Spiritual hub in India provides a source of wisdom and inspiration

Everyone at last year’s inauguration of Sri Aurobindo Integral Life Centre (SAIL Centre) was moved by the design presentation by its architect Mona Doctor-Pingel. The founder and principal of Studio Naqshbandi in Auroville talked about her 13-year design journey with the project that led her to design a space that mirrored her way of being.

The SAIL Centre, spanning over 1ha in Surat, a city in west India, is a global spiritual hub for the study, research and dissemination of the principles and vision of spiritual visionaries Sri Aurobindo Ghosh and the Mother. Their significant contributions include the elevation of yoga as a life art and the prominent international town of Auroville in south India. The centre is nestled within the 47ha campus of Earthspace, a mixed-use development initiated in 2011 by Shri HP Rama, an illustrious Indian hotelier residing in the US and a disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

Earthspace comprises the AURO University and upcoming recreation, hospitality, commercial and residential facilities. The new centre is its soul, intended as a source of wisdom, inspiration, contemplation and introspection, fostering inner consciousness development. Its programme coordinator, Nimesh Joshi, a professor at AURO University, explains: ‘Being the only university globally that offers integral education of the gurus, the campus caters to all aspects of life, from health and spirituality to science and consciousness.’

The centre’s design brief to Doctor-Pingel in 2010 was simple yet broad: to create a space compelling visitors to delve within themselves. After five site changes and programme modifications, construction began in 2019. Doctor-Pingel significantly developed the brief, reflecting the wisdom she gained from three decades spent in Auroville, where she heads her award-winning boutique architecture firm.

‘I am steady and grounded in my pursuit of perfection, but I take things slow and give them time to grow,’ she remarks. ‘I am keen on letting people discover my work and me.’

The design of the centre is a testament to this philosophy. Etched peacefully on the land without calling for any attention, it integrates the five elements of nature through a design stimulating the senses with intense narratives, simple materiality, nuanced expressions, and details.

A long entrance bridge is an intriguing precursor to this gratifying world. It offers moments of design triumph, embracing the transition into this realm while wading through surrounding water bodies and rugged landscapes. The senses are activated by the illusion of the floating centre, by the bridge’s unusual 90-degree turn disrupting its linearity, and by the building’s understated massing, scale and proportion with its elongated front wall and mysterious voids.

‘Much like Aurobindo’s yoga, which must be discovered, the centre’s layered spatial explorations beckon visitors to explore it,’ says Doctor-Pingel. The world inside demonstrates an apt case study in phenomenology. It communicates through its evocative silence, a continual dialogue with nature through courtyards, a perennial bio pond with indigenous plants and fishes, and a synergy of brick, concrete and glass. These elements address the city’s harsh weather, resulting in a 4–5°C temperature drop.

At one end are the educational and discourse zones: an orientation room depicting the centre’s concept; a Satsanga space for spiritual discourses; and a library-cum-exhibition on the first floor. The other end embodies interactive and silent zones: a Zen Garden for quiet conversations; an inward-looking meditation landscaped court with four petal-shaped chambers; a Sensorium Court (Doctor-Pingel’s innovative alternative to a proposed garden) with an acupressure walking path; and Dhyanshala, a collective meditation hall in a glass enclosure.  

Doctor-Pingel’s expertise in soul-searching architecture, treading lightly on the earth via sustainable practices and cohesive integration of the builtscape and landscape, is on display here. Rainwater-harvesting lakes address the low-lying site. The zen garden has gentle interventions of handcrafted brass lamps, an art gallery and calligraphy; and dramatic ones of the balanced black and yellow bamboo shoots appearing as ‘brush strokes in a painting’, as Doctor-Pingel puts it. Thoughtfully positioned ledges and steps leading to the water’s edge become informal interaction zones. Joshi informs me of the no-refreshment policy in the Zen Garden, intended to prevent it being considered a cafeteria.

