In August of 2018, the flood of a century swept the South Indian state of Kerala. Very little was natural about this natural disaster; its cause was heavy rainfall due to local and global anthropogenic effects and the opening of 35 big dams. What powers these gigantic infrastructures are not only chimeric notions of technological progress and domination over the landscape, but also mythic storylines embedded in local culture. This project studies the dam as an architectural object at the confluence of mythology and technology as mythic stories have been a tool to legitimize their construction, despite the ecological impact, displacement of millions and intensification of flooding. To tease out critical tensions surrounding the dams and to retrieve possibilities of agency, this speculative near-future narrative stages through hyperreal evidence the projection of Kerala’s present condition and current exploitation of resources to address the critical issues of its landscapes and their long-term consequences.
Because a rich corpus of myths writes the history of Kerala, Indic myths are used as a storytelling tool. The myth of Purasha’s sacrifice, a giant body from whose parts emerges the universe explains that there is no separation between humans and nature if all originate from the same cosmic entity. This eco-theological response loses ground to the influx of market economy into India with the commodification of nature. The underlying narrative of all myths was that man has a karmic duty to sustain the cosmic order, and when disturbed the gods intervene as incarnations. Now in the age of the Anthropocene, who sustains the moral and cosmic order? Will there only be chaos?
The Dam as Temple
The government must disabuse the notion of “water bombs” and return the dam to a positive light in the public eye that still painfully remembers the role the dam played in the 2018 floods. India’s first prime minister Nehru said that “dams are the modern temple of India” referencing a time when gigantic infrastructural works were symbols of progress and modernity and beloved by all. If Kerala’s new dams capitalized on the temple identity and were sanctified with a shrine then they would be holy and therefore irremovable, protecting the investment from the anti-dam movement and divinely protecting the dam from ever breaching. Now a holy place sanctified by mythic story and association, the dam becomes a religious place of pilgrimage as a site of encounter with the divine. Engineers and temple architects collaborated to design this new typology in the hills. They reoriented the dams according to ancient temple principles of two core elements: the sanctum sanctorum and the pyramidal vimana roof structure. They reconfigured the architectural and programmatic parts of a hydroelectric dam to resemble a temple. As is tradition for temples to house all treasure and gold within the sanctum sanctorum, the most valuable currency in Kerala is energy, and so below the sanctum sanctorum lay the dam powerhouse.
The Dam as Bulwark
From climate projections and the predictions of notable shamans, global rainfall was predicted to reach an all-time high, and people feared the next big flood. As climate mania heightened to overwhelming public insecurity, the Kerala government and land-owning stakeholders made protective measures to safeguard their habitats. They sought to protect the myth of God’s Own Country such that paradise must be walled, so important localities like government assemblies, airports, wealthy temples, major banks were the selected buildings to be sheltered by bulwarks. The wall appears as a continuous bulwark enclosing the chosen building but functioned as a dam where it intersected the river by moving water through the walls in a system of engineered siphons. The respective dam of each enclosure powered the city artifacts within, and the electricity produced was distributed to the rest of the city grid through power transmission lines on vimana towers. As in the past, the builder of the dam was revered for saving the inhabitants within and the builder now belongs to the local pantheon of gods. Thus far the anthropogenic effects of the dam construction included sand mining, deforestation, soil- instability, water desalination, destruction of habitats but the dam had yet to ever directly impact the cities or urban fabrics before.
The Dam Underwater
The once in 500-year flood event occurred just before 2100 CE and sea levels had risen by 6 feet. Because of the smaller flood events that had been occurring every monsoon for the previous eighty years, civilians had time to prepare and perfect their responses when the mythic deluge arrived. Unnaturalness was then Kerala’s conceivable future as architects designed artificial islands to manifest the origin myth of a generated landform. A cutter dredger and a large platoon with the waste concrete of the sunken city deposited a 12m thick layer of the material within a fortified cofferdam seawall in the miniature outline of Kerala. After the flood, an exodus of climate refugees left the coastal plain in constructed fish boats, borrowed from the ancient practice of houseboats but scaled up to hold entire villages and powered entirely by solar panels with a floating forest among the fleet. The wealthy landowning caste have long since abandoned the state leaving the poorest locals to adapt to the flooded regions. They built parasitic vernacular housing above the dam-as-bulwark walls that now form islands in the Arabian Sea. As years passed, it seemed less likely that the floodwaters would recede so dredged earth material was packed against the sides of the walls to create agricultural lands. The cultural tie to the water’s edge was regenerated and bathing ghats were formed with steps down to the water. The underwater marvel that is the rest of Kerala became an international tourist destination, cashing in on the sobriquet of being the Atlantis of India.
After the Floods
2021, Kerala, India