While taking a class on Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project Supriya di had spoken of the Gariahat boulevard that used to be. I have hazy recollections of the boulevard, and it's one of those cases where I'm not sure I've transposed images from elsewhere and imagined what it must have been like. I do remember it being a thing during my childhood. The Parents would occasionally declare on our way back from my Mama-bari, which is at Hindustan Park, that we will drop in at the boulevard today. It caused considerable but indefinite excitement.
Looking at the Gariahat flyover now, it is difficult to recall what the place must have looked like. And the strange thing about photographs in the public domain is that there aren't too many photographs of everyday public spaces. Many of the places and passages in the city that are familiar to us now get quite obliterated when new structures take their place. The one major development project that sprung to mind was the metro corridor along the E.M. Bypass. There are several images from first project of constructing the metro lines around the city that may be found in books on the Calcutta metro railway. I'm sure the current project too is being duly documented.
In my own way I wanted to document some of the forms and shapes that emerge during the process of construction, patterns that disappear to our eyes once the structures assume their roles and start serving as stations and tracks. Here are some photographs, taken over the span of a year or so, but really, on two or three outings in all. Taking Priyanka's advice I've changed the display of images to Large since this is primarily a picture post.
Looking at the Gariahat flyover now, it is difficult to recall what the place must have looked like. And the strange thing about photographs in the public domain is that there aren't too many photographs of everyday public spaces. Many of the places and passages in the city that are familiar to us now get quite obliterated when new structures take their place. The one major development project that sprung to mind was the metro corridor along the E.M. Bypass. There are several images from first project of constructing the metro lines around the city that may be found in books on the Calcutta metro railway. I'm sure the current project too is being duly documented.
In my own way I wanted to document some of the forms and shapes that emerge during the process of construction, patterns that disappear to our eyes once the structures assume their roles and start serving as stations and tracks. Here are some photographs, taken over the span of a year or so, but really, on two or three outings in all. Taking Priyanka's advice I've changed the display of images to Large since this is primarily a picture post.
At Karunamoyee the steps have lent themselves to temporary seating for roadside eateries
This, I thought, was a lovely idea: to commemorate the kinds of visuals we see when
raw materials for a construction project wait by the roadside for their turn to be integrated
I like to think of this as the rib-cage of the gigantic Metrosaurus
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