Athangudi tiles

I had an opportunity to visit the village of Attangudi, near Madurai where traditional artisans continue to make colourful floor tiles that are similar to the red oxide floor but with geometrical and floral motifs. The tiles looked beautiful. As you watch the tiles being made, and go back and forth from looking at the process to the finished product, you know that this is something you want to use, simply because the colours, the designs and the sheen look great.



The question is “Would this only work in a traditional house plan?” Many of us are keen on a contemporary house and you wonder if a beige vitrified tile floor would be more in tune with your non-ethnic tastes? Luckily for us, there are immense possibilities, if we do decide to go with the attangudi tile floor. Its possible to order tiles with just a single colour and no motifs; its possible to order floor tiles that are plain and skirting tiles that have a simple geometric design, with colours that complement each other. Besides, I do believe that its possible to include elements with traditional motifs in a contemporary setting. Its just about knowing how much of the traditional and how much of the modern.

Here is a YouTube film on the making of Athangudi tiles :

Source : www.youtube.com

Most of us in the cities would buy tiles for our house from the biggest brands in ceramic tiles such as Kajaria or Johnson tiles. Kajaria Ceramics which is a 700 crore company has a European collection. They import tiles from Italy and Spain for the Indian market. While we source from Europe, can we also source from a village in Tamil Nadu? Kajaria has a distribution network of about 600 dealers and about 6000 sub-dealers all over the country. What if the display division of the marketing department at Kajaria or Johnson focused on promoting Athangudi tiles as well?

If the curricula in architecture schools in India would encourage its students to document vernacular ways of building and traditional building materials and their processes, we could create a database that Kajaria could use. If the curricula in management schools would encourage its students to document the supply-chain systems in rural economies and analyse how these could be made more efficient, we could perhaps make it attractive for Kajaria to seek out and support the artisan of Athangudi while making great profits in their business.

In the meanwhile, if you want to khow how to visit the Athangudi village, you can contact Karthick Gopal at tourism.karaikudi@gmail.com. He is part of the DHAN foundation, an NGO that works in several villages of Tamil Nadu. Here are their contact details : DHAN Foundation, 18, Pillaiyar Koil Street, S.S. Colony, Madurai - 625 016, Tamil Nadu.
Tel: +91-452-2610794, 2610805 and the link to their website : www.dhan.org

In case you would just like to order the tiles, you can still contact DHAN since they know the artisans well and will be able to give you their contact details. Here is a link to their blog: Explore Chettinad

Chettinad Columns

Some of the places where "chettinad columns" are for sale :

Karaikudi

Arasu Arts, Govindarajan, 40, MM Street, Karaikudi – 630 001, Sivaganga Dist. Tamilnadu

ph : 04565-4334020, 4338570, 4396790

Senthil Arts, 90/2, Ve.Vr.St. (Near Sathian Theatre) Karaikudi 630 001

ph : 04565-420030, 8550065

Venkateswara Furniture & Timber merchant, 65, MM Street, Karaikudi 630 001

ph : 04565-2421706, 2436238

Karaikal

Mr.Idris

He has an old house where he displays everything.

Mr.Ramanan

ph : 09842533046.

He knows several dealers in Karaikal and can suggest places where these columns are available.

Pondicherry

Ms.Kali Borg, Sharnga, Auroville. ph : 0413-2622337
mob : 94430-90114
kaliborg@hotmail.com
Kali deals in "antique furniture & building materials"

She is a stained glass artist too and also runs a guesthouse at auroville called 'Sharnga'. One can also check out the auroville website.

Chennai

1. Rani Arts
They make new furniture that looks like antique. (They also have chettinad columns, brackets, and so on). Located at McNicholas road, near Egah Theatre ph : 044-26422948/8843

2. Murray & Co.
Auctioneers, with a separate exclusive section of rosewood and teakwood antique furniture. One has to ask about it, not open to all walk-in customers. Since they are always on the look out for houses in Tamilnadu which are being dismantled, they may be able to acquire chettinad columns. ph : 044-28600880/55872437 . They are behind LIC building, on Mount road. Well-known and easy to find. But, best to call them first to see if they can get the columns, what price and when.

Chettinad house

Chettinad is a region in Southern Tamil Nadu that is known for its mansions belonging to the Nattukotai Chettiars, a banking community who had businesses in South east Asia and brought in teak from Burma to build a housetype that came to be known as the Chettinad house.

At a recent seminar at Anna University (Chennai) alongwith Ecole de Chaillot (Paris) in collaboration with UNESCO and ArcHe-S, discussions were held on the conservation and management of the Chettinad heritage.

Mr.M.A.Siddique, who had been Collector of the Sivaganga district until recently pointed out that the main challenges at Chettinad are that the owners of these houses, the Nagarthars have deserted their homes and settled in Chennai or abroad, resulting in the lack of maintenance; the houses are under joint ownership and family disputes have led to further neglect; there is a flourishing antiquity market at Karaikudi which entices the local people to sell the burma teak elements from within the house, that gradually depletes what is left and most importantly, there is a need for the Chettiar community to come forward and make conservation of this architectural heritage possible.

While we focus our time and effort on conserving the buildings, we need to also conserve the processes that have made these buildings possible. We need to find out who are the ARTISANS who did the lime plaster work, who laid an oxide flooring or attangudi tile floor and who made the columns and brackets in wood. Are these skills available and in what measure? How do the artisans source work in a changing urban-oriented culture? Can we link these artisans to potential conservation and tourism-related projects, so that they have a continuous flow of work and a reason to encourage their children to carry forward the tradition. Here is a link to an 'Artisans Resource guide' that is being developed by a community of people concerned about heritage. It hopes to link architects and houseowners to traditional artisans. India still has a large number of such artisans in the many towns and villages all over the country.

In Chennai, the IT parks compete in architectural style with what the west has to offer. However, the people still aspire to have houses that belong to tradition. In Chennai, the architect is increasingly being asked "Can you build me a Chettinad house?" Is this fashion? Is this a trend? Why are people today keen on building a house in Chettinad style? and what do they mean? Do they want a Chettinad mansion with all its grandeur? Do they want a conventional, modern house with only Chettinad columns and the Attangudi tiles? And, what do architects think of when clients say "chettinad house"? Recreating a chettinad house in chennai. Is it possible? What does it need? The more people that begin to want houses that hold an indian identity, the greater will be the effort the architectural community will make towards developing a contemporary vernacular language.

In the historical Chettinad region - in Karaikudi and Kanadukathan, the streets lined with mansions are deserted, the houses in neglect. In metropolitan Chennai, people aspire to build a chettinad "vernacular" house on an urban landscape dotted with concrete multi-storeyed apartment buildings and in the Madurai region, amongst the local people, Art is a way of life.