The Building of a Modern India

 

In the 17th century, Maharaja Jai Singh designed and built Jaipur based on the Vedic concept of vaastu-purush-mandala—a square, subdivided into identical squares. The city’s master plan was based on a vaastu-purush-mandala of nine squares. More than three hundred years later, in 1986, Charles Correa based the design of the Jawahar Kala Kendra on Jai Singh’s design of Jaipur. The art and culture centre, commissioned by the Rajasthan government, has nine squares, each meant for a specific purpose. The square representing planet Mercury, symbolic of knowledge, houses the library; Venus, which represents the arts, houses the theatres, while the central square, as specified in the Vedas, is a void.