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| Ahmedabad Town Hall, Ahmedabad,GJ |
The Ahmedabad Town Hall, officially known as the Sheth Mangaldas Girdhardas Memorial Hall, stands as a landmark of 20th-century civic architecture in Gujarat. Commissioned in the 1930s as a tribute to the prominent textile industrialist Mangaldas Girdhardas, the building was funded by public donations and is currently owned by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. Though it currently sits in a state of abandonment, its architectural pedigree remains a subject of great interest to historians and architects alike.
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| Ahmedabad Town Hall, Ahmedabad,GJ image:Md.mahdiKarim en.wikipedia.org |
Architectural Vision: Claude Batley’ s Masterpiece
Designed in 1939 by the renowned British architect and Principal of J. J. School of Arts, Bombay Claude Batley, who also designed the adjacent M. J. Library, the Town Hall is a sophisticated example of the Art Deco style adapted to the Indian context. Batley’ s design is celebrated for its "Indo-Deco" approach, which seamlessly blends Western modernism with traditional Gujarati motifs.Earlier he designed Bombay Central station (1930) and Bombay Gymkhana (1917) and Wakaner House (1933).
The building’s floor plan is remarkably geometric, based on two rotating squares placed at 45-degree angles to form a star shape. This configuration creates a central octagonal space used for the seating area. To the front and rear of this central core, Batley added rectangular blocks to serve as the vestibule and the stage, respectively. This star-shaped plan is capped by a massive octagonal concrete dome, a structural choice that mimics the mandapas (pillared halls) of ancient Gujarati Hindu temples.
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| Location, Ahmedabad, GJ en.wikipedia.org |
Materiality and Design Elements
The exterior of the Town Hall features exposed brickwork with "stepped back" corners, a design choice that invokes the complex, tiered exteriors of traditional temple architecture. The thick load-bearing brick walls support the concrete dome, while functional elements like Chhajjas (overhanging eaves) and ornate decorative grills provide shade and ventilation, reflecting a deep respect for the local climate and architectural heritage.
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| Ahmedabad Town Hall, amalashah.com |
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| Ahmedabad Town Hall,amalashah.com |
Above image: As the necessity for a large public hall needed, in the late 1930s when there were no electrical facilities to cover large auditorium,this multi-purpose hall with a seating capacity for as many as 1200 people was built that too in Art-Deco fashion.Itis located across the Ellisbridge Police station and Devnandan Mall in Ahmedabad city of Gujarat. Built as a tribute to the esteemed textile industrialist Mangaldas Girdhardas, the Town Hall has bee par and parcel of cultural and civic life in Ahmedabad
History of Renovations and Present Status
The building has undergone two significant transformations. In the 1960s, the legendary architect B. V. Doshi led a renovation that introduced a false ceiling to improve the hall's acoustics. Decades later, in 1997–98, Kamal Mangaldas (the grandson of the hall’s namesake) conducted an extensive restoration. He removed Doshi’s false ceiling to reveal the original volume of the dome and added a podium around the base to integrate the building with its urban surroundings. According to Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) official the project was being funded through corporate social responsibility(CSR) initiatives. The purpose was upgrading the facility while preserving the old architecture
Despite these efforts to modernize and preserve the structure, the Ahmedabad Town Hall is currently abandoned. While its doors remain closed to the public, it stands as a silent sentinel of Ahmedabad’s transition into a modern industrial metropolis, waiting for a third revival to restore its status as a vibrant center for the city's civic and cultural life.
https://ahmedabadtravelers.weebly.com/new-city-of-ahmadabad/town-hall
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmedabad_Town_Hall
https://amalashah.com/work/town-hal
K. N. Jayaraman (Author: navrangindia.blogspot.com)
