Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics

A model of the cosmos, this is what Architecture, since the beginning of time, has sought to represent. Is it possible to express our own contemporary notions of what the universe is about? The Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, located on the campus of Pune University, is an attempt at such. The site consists of three contiguous pieces of land, with two campus roads passing between them. One arrives down a road between two swerving black walls of local basalt stone, surmounted by courses of a deeper black Kuddapah stone, topped finally by a glossy black polished granite (which reflects the sky and clouds). Black on black on black: the visual structure of outer space. These black walls draw one into the entrance, located between two columns of exposed concrete which de-materialise at the top into a soft blue. Ahead and to the right, lies the 'kund', transformed here into a metaphor for our expanding universe.