From festivals to flower park: A dash of culture to Bengaluru

A 10-member committee, comprising architects, urban designers, historians, and litterateurs, has suggested a host of ideas to create a cultural potpourri for Bengaluru under the banner ‘Brand Bengaluru,’ an initiative of the government. Some of the submissions made by the committee include celebrating Bengaluru Dasara with much fervour, developing a flower park of an international standard and launching more public spaces.  

The committee, one among the eight, had the mandate to look into the 70,000-odd suggestions by dividing them into eight categories — mobility, health, environment, water etc. Of them, a committee called ‘Vibrant Bengaluru’ has submitted a 76-page report which is centred around the city’s culture, festivities, public art, etc. 

The report has focused on nine areas that will look into creating a cultural calendar, mark out cultural areas such as auditoriums, amphitheatres, public spaces (roadside corners), heritage corridors (walks, experiences and restoration of historic structures), museums, public arts etc. 

Under the cultural calendar, the committee has suggested a slew of festivities throughout the year that stresses on kere habba (lake festival), Chitra Santhe (art fair), flower shows, Karaga, theatre, Nada Habba coinciding with Kempegowda Jayanthi) and Bengaluru Dasara festival, etc along with tech summit and Bengaluru International fest. 

The 76-page report has also come up with a new proposal to create a state-of-the-art theatre complex on JC Road and renovate existing theatre complexes. It has also suggested an art auditorium in four corners of Bengaluru. 

Other prominent suggestions include developing a flower park of international standard and creating public art spaces such as towering sculptures of stone, statues of bronze, monumental compositions of repurposed materials, etc.  

Jayaram Raipura, nodal officer of the committee, said that they have also mulling over creating a cultural cell in the BBMP as it is the only agency with such a bandwidth to implement these suggestions. 

Highlights - Key suggestions Creation of a flower park of international standard Public spaces at unused roadside corners  Re-designing at least25 junctions Repainting public walls  Colour-coding of public institutions and select streets Creation of a landmark watch tower for Bengaluru  Reusing public utility building to house cultural centres and offices Wall of kindness Rain refuge areas for motorists

Team members Jayaram Raipura Nodal officer of the committee V Ravichandar Director of BengaluruInternational Centre Geetha Narayanan Founder-director of Srishti Manipal Institute of Art Design and Technology Naresh Narasimhan Architect Raghunandan Ramanna Social worker Prashanth Prakash Member of Vision Group on Startups Krishna Kumar Heritage expert KY Narayanaswamy Kannada Litterateur Devarakonda Reddy Historian Shashidhara Bharighat Kannada theatre activist