Valluvar Kottam
The Valluvar Kottam ( Tamil : வள்ளுவர் கோட்டம் [ ˈʋaɭːɯʋər ˈkoːʈːʌm ]) is a monument built in 1976 for the poet Tiruvalluvar (Valluvar) in Chennai (Madras), the capital of the Indian state Tamil Nadu . The poet Tiruvalluvar probably wrote the ethical and moral didactic poem Tirukkural in the 5th or 6th century , which is highly regarded among the Tamils.
Building description
The Valluvar Kottam is located in the Nungambakkam district on the site of a filled lake. It was planned by the sculptor V. Ganapati Sthapati and is built in the traditional South Indian architectural style as found in the medieval Hindu temples of Tamil Nadu. The centerpiece of the facility is a 67 × 30 meter auditorium with 4,000 seats. All of the 1330 verses of the Tirukkural are engraved on the granite pillars of the gallery that surrounds the room. On the roof of the auditorium there is a roof terrace with two water basins. The facility is surrounded by a garden.
The most striking architectural feature of the Valluvar Kottam is the more than 30-meter-high stone replica of a temple chariot that stands at the end of the main axis of the building. The base of the temple chariot is decorated with bas-reliefs depicting the 133 chapters of the Tirukkural . Inside the temple car there is a statue of Tiruvalluvar.
History of origin
The Tiruvalluvar statue is a prestige project of the politician M. Karunanidhi , the chairman of the Tamil nationalist DMK party and former chief minister of Tamil Nadu. Karunanidhi and the DMK stylized Tiruvalluvar into an icon of Tamil cultural nationalism. The construction of a second monumental Tiruvalluvar monument, the Tiruvalluvar statue in Kanyakumari on the southern tip of India, also goes back to an initiative by Karunanidhi .
The construction of a monument for Tiruvalluvar and the use of traditional South Indian building forms were intended to underline the Tamil identity of the city of Chennai, which was otherwise strongly influenced by the British colonial era . At the same time, Karunanidhi set himself a monument with the Valluvar Kottam. The stone temple chariot is an oversized replica of the temple chariot of the city of Tiruvarur , from whose vicinity Karunanidhi comes, and thus underlines the connection between Karunanidhi and the Valluvar Kottam. Originally it was supposed to be built from red and black granite (red and black are the party colors of the DMK). However, the Karunanidhi government was deposed in 1976 during the state of emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi before the completion of the Valluvar Kottam and the structure was completed in ordinary gray granite. The planned pompous inauguration ceremony has also been canceled. When Karunanidhi returned to the post of Chief Minister in 1989, he chose the Valluvar Kottam as the symbolic place of his inauguration.
photos
entrance
Detail of the entrance
The temple chariot seen from the roof terrace
Detail view of the temple chariot
literature
- A. Srivathsan: "Politics, Architecture and the City". In: AR Venkatachalapathy (ed.): Chennai not Madras. Perspectives on the City. Mumbai: Marg Publications, 2006. pp. 49-62.
Web links
Coordinates: 13 ° 3 ′ 16 ″ N , 80 ° 14 ′ 30 ″ E