The meditation chambers are modelled on the four attributes of the Mother: Maheshwari (wisdom), Mahakali (power), Mahalakshmi (harmony), and Mahasaraswati (perfection). Each of these follows colour codes and orientations explained in the teachings of Sri Aurobindo. The colour codes are intuitively implemented in the dark chambers through strip lighting around a layered filigree stainless-steel installation, which reflects the patterns on the floor.

The cathartic Dhyanshala is accessed through a bridge reminiscent of the entrance bridge, metaphorically gravitating visitors towards a deeper zone. Its pavilion design is strategically visible from vantage viewpoints, suspended on a perennial bio-pond amid nature. It is a remarkable physical expression of being afloat and connecting to one’s higher self. As the culmination of the centre’s spiritual journey, its serene white palette with a central gold and marble piece, symbolic of the Mother, with a man-made crystal in a water body, generates a profound realisation of the power of silence.

The petal chambers, the Dhyanshala crystal and the golden discs at the reception and the meditation court will strike a sense of familiarity for those who have visited Auroville’s famed spiritual centre, Matrimandir. The concrete, exposed brickwork and flowing spaces evoke the architectural expressions of Ahmedabad and Chandigarh.

Though Doctor-Pingel says her persistent guiding lights are her alma mater CEPT University  and the legendary BV Doshi, for the SAIL Centre she derived inspiration from Matrimandir. While other influences may not have been planned, an architect's memory subconsciously manifests in their design expressions. She reflects: ‘The centre’s front wall with its play of light could be subconsciously influenced by Peter Zumthor’s Kolumba Museum in Germany, which I admire.’

The hypnotic ambience is enhanced by a soundscape created by gushing water and whistling bamboo, the Sensorium Court’s musical instruments, and the music from The Mother in Dhyanshala. It helps that visitors must leave behind their footwear, bags and phones at the entrance before drifting into this spiritual world. ‘Every time I come here, my experience is different. Such is the power of the space,’ says Joshi, a passionate follower of Sri Aurobindo.  

Regardless of being on a campus with buildings designed by several noted architects, the low-key SAIL Centre holds on to its own. The clients may not have consciously sought an Aurovillian architect for the centre, but Doctor-Pingel's Aurovillian spirit of purity, honesty, peace and harmony is deeply imbued in the centre’s spirit through spatial expressions, sustainable practices, crafts, furniture, plants and design details.

‘Manifesting this design and winning the clients' complete trust has been a privilege,’ she says. ‘In 2010, I was building in Auroville and Pondicherry and had not attempted a project of this scale outside. This centre became a stepping stone for my studio.’

Doctor-Pingel’s malleability with the variable programme over its eight years of incubation merits appreciation. She swiftly incorporated design modifications as responses to the scrapping of underground meditation petals, two apartment spaces in the Sensorium Court, and the client's residence and office on the first floor, accessed through a lift and ramp. The retained ramp opening to the terrace could still be contested.

Though open to all visitors, the centre's location in a university is pivotal. It urges the younger generation to connect to their inward journey, be mindful of their being, and contribute to humanity. ‘There are plenty of Aurobindo Centres globally’, says Doctor-Pingel, ‘but the scale or the intention integral to the existence of this centre is unprecedented.’

Discussion of this centre must go beyond its vision and design. Besides being a design space that invites exploration, such spaces of integrity also offer their architect the opportunity to discover their journey in architecture and what they desire to provide and receive through their architecture. Doctor-Pingel attributes her perseverance through 13 years on a project of this intensity to an inner calling. ‘I sailed through it,’ she says. ‘Something within me always guides me, and being a flowing person, I allow myself to be guided.’ I wonder whether she is referring to herself or the project. At that moment, the project has become her, and she has become the project.

When architecture discovers a world for and within you – the architect or the visitor – there is little left to articulate the field’s superpower. SAIL Centre’s design is a befitting homage to this superpower.

Apurva Bose Dutta is an author, award-winning architectural journalist, curator, and editor from India.

In numbers

Build area: 2,835m²