Bengaluru T2’s tropical aesthetic is out of place – a bit like the ‘Garden City’ moniker
· Scroll
Bengaluru Airport’s newly renovated, much-discussed Terminal-2 features lush landscaping that draws on the city’s heritage as a “garden city” to brand itself the “terminal in a garden”.
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The ambitious plans for the green spaces developed by the UK- and Singapore-based landscape architecture firm Grant Associates make nature ubiquitous in the experience of the airport.
Nature is everywhere.
There are plants suspended from bell-shaped scaffolds to massive green walls that snake their way through the airport. There are double-height foyers and vestibules through which palms and skinny trees perforate the built-space. There is an impressive two-storeyed waterfall that provides a panoramic background to the baggage-claim belts.
This is not only landscape design, say the executive designers, Landscape Accord. This is choreography.
The impact is almost that of visiting a museum and seeing dioramas behind glass cases: an endless parade of carefully curated vistas that not only delight, but impress and inform.
The average passer-by may not give the dramatic spectacles of nature any importance above aesthetic appreciation, but as architect Balkrishna Doshi said, “I talk to nature, and nature talks back to me.” The nature that designers create and curate also talks back to users, and reinforces narratives and ideas of what nature and beauty are.
However, in the case of Bengaluru airport, those...