Why Chennai’s Victoria Public Hall deserves to be restored

Poor Victorian Community Hall. The path to its restoration and eventual use appears to be under fire. The latest in the saga of its preservation and rededication as a city center is the sudden barrage of bad press it has received in the last few days. Do we need so much (₹40 crore) to be spent on this building? The question came to the fore. As State Assembly elections approach, such questions have the potential to create unrest. But there cannot be two answers. The town hall deserves this restoration. There are certain symbols that need to be protected and this is one of them.

The irony here is that VP Hall is among the government’s few heritage restoration projects that envisage a revenue model. This is more than can be said about its predecessors. The first significant restoration, the University Senate Building, in which I was involved as a fly on the wall, cost £11bn, much of it crowdfunded. This was in 2007 and you can adjust the cost based on today’s values. Nothing came of this exercise other than giving exam papers a well-kept home. The Senate House was not put to the promised use.

Then there is Chepauk Palace. Estimates vary but if the cost of all the wings and the tower are added you get more than 50 crores. And all to house the National Green Tribunal, to which an independence museum has also been added.

Compared to these, VP Hall has a much more solid revenue model. They talk about a museum on the ground floor (not an original idea at all), but the first floor is planned to be reserved for events. If this is to be professionally managed and not subject to political pulls or outdated socialist pricing ideas, there is no reason why VP Hall shouldn’t generate revenue. The secret, of course, lies in professional management; This location needs to be transferred by contract or at least given to a Board of Trust with a general manager with revenue targets. A coffee shop and souvenir shop may also be included. And the museum itself will need to have changing exhibits if it wants to make a splash. All of these ideas seem to be available right now. It is not yet known how the application will be.

multiply costs

It is unclear what caused the company to call the current activity at VP Hall ‘minor restoration’ work. The building is actually being completely renovated. The entire project has suffered huge delays, starting with the lawsuits, the Metro Rail excavations, and then the current restoration. As a result of all this, costs have increased exponentially.

There’s a larger lesson: Much of the cost at the Senate House, Chepauk Palace and Vice President’s Hall comes from years of neglect. If these buildings were in regular use, there would be much less damage to repair, and routine maintenance alone would cost a fraction of the cost of such an extensive restoration. The government has repeatedly made this mistake in the past; It closed historic buildings and one day either demolished them or embarked on expensive renovations. Fortunately, the incidence of the former has decreased. However, considering the latter, it is similar to mending an old fabric; Rent fixed at one end often leads to a tear at the other, and the process swallows up money. Regular use of the VP Lounge is also important for the future.

(Sriram V. is an author and historian.)