Madurai Club

Madurai, India

The redesign of the Madurai Club was

commissioned in 1971 by Martin
Henry, then manager of the Madurai
Mills thread production company. Prior
to the renovation, the Madurai Mills
maintained two clubs for the use of its
staff; a downtown location catered to
European personnel, while a more
casual Garden Club in suburban
 Kochadai provided entertainment and
dining spaces for Indian staff. Henry
VARIANT NAMES
sought to combine the two facilities
Garden Club (Variant)
and create a single club for his senior
employees on the larger site of the
DATE Garden Club. The proceeds from the
1971-1974
sale of the downtown property
financed the construction of new
ADDRESS pavilions on the Kochadai site. Henry
11-Melakkal Main Road, Kochadai hired architect Geoffrey Bawa to
Madurai, Tamil Nadu, Madurai, Tamil
Nadu State complete the design for the new club
after meeting him on the site of
another building project. Though
ASSOCIATED NAMES
Bawa's practice was based in Sri
Geoffrey Bawa (architect)
Lanka, he opened an office in Madras,
Martin Henry (client)
(now Chennai) from which projects in
 India could be managed. The success
BUILDING TYPE
of the Madurai Club led Henry to
commercial
commission Bawa to design
additional mill buildings and staff
BUILDING USAGE housing for Madurai Mills.
hotel, restaurant

The Madurai Club is located on a

ASSOCIATED COLLECTIONS seventeen-acre property near the
Geoffrey Bawa northeastern limits of Madurai, the
oldest city of the southern state of
Tamil Nadu, India. The property is
bordered by Melakkal Road to the
north, a residential neighborhood to
the west, highway NH-49 south, and
the Fenner Rubber Factory to the east.
Buildings on the site are laid out
according to internal axes that are
oriented to the eastern edge of the
property. The north-south longitudinal
axis of the site is rotated twenty-five
degrees clockwise from the north-
south meridian. While its shape is
irregular, the property's dimensions
range from 190 to 250 meters wide
east-west, and from 140 to 310 meters
long north-south. The site was densely
planted prior to its redevelopment, and
the existing population of large
banyan trees was integrated into
Bawa's design plan for the site.

The club is accessed via a five-meter-

wide tree-lined driveway that extends
south from Melakkal Road towards the
main clubhouse. After two hundred
meters the driveway loops toward the
east, creating an automobile
turnaround within an entry courtyard
on the eastern side of the main club
building. The building was designed
according to a flexible structural grid
with certain repeating key dimensions,
measured in feet. A 108-foot-long
entrance loggia borders the western
edge of the 30-foot-wide courtyard.
Twelve feet wide, the loggia is edged
by rows of twelve-foot-tall stone
columns spaced eight feet on center.
Through a forty-foot-long section
central to the loggia's length, the
clubhouse is only as wide as the
loggia itself, providing arriving visitors
an immediate unobstructed view of
the gardens beyond the building. The
courtyard to the west of the loggia
also maintains a separation between
the renovated former clubhouse,
which forms the south wing of the
building, and Bawa's addition to the
north.

Bawa integrated the existing Garden

Club structure into his design of the
new clubhouse, although he
substantially altered its interior
organization and material palette to
create a continuity between the old
and new portions of the building. The
plan of the L-shaped southern wing is
organized such that seven small
chambers surround a billiard room
centered in its corner. The central
billiard chamber measures twenty-two
feet wide north-south and twenty-eight
feet long east-west. The clients
requested an isolated location for the
billiard room, so Bawa chose to locate
it completely internal to the plan,
bounded by other enclosed rooms.
The introverted character of this
chamber contrasts dramatically with
the transparency and
interconnectedness of the other public
spaces within the club. Four rooms
measuring between eight and
eighteen feet wide north-south and
twenty-eight feet long east-west are
located in a row to the north of the
billiard room. These rooms open onto
a ten-foot-wide loggia to their west. To
the east of the billiard room is an
eight-foot-wide access hall, then three
rooms that measure between eight
and ten feet wide east-west and thirty-
two feet long north-south. The
entrance loggia wraps around the
southern edge of the eastern
courtyard to provide access to these
three chambers, which were available
for the temporary accommodation of
club members and professional
guests. Ten-foot-wide service spaces
border the south and west sides of the
billiard room, completing the corner of
the southern wing.

