Mahalakshmi Somasundar is an architect and artist who works with watercolour, digital art. She was born and brought up in Chennai and it’s safe to say the city and its layered history is her muse in most of her personal projects. She posts regularly on her Instagram handle mahaxarts with art inspired by Chennai’s history, Kollywood and Tamil Culture.
Her fascination for Chennai started back in college where she studied architecture and had a course centered on the city and its history and development. She found herself dumb-struck learning that the city in which she had lived and studied had so many layers of history – most unknown and swept under the rug. This fascination slowly led her to find facets in the city that were unknown and had intriguing tales to tell.
Movies in Madras is a one such series where she illustrate stills from Tamil cinema with historically salient buildings and landmarks in the frame. The idea is to bring the places in the background to the fore and share stories and facts about them. This pursuit captures places forever, giving us glimpses of structures that don’t exist anymore.
Ripon Building in Indian.
Senate House in Aayudha Ezhuthu.
CEG in Nayakan.
Chettinad Palace in Aadhavan.
Ramalayam Palace in Muthu.
Bank of Madras building seen from a train in Alaipayudhe.