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Cocktail of styles
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The Chennai Citi Centre is a fantasy land that combines varied elements of architecture and interior design
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MéLANGE OF ARCHITECTURAL ELEMENTS The Chennai Citi Centre
Adhi has unkempt hair. Dressed in ragged jeans, he appears tough. He looks straight into the camera and speaks of the righteousness of poverty and celebrates the slum he lives in. The eyes of his lady love twinkle and she melts. There's a pause, the scene cuts only to transport viewers to the snow-clad mountains of Switzerland and the picturesque Alps. The couple walk into the sunset. Reality pauses, as you enter the theatre. One wilfully suspends belief in order to partake of the pleasure of watching a film. You may have to do this and more if you decide to visit the recently opened shopping mall, The Chennai Citi Centre.
It is a fantasy land, a neo-classical shopping palace spread over four-lakh sq.ft. on Radhakrishnan Salai. It is a mélange of architectural elements. On the ground floor, the big shop windows are dressed with 19th Century neo-classical pediments and pilasters. Excessively ornate metal works are anchored to walls without any relation. As the building rises, the architectural elements shrink disproportionately to fit the window size.
The interior
The interior is a strange cocktail. Life-size palm trees in planter boxes are laid out in symmetry. The central court is many floors high and verandahs open into it. On the topmost floor, a set of dormer windows stick out of the tiled roofs and overlook the courtyard. To top it all, it has a painted blue sky on the ceiling. More blue than the sky outside. There are park benches in the court. The only green you can look at are the dried leaves of the palm trees.
Chennai Citi Centre is fashioned like a luxurious theme park. Against this ambience are the counters that sell clothes, perfumes and jewellery. Like advertisements, shopping malls play on desires and evoke them strongly. The ambience may appear to attract the buyer, but in intention it always favours the seller. It must seduce. What you shop for are not ordinary objects but a lifestyle they bring with them. The mall cannot even remotely resemble the mundane life outside. The mall is like any other. The windows make no gesture to the street; the building is opaque and stands like a fortress. It focusses on the courtyard inside. What makes it seem excessive is the literal conversion of the theme park idea into mediocre architecture. The choice of European neo-classical architecture sitting next to a poor neighbourhood makes it look even more surreal.
To get to the shopping centre, one has to wade through the suffocating traffic outside, manoeuvre your way to the entrance and find parking space. When inside, the worry how to find your vehicle and get back home hurries you through.
A. SRIVATHSAN
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