they slept there? Where did they come from? What is the facility of the night stay? To which the people replied that they simply slept anywhere on the land. Devesh didn’t feel good about that scenario as the people worked the whole day on the field for the museum and there were no proper facilities for them to even sleep or stay over there. One of the ladies informed him that there was a dormitory for the women there and Devesh asked them if he could see the dormitory. But on visiting the dormitory he realised that it wasn’t a dormitory but a small room in which a lot of ladies were simply sleeping. Since it was a government site he wasn’t able to take pictures but he was able to know the scenarios there and taking pictures was not that important for him but feeling those things, understanding those emotions and those things was more important. Other than that he questioned the lady how much they were getting paid and the use of the remaining area of the site because the land is huge and only 7.5% was used and dedicated to a museum. But it was believed that that was enough but it is not so. Devesh believes that when one is doing something for the tribal people then they have to involve the people more, simply displaying the tribal things are not enough because people are not much interested in seeing that, they are interested in seeing and meeting the tribal people, learning the techniques that they are using, learning about the ancient knowledge which they possess, etc.
While selecting the site Devesh did the site analysis, when he selected that site there were a lot of issues with it but he had some good connections and some good people who helped him along the way. He first started off with the site analysis which is one of the most important aspect when building something and to start any project one needs to analyse the site. This helps in the creation of a good design as one has to design according to the site as the site has different types of topography – there are different terrains, it has contours, has a lot of different resources, vegetation, etc. which cannot be simply destroyed, especially when designing for the tribal community as tribal people are the people who love nature, who love forest, who love trees. So, when designing for them one must respect their laws as well and take the existing vegetation, existing trees into the account while designing for the tribal people, something that Devesh did. During his site analysis it was impossible for him to design something on the 200 acres of land, simply just covering the whole land. So, what he did was, he selected a zone on that land on which he decided to design the tribal eco-village. Since the thesis time was not enough so he took 50 acres of the site and thought of designing the ‘Tribal Eco-Village – A Living Museum’ there. The things which he wanted to include in that tribal eco-village was a lot. He tried to implement everything, because he wanted it to be not just a museum but an institute as well – a place where tribal people can learn from other people and they can also gain something. He created workshops, markets, dormitories, religious grounds, exhibition areas, etc. and everything was related to the tribal community. He simply thought that the whole thing should be run by the tribal people which would be the perfect thing because they would know perfectly how to organize the workshops, what materials are required, etc. The rest of the land which Devesh left for the tribal eco village was for the future extension, which was something he proposed in his thesis. During the site analysis Devesh also thought about what things should be kept on the chosen site and what things should be removed as there were a lot of things which were pretty good like the herbal nursery which can be used for the living museum.
The zone which he selected for his site had very steep contours, there were 3-4 levels of contours which was beneficial for him because while studying about the ancient tribal hamlets, he came to know that they always had a citadel in the village. There was a citadel of the highest level because they somehow followed the Indus valley culture from a long time. The highest citadel on the site which Devesh selected was important for him because he wanted to create a religious ground on it- a religious ground on which the whole settlement can look upon because the tribal people of India really enjoy their religious activities and leisure activities together, therefore he felt that it was a good idea to select that particular zone. Another beneficial point about the zone was that there was vegetation all around it, only the selected part was without vegetation, so he implement a lot of vegetation there. The inclusion of vegetation was important because he wanted to give a jungle feeling; as if one is surrounded by the trees and the tribal village is situated in between the jungle. Another plus point was that the roads from the parking were well connected (the parking was positioned far from the village and blocked by vegetation). This was done so because when designing a building as an architect one cannot simply propose a design, a lot more has to be done like taking into account that there might be a lot of things which the government might ask when approving the design. Apart from that one has to consider that there will be people who will be living in that site and therefore there should be other facilities as well, like facilities to prevent fire disasters, facilities for letting the fire trucks enter the village. These need roads around the site for the heavy vehicle to move, this was very much needed because vernacular material was used to build the structures on the site which are highly combustible. Therefore there are a lot of things needed to be taken into consideration. Another reason was that, one cannot work on a contour without access to vehicle. But he didn’t wanted vehicles to enter the space because it was a tribal eco-village for this he created a parking area where once the car is parked the tourist/visitors have to take an electric rickshaw or walk or take a bicycle to the site. Creating this transit worked well because when planning a design one must keep in mind how to create revenues for the people working on the site.
How he came up with the concept: there are a few things Devesh found in the tribal culture, things that can be touched/felt like; architecture style, dresses, their style of knitting the buckets/baskets, etc. He thought of mixing both the tangible and intangible aspects of culture in that particular museum and when doing this one should also consider the people themselves. So, he created an approach/idea: there will be a relationship between architecture, nature and culture and there will be a relationship between tourists or visitors, historians and workers and administrator. Since, the land belongs to the government and the government said that from that 200 acres of land they want to have the revenue for tribal people so, Devesh thought that the administration will be the government because it is the government’s land but since it is dedicated for tribal purposes for the tribal community so it was important to take them into consideration inside that land – inside that project. By ‘for the historian’ he means tribal people themselves. The word historian has multiple meanings but as far as Devesh understands it is something similar to the people working in the living museum and wearing the attire similar to the traditional attires. So, in his project the historians were not simply the tribal people who will explain new things, dance or cook there instead they would be the people who will give the workshops. The tribal youth who are fluent in English can be either interpreters or translators in the museum because since it is a living museum in the capital city of Madhya Pradesh, there will be international tourism there so the tribal students fluent in English can help with that. So, it is not just a design but also it has ways to increase the revenue and provide employment.
Since, Devesh’s thesis was oriented towards the architecture and so it was important for him to understand and study the buildings and architectural style, the vernacular architecture for his design to be finished, so he went to a lot of tribal hamlets around Madhya Pradesh. For bhil he went to Bhagya where he saw a lot of tribal hamlets, for baiga and baharia tribes he went towards Betul, Chhindwara, etc. for other tribes he also visited places around his hometown Khandwa. Most of the tribal communities Devesh visited, approved/were happy of his idea. For his case study he also studied the Chokhi Dhani of Jaipur, there is Nakhrali Dhani in Indore as well, which were related only to a timely experience but for Devesh the ‘Tribal Eco Village – A Living Museum’ is something where one can stay for a longer time and much more can be explored, like creating a chain of tribal eco village in a lot of places or even a tribal hamlet can be converted to a tribal eco village and the community themselves can do it on their own without the need of a different administrator.
For the architectural style- he visited a lot of houses, went inside them, saw the space inside the house, the space in the hamlet, saw the different elements and how these elements are related to their culture which he tried to incorporate on the site and using the contour to his advantage.
About the Speaker
Devesh Mishra
Devesh Mishra is currently specializing in Urban Regeneration (M.Arch) from University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’. Devesh has done his Bachelors in Architecture from India and graduated in 2020. During his Bachelor’s degree he worked on his thesis titled “Tribal Eco-Village – A Living Museum“, in which he has studied the lifestyle, culture, tradition and techniques of indigenous communities of India seeking to address the following:
“Culture allows us to assert our existence to ourselves to the extent that we are not just ‘now’ but are – in essence – forever and if this culture is the only thing on the verge of extinction then it becomes a challenge. Through innovative regenerative Architectural techniques and designs, we can help them revive their culture and enhance their cultural imperatives, and blend it with modernization.” The thesis was also published in “Architectural Journal – The Architecture Design” and was appreciated on the National Level in 2020, for which he has also received a National Award for Excellence in Architectural Thesis 2020 and JK AYA Best Architecture Student of the Year Award from School of Architecture, Noida International University in 2020.