As the original clubhouse was

reconfigured to house the programs
that required the most privacy, the
primary social functions of the club
were relocated to the new north wing
of the building. The northern end of
the entrance loggia opens onto a
small lobby to its west. Upon entering
this lobby walking westward, the
visitor immediately turns to the right
and gains a distant view of the tennis
courts and gardens north of the
clubhouse, framed by a long hallway.
This hallway extends 125 feet beyond
the thirty-foot-long lobby, passing
alongside or through a series of public
entertaining spaces. To the west of
the lobby is an enclosed meeting room
measuring sixteen foot wide north-
south and thirty-two feet long east-
west. A six-foot wide hallway
separates this room from the pool
court and library to its north. A shallow
reflecting pool borders the west side
of the corridor, measuring thirty-five
feet long north-south and sixteen feet
wide east-west. A set of antique
Chettinad stone columns define the
threshold between the roofed hallway
and the uncovered pool. Immediately
to the west of the pool is a ten-foot-
wide club library with large sliding
glass doors that open onto the internal
courtyard. A sixty-foot long lounge
space is adjacent to the northern edge
of the library and pool court. This
lounge may also be used as a dance
hall, and large sliding glass wall
panels allow it to open onto the west
lawn in good weather. Beyond the
lounge is a large covered verandah
overlooking the tennis courts and
western gardens. This forty-foot-long
and forty-six-foot-wide porch houses
several ping-pong tables and includes
a small interior garden that measures
fifteen feet long and twelve feet wide.

The hotel bar is located to the east of

the central corridor, opposite the pool
courtyard and adjacent to the entrance
loggia. A small partitioned service
area for staff is located in the
southwest corner of the thirty-five-
foot-long and twenty-foot-wide space,
behind the L-shaped bar. Bawa
enclosed the room with mirrored walls
and heavy Chettinad doors in order to
"dissolve" it from the view of children
and non-drinking members dining in
the club restaurant to its north. The
restaurant space is forty-two feet long
north-south and twenty feet wide east-
west, its eastern edge fully open to a
walled garden set between the
entrance courtyard and the driveway
to the east. The garden also borders
the eastern wall of the bar, measuring
seventy-two feet long north-south and
thirty feet wide east-west.
Thirty feet to the north of the
verandah, Bawa designed a sunken
terrace for the club's three tennis
courts. This 180-foot-long and 96-foot-
wide area is edged by plantings and
accessed via stone steps. Twenty feet
to the west of the tennis courts is an
outdoor swimming pool, measuring
sixty feet long north-south and thirty-
five feet wide east-west. A small
pavilion housing changing rooms for
swimmers is located twenty feet to
the west of the pool. This pavilion is a
miniature version of the main
clubhouse, featuring a shaded loggia
that wraps the perimeter of the
enclosed core. Including this loggia,
the structure measures twenty-four
feet wide east-west and fifty-six feet
long north-south.
Client Martin Henry challenged Bawa
during the development process to
design a building constructed fully
from local materials. Bawa embraced
the opportunity and consequently
nearly all of the building materials
were sourced from the area, ten
kilometers from the site. The interior
partitions are either concrete block
surfaced with simple cream plaster or
a random rubble masonry
construction, while the pitched roofs
are rounded clay tiles supported by
corrugated cement sheets. The roof is
supported by a simple post and lintel
system, where stone and reinforced
concrete columns support timber roof
beams and joists. The rough-surfaced
stone columns are distinctive and
beautiful; these solid bars of honey-
colored stone were hand-split by local
stoneworkers using traditional
techniques. Large stone slabs
recycled from an old mill were used as
the floors of the clubhouse.

