Kumbh Mela (Mapping The Ephemeral Megacity)

Book Specification

Book Description

About the Book

Kumbh Mela is the largest religious celebration on earth and the biggest public gathering in the world. The resulting settlement is a virtual mega city! The Kumbh Mela deploys its own roads, pontoon bridges as well as tents serving as residences and venues for spiritual meetings, and social infrastructure such as hospitals, sanitation outlets and vaccination clinics-all replicating the functions of an actual city. The pop-up settlement seamlessly serves upto seven million people, who gather for 55 days, and an additional flux of [0 to 20 million people, who come for za-hour cycles on the six main bathing dates. In 2013, a team from Harvard University, representing faculty from multiple disciplines, researched the large-scale event from its preparation to the actual celebration itself. This was the first systematic study on the Mela as a City: a planned entity, and covers issues of social inclusion, diversity, and even democracy that emerge under the framework of a neutralizing grid of roads that is the organizing armature of the city. This subdivision of the city forms clusters of freedom and facilitates space for individual and group expression. The volume presents the comprehensive research findings and includes city maps, aerial images, analytical drawings and photographs of this spectacular Ephemeral Mega City for the Kumbh Mela.

About the Author

Rahul Mehrotra is a practising architect and educator. He works in Mumbai and teaches at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, where he is Professor of Urban Design and Planning, and Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design as well as a member of the steering committee of Harvard’s South Asia Initiative. His practice, RMA Architects (www.Rlvlaarchitects.com), founded in 1990, has executed a range of projects across India. Mehrotra has written, co-authored and edited a vast repertoire of books on Mumbai, its urban history, its historic buildings, public spaces and planning processes.

Preamble

he Kumbh Mela is a Hindu religious fair that occurs every twelve years at the confluence of the Ganga and Yamuna rivers on the plains of northern India. Since its inception, early in the first millennium CE, the Kumbh Mela has become the largest public gathering in the world. Today, it draws tens of millions of pilgrims over the course of a few weeks. The most recent observance of the festival took place from January 14 to March 10, 2013 in Allahabad, with an estimated attendance of seventy million people. Due to its size and complexity, Kumbh Mela inspired interdisciplinary research in a number of complementary fields at Harvard University, including business, technology and communications, urban studies and design, religious and cultural studies, and public health.

On the broad sandy flats left by the receding rivers after the rainy season, a temporary city is built for the Kumbh Mela. This “pop-up megacity” houses the Kumbh Mela’s many short-term pilgrims as well as the Hindu faithful and working personnel who stay for the duration of the festival. The city is laid out on a grid, which is constructed and deconstructed within a matter of weeks. Creating a huge encampment of tents entailing multiple aspects of contemporary urbanism: city planning and management, engineering and spatial zoning, land allocation, an electricity grid, water lines and sanitation systems, food and water distribution plans, hospitals and vaccination centers. police and fire stations, and public gathering spaces for entertainment. The public health challenges and opportunities of the Kumbh Mela are enormous. Pollution abatement is necessary to keep the water quality of the Ganga and Yamuna within acceptable limits for bathing. Sanitation systems must be put in place with enough hired workers to provide waste removal. There are also sites for mass vaccination campai