Week 1

The first week introduced us to the brief for this Unit: Who In The World. For this brief we were meant to re imagine and redesign the setting on our interpretation of Shakespeare’s Othello. The only previous experience I had with his work was in high school when I learned the Merchant of Venice and The Tempest. Since Othello was new to me I decided to read it as a viewer then study the play. The Context for this brief meant we had to have clear research and planning prepared for the Time Period, Race, Historical and Political Setting, Gender and Geographical Settings, with the reading needed to be done I had to collect relevant visual references as research mood boards that conveyed the tone, architectural detailing and story arc in accordance to my version of Othello.

image taken from project brief

I worked on building my idea during the first week and explored the concept of it being adapted in ancient India, since that is culturally personal to my heritage and ethnicity, I felt this was a story I could tell and have been wanting the opportunity to, for a long time.

Galti Ji Temple

The main location I looked at since I was very drawn to the culture there upon my visit a year ago was Jaipur a city in Rajasthan, India. ‘Raj’ in hindi translated to ‘king’ which meant the entire state held royalty and left behind structures from centuries ago that held a lot of historical importance. I had read about the Galti Ji Temple and discovered it was an ancient structure by the water on a hill that felt close to the settings mentioned in Othello.

While researching the time period and location I was reading about Othello to understand the main themes of the play, since that would determine where I take my ideas. In the play the central themes were quite dark and foreboding in nature as they were- jealousy, hatred, anger, lust and revenge which eventually lead to the murders of nearly the entire main body of characters. Which meant it was a tragedy above all and needed to be approached with that element in mind.

Adalaj Stepwell

The other location I looked at was not in fact in the city of Jaipur but in Ghandinagar, Gujrat. The location is known as the ‘Adalaj Stepwell’ and is a 14th century massive historical stepwell built in memory of his queen by the king, Rana Veer Singh. I found the architecture striking and the shape of the structure perfectly symmetrical with intricate detailing that was preserved very well for how old it was. The main element that drew me in was the fact it was a stepwell and held water at its depth that looked rather foreboding and disturbing if viewed from higher above on the stepwell. It gave me an idea of re imagining the themes of the sea in Othello, being at first a body they sail through between Venice and Cyprus but then it grows malignant and turns into a device to describe Othello’s rage much like the high tide at sea.

Amer Fort

The third location I looked at was the Amber Fort near Jaipur. This was a really interesting find since the play in Othello unfolds within the confines of the palace in Cyprus and this was a large fort built on a hill above the Maota lake. The history of this location dated back to 16th century during the period of the Mughal dynasty that was one of the most powerful empires in India, ruling for centuries and held extensive archives from their generation of rulers.

'Ganesh Pol' entrance to the Amer Fort

The entrance to the fort was beautiful and decorative since the main feature of the Mughal period were their larger than life entrances that were a combination of Turkish, Persian and Iranian styles brought to India. ‘Arabesque’ was the name for the intricate floral and geometrical patterns key to every iconic structure at that time.

portrait of Raja Man Singh

The historical context of this fort was that it was built during the rule of ‘Raja Man Singh’ and the palace was built over a period of two centuries. As an important general in the army, I found his background similar to Othello and made me relate his character to him, for a person in power who held a history of conquests and violence. The rich history of this palace itself holds significant treachery and loss.

I found this third location held the most scope because of its scale and multiple rooms within it that held the potential to be used in the redesign for the interior build and exterior location adaption the most and went with this as my choice.