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Sector 18 · landmark

Tagore Theatre

Two concrete squares twisted to overlap, with the stage built at the crossing.

Where it sits in the city
This room’s memory is still to be written. Any owner memory of a show or evening at the Tagore Theatre.

Then & now

Then
Designed 1960-62, opened 1962 for Rabindranath Tagore’s birth centenary.
Who
Aditya Prakash, of Le Corbusier’s Capital Project team.
Before
Built new as the city’s main auditorium.

The OG move

The original ~600-seat hall set two square concrete volumes overlapping at the corner, the stage at the overlap, with acoustics worked out alongside the actors Prithviraj Kapoor and Zul Vellani.

A fact that reframes it

Later the interior was demolished and rebuilt while the outer shell was kept, so it looks unchanged; the stage and audience were reversed and the architect, still alive, was not consulted. His foundation says Aditya Prakash “died a heart-broken man.”

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Sources (2)
  1. Aditya Prakash, opened 1962 for Tagore’s centenary; two overlapping square volumes, stage at the overlap
    chdca.gov.in/tagore-theatre; cca.qc.ca (Aditya Prakash fonds)
  2. Interior demolished and rebuilt (shell kept), stage/audience reversed, architect not consulted
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagore_Theatre; Aditya Prakash Foundation