Bazaar - a layering in time

In a Bazaar, there is a layering of people and of goods. There is also another kind of layering – of spatial configurations that are random in their making and that metamorphose into a different complexity from one day to the next.

The vendor is part of a layering process that has on one hand, spatial elements – those that create his own territory and those that circumvent his territory. On the other hand, there are the changing displays that can be seen as part of one layer or as belonging to more than one layer. The vendor participates in a simultaneous layering of spaces and displays.

There is an organic development within the bazaar where layers may take the form of a shop, a shop extension, a pedestrian accessway, storage of goods, the selling space of the street vendor and the signage that belongs to the street.

One could define a layer in the bazaar to be an outcome of function – walking space, display space, storage space, advertising space, selling space or interaction space. These are layers that do not have a clear demarcation between them. The walking space weaves sometimes in and out of the selling space. The layers are individually and collectively occupied by different user groups at different times. The layers are formed, they interchange sometimes – that which was selling space is returned to the public domain and becomes a walking space and somewhere else, a walking space enters the private domain as it becomes a selling space.

The image shown here is the main entrance of the Kapaleeswarar Temple at Mylapore in Chennai. This is a centuries old temple that is today surrounded on four sides by streets lined with formal shops and informal street vendors. If one is standing in front of the east entrance gate, a layering is perceived where in the foreground is the flower-seller, in the middle ground is a mobile tailor with his sewing machine. The third layer is a sign board that announces the dance recital scheduled to take place within the temple that evening; the fourth layer is the stone wall of the temple and the background layer is the temple space itself.

Opposite the main entrance of the temple at Mylapore is this street lined with houses and shops. It is also the street where the Temple Car (Ratha) is kept through the year. A part of this ratha is seen here as it becomes a place of seating for autorickshaw-drivers, balloon sellers and temple priests. In this image, the two-wheeler parking becomes the foreground layer; the ratha and the people make the second layer; the vehicular access forms the third layer and the residential facades and shopfronts become the fourth layer. It is of course our perception of this urban space that generates the idea of a multi-layered collage.

In a bazaar, every vendor makes his choice about where to locate himself and how to display his goods and it is these choices that add to or subtract from a layer. The vendors adapt and simplify and bring about an urban experience that is an unconcious design effort - a spatial layering that ebbs and flows with time.

Spencer’s Plaza – the old mall in Chennai

Spencer’s Plaza has always been ‘the new within the old’ – a new building within the memory of an old one. Until Citi Centre opened to the public some months ago, Spencer’s Plaza was “The Mall” of Chennai. There is the atrium with the circular arcade in brick, constructed anew on the old design.

In the malls, the parking space is always your first experience. In the old days, you always walked to the bazaar. Today, you can still walk or take the car to the bazaar. Because it is almost a pedestrianised zone i.e. it is flooded to such an extent with pedestrians and hawkers, nobody takes a car in there. You park in the side lanes in and around the main bazaar streets. There is always a small street nearby which becomes a parking lot.

In Georgetown, you are in one street for clothes, in another for electronic goods. Here, at Spencers' the clothes and the electronics are a shop away from each other and the expensive eateries abound. The spaces are clean. You do not jostle in a crowd. The noise levels are different from the bazaar too. You cannot buy your fresh limesoda or your sugarcane juice here. But, there is the “Fruit shop on Greams Road” outlet which sells ‘Pineapple Mint’ for Rs.40 or the Orange Tangerine for Rs.30. Sugarcane juice in the Bazaar is Rs.3 for half glass and Rs.6 for full glass.

At Spencer’s, you come out of the parking basement into the brick-lined circular atrium, take an escalator up to the shops. It’s a centrally air-conditioned mall – the atrium, the passages, the shops. The maintenance costs are high and the goods always priced high. There are large chain stores like West Side and Music World housed here. There is “sweet corn” and “subway sandwiches”.

And as one of the storefront sign says you “Rediscover yourself”. A mall is just different from a bazaar…

Read about:

Citi Centre: the mall in Chennai

Miracle Boutique

Citi Centre - the mall in chennai

It is a shopping centre with an ornate façade on RK Salai, in Chennai. You pay by the hour for parking. The entrance is grand and they sell expensive coffee and snacks in the lobby. The most attractive is the third floor, with its medley of restaurants, from Saravana Bhavan to Gangotree to Subway. You get here from one escalator to the other. You don’t walk a few yards from a bhelpuri kiosk to a 30-year old Saravana Bhavan as elsewhere. You use the escalator to reach the space that has it all, amidst a lot of light.

Evenings at Citi Centre are about good lighting. Eating in a street bazaar is also about an experience in light, but they are rarely floodlit spaces like this one. Here, you are on the stage. In the old bazaars you walk, sometimes as spectator and sometimes as actor. You choose when you want to be what and move in and out of the light.

The great thing about the food floor at Citi Centre and this really is the greatest thing, is that you can dine with your family in four different places but at one table. One person picks up a subway sandwich, another mexican food and the other a mini-tiffin from Saravana’s. You don’t travel miles between these places in the city’s traffic to get this experience.

The next great experience at the Citicentre is its Landmark bookshop. That experience is also possible at Spencer’s Plaza. In a Bazaar at Mylapore or Triplicane or Georgetown, you don’t encounter a Landmark in any case. If you need to go to a bookshop in the city, you go to Landmark or Odyssey’s independent stores. These are great shopping experiences in themselves – the standalone book bazaars. In Bombay, the book lover goes to Strand Book stall – a space smaller than Landmark and Odyssey. Strand is a small space and always a memorable experience. Other shops in the Citi centre seem expensive, but people come to the mall to eat, to spend time and money. So, the shops have some window shoppers and some who are there to buy for real.