While the materials are rich and

traditionally finished, the architectural
detailing of the building is simple and
modern. The wooden window frames
set within the plastered walls are
edged by thick jambs and sills carved
out of solid stone. The hardware for
the sliding glass doors was custom-
designed by Bawa; oversized brass
wheels are affixed to the bottom rails
of the wooden door frames, allowing
the transparent panels to roll across
the stone floors in grooved tracks.

The only architectural elements within

the clubhouse that originated more
than ten kilometers from the site are
the Chettinad antiques purchased by
Bawa and the Henrys during a trip to
Karaikudi. Chettinad doors and
columns were incorporated into the
pavilion's structure, while an old
temple cart was transformed into a
fountain within the interior pool
courtyard. The design for the Madurai
Club marks one of Bawa's first
significant uses of bricolage in his
architectural work; as his career
progressed he often favored the
technique as a way to integrate
traditional decorative arts with his
increasingly minimalist structures.
The Madurai Club was acquired by
Aitken Spence Hotel Managements in
2008. The club was converted into a
luxury hotel and reopened in
December of that year. The
architecture of the club's original
design was respected in the
renovation process, reflecting Aitken
Spence's close relationship with Bawa
himself; the firm has managed several
Bawa-designed hotels for decades,
including the iconic Kandalama and
Triton Hotels in Sri Lanka. The
Kandalama Hotel, Triton Hotel, and
Madurai Club are all part of the
Heritance division of Aitken Spence,
which currently features four
properties of architectural significance
whose designs foreground integration
with the landscape. Sri Lankan
architect Vinod Jayasinghe designed
the additions to the clubhouse and
supervised the renovation of existing
structures.

The renovations of the former Madurai

Club aimed to restore Bawa's existing
building in light of decades of visible
wear, without significantly altering the
pavilion's design. Bawa's clubhouse
now hosts programs similar to its
original uses, although their locations
within the building have changed; now
the entrance pavilion houses the
resort's reception, restaurant, cafe, bar,
and library. A significant addition was
constructed adjacent to the main club
structure, extending the longitudinal
axis of the clubhouse approximately
sixty meters toward the north. This
addition attempts to match the
architectural style of Bawa's original
design, employing the same local
materials and construction methods
as were used in the first structure. The
hotel lounge spaces have been
relocated to this open-air pavilion,
where thatched curtains between the
stone columns can be unrolled to
shield the porch from poor weather.
Directly to the west of the extension is
a new sunken swimming pool, one of
the most significant changes made to
the property. Described by Jayasinghe
as the Temple Tank, the large
rectangular pool is framed by a series
of stone terraces, constructed by hand
by local artisans of stone remnants
from nearby quarries. The building
addition and the new pool occupy the
area where the club's tennis courts
were previously located.

In order to increase the capacity of the

boutique hotel, sixteen freestanding
bungalows on the eastern half of the
site were transformed into five-
bedroom villas featuring recycled
timber floors and solar-powered
electricity. Now known as the
Heritance Madurai, the former
Madurai Club is considered one of the
top hotels in the region, even as parts
of the resort have remained under
construction through mid-2010.

Sources:

Robson, David. 2002. Geoffrey Bawa:

The Complete Works. London:
Thames & Hudson, 119-122.

Taylor, Brian Brace. 1986. Geoffrey

Bawa. Architects in the Third World,
ed. Mimar. Singapore: Concept Media
Pte Ltd, 156-161.

Aitken Spence Hotel Managements

Limited. 2010. Heritance Hotels.
Heritance Hotels.
http://www.heritancehotels.com/
(http://www.heritancehotels.com/).
[Accessed June 25, 2010]

Senaratne, Madhushala. 2010.

Heritance Madurai. The Architect: The
Web Journal of the Sri Lanka Institute
of Architects (April).
http://www.thearchitect.lk/2010/04/h
eritance-madurai/
(http://www.thearchitect.lk/2010/04/h
eritance-madurai/). [Accessed June
25, 2010]

Sri Lanka Sunday Observer. 2008.

Aitken Spence launches Heritance
Madurai in India. December 14.
Encyclopedia.com, 2010.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P
3-1660003731.html
(http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1
 P3-1660003731.html). [Accessed
June 25, 2010]

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