BIHAR MUSEUM

Fumihiko Maki once said his goal was not to make his buildings beautiful-but to delight their users; to get people, and ideas, circulating through a space; to start conversations and inspire thoughts.

- Adarsh Soni

As the Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect passed away earlier this year at the age of 95, we look again at his gift to India: The Bihar Museum that was designed collaboratively by Maki and Associates and _Opolis Architects between 2011 and 2012. In this tribute to Maki-san, as he is lovingly referred to, we look back at their partnership and re-live the events that led to the conception of the Bihar Museum.

Sonal Sancheti met Fumihiko Maki in 1997. "I was a student, doing my final year research thesis on traditional Japanese architecture and its influences on contemporary architects in Japan," she says. This academic pursuit led to an important first meeting with Maki. Things picked up in 2001 when Rahul Gore, the other half of _Opolis, won the Bunka-cho scholarship, and moved to Japan for a year.

"We wrote to Maki-san, as he was fondly known, asked if he would give me a job, and he agreed," says Gore. A year later, Gore and Sancheti returned to India and established their firm. In 2011, It was during this period that they came across a competition to design the Bihar Museum, announced by the state government. The competition was open to all architects, but there was a condition: only those who had designed a museum before could apply. "Being a young firm, we had never done a museum. But we thought, since we had worked with Maki-san, why not ask him to collaborate with us? Sancheti adds. To their surprise, Maki agreed, marking the beginning of a special partnership that would last for several years.