2010
Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore
Participating Artists
Shamala B.J, Madhu, Shantamani, Surekha, Suresh Kumar, Sunoj D, Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha
This project will focus on Gustav Hermann Krumbiegel,(1865-1956) who is a horticulturist and an one of the chief architects of Lalbagh Botanical Gardens. His contribution is very important and is significant in creating an identity of a Garden city for Bangalore. He introduced several exotic trees into Bangalore and curated the planting of species that flowered serially and was called “serial blossoming”. The research on him is fragmentary and will need more inputs from different sources for a comprehensive presentation about his life in India and his involvement here to a larger public. The process will involve sourcing letters, photographs and the construction of landscape and town planning drawings that reflect the making of the garden city and will also highlight the contribution of other distinguished individuals who have contributed to this legacy. I hope to find this information from public and private collections for the exhibition.
A comprehensive study has to be undertaken to establish the contribution of Gustav Krumbiegel through research, documentation and a curated art exhibition. This work will also focus on the environment and the making of the garden city as an ideal utopia, a city envisioned as a planned landscape.
Text by Suresh Jayram.