Tata Structura steels the show with design contest
Economic Times — June 14, 2007

It's an idea that would have inspired Howard Roark, the egocentric, brilliant architect in Ayn Rand's 1943 masterpeice, The Fountainhead. The challenge - to design a symbol for architecture and engineering in contemporary India.

The driver, Tata Structura, a construction steel brand from Tata Steel, which, in association with Indian Architect & Builder, has launched a competition to select the winning design. But what is contemporary India without an assertion of our confidence to take on the world and people caught up in this huge momentum of change?

It is this spirit, the momentum that the theme of the country's first-ever design contest, 'Notions of a Nation', tried to capture in the form of a symbol. The preferred material, interestingly enough, was steel. When you think of steel, you think strength and rigidity, right?

You think massive, full-bodied structures that are dependable, and automobile bodies created to last a lifetime. Of late, steel also perhaps, reminds you of big mergers and acquisitions, blast furnaces and molten metal. 'Hot metal' they call it. But is steel really 'hot' when it comes to construction and architecture?

It is to dispel this very notion that Tata Structura took up the initiative. It's a significant step towards providing a common platform for architects, designers, manufacturers and fabricators to join hands in creating high strength, high tolerance structures that are not only aesthetically appealing, but easy to build in lesser time.

"Steel hollow sections (SHS) is not something new," Ashish Anupam, chief (marketing and sales), Tubes SBU, Tata Steel, told ET. "It has always been around. We are trying to generate an awareness about its virtues that help creating structures, which can not only put India emphatically on the global architectural map, but take it beyond."

"Earlier, even if an architect designed a structure with steel as its constructional component, he seldom saw his vision realised due to dearth of material, or lack of proper fabrication skills. We hope to bridge that gap, and encourage increased use of steel in construction," he added.

A travelling exhibition of the 12 shortlisted designs started its journey from Kolkata on Sunday, with scheduled stops at Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai, where the finalist will be announced at the AEC Expo on August 15, 2007. The winning design will be installed and presented to the nation on September 27. The panel of 17 jury members comprises sculptors, artists, industrialists and academicians, including Jatin Das, Romi Khosla, Harshvardhan Neotia.

On display were the designs drawing inspiration from subjects as varied as Mahatma Gandhi's spinning wheel to a Tagore-inspired flock of kites representing minds without fear to the 'Kalpvriksha', which served as another inspiration depicting global oneness, a binding thread of societal oneness.