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(ARCHIVE) Vol. XVIII No. 25, april 16-30, 2009

Historic Residences in Chennai - 16

(Sriram V.)


Government College of Arts and Crafts
92/32, Periyar E V R (Poonamallee High) Road

The Madras School of Arts was established in the 1850s by Dr. Alexander Hunter. It played an important role in the channelising of artistic energies into creating a Madras school similar to the Bengal school. Initially located in Broadway, the School was taken over in 1852 by the Government and under Dr. Hunter it became the Government School of Industrial Arts with two departments, the artistic and the industrial. In 1855, photography became a new discipline in the college. In 1868, Robert Fellowes Chisholm (1840-1915), the architect who created most of the Indo-Saracenic buildings of Madras, succeeded Dr. Hunter. Many of Chisholm’s buildings depended on the material produced by the School and it became a workshop for glazed tiles, painted glass and terracotta, much of which was used up for the Senate House. The Industrial Department did not lag behind and in 1898 it pioneered the use of aluminium for industrial purposes. The Indian Aluminium Company took over this work in 1903 and began introducing aluminium into the market.

The building in this sketch was the principal’s office-cum-residence and this was where Chisholm lived. It houses a gallery with a permanent exhibition of paintings and sculptures. The first Indian to hold the post of principal at what was reconstituted as the Government College of Arts and Crafts was Debi Prasad Roy Chowdhury, hunter, wrestler, painter and sculptor. He was principal during the 1940s and 1950s. He sculpted the Triumph of Labour statue and the Mahatma Gandhi statue that adorn the beachfront.(Courtesy: Kalam­Kriya.)

 

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