A bamboo music centre on the IIT Madras campus

At IIT Madras in Chennai, Ekarth Studio has completed the Maestro Ilaiyaraaja Centre for Music Learning and Research as a cluster of bamboo pavilions for teaching, rehearsing and study. Dedicated to the composer Shri Ilaiyaraaja, the building is used by student musicians, engineers and mathematicians, mostly for music-related research. The idea was to make an institutional building from natural materials, with bamboo doing the structural work rather than appearing as a decorative extra.

That decision shapes the whole place. The pavilions are based on the three-lobed Bel Patra leaf, which the studio links to sound and movement, and the result is a series of sweeping canopies that create both sheltered rooms and open edges. At the centre is an 80-seat auditorium with nine-metre-high arches and a 15-metre column-free span. Around it are two 20-seat classrooms, a 50-seat classroom, a recording studio, offices and toilets, all finished with exposed bamboo, lime-based surfaces, earth and natural-fibre roof tiles.

Ekarth Studio says bamboo made the complex geometry possible within a tight programme, and that the project was completed in 11 months by artisans using splitting, bending, bundling and joining techniques refined with structural engineering. It is worth reading as a serious case for bamboo at a larger scale, especially if you like buildings where the material does the talking.

Our summary of a story from Dezeen, published 7 October 2026. Read the original

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