Latest posts
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An Auroville Brochure From 1973
Here is a small pull-out Auroville brochure from 1973 titled “Towards Auroville”, with a nice selection of quotes from The Mother and Sri Aurobindo.
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Panoramic Views from and of the Matrimandir Construction Site
Just a few panoramas from and of the Matrimandir during construction.
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Matrimandir Construction Photos from the 1980s and early-1990s
After the post with photos of Matrimandir construction from the 1970s, here are a few interesting photos from the 1980s and early 1990s.
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Matrimandir Construction Photos From the 1970s
While working on the post showcasing one photo from every year of Matrimandir’s construction, we of course came across many more than one engaging photo from some of the years. So in this post we’re putting up some more interesting photos from the 1970s! Some of these photos have appeared in previous posts, but we’re…
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Matrimandir Construction Photos 1971-2008
This post will be an ongoing mini-project, in which we collect one photo from each year of the Matrimandir’s construction. The Matrimandir took 36 years to complete. Excavation of the pit began in 1971, construction began in 1972, and the structure was finally completed in 2008. We have not yet identified photos for each year,…
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Huts at Fraternity
While looking at photos of old keet huts for the past few posts, we found some evocative photos from 1972 of a pyramidal hut located at Fraternity, and some nearby huts. In the last photo we can see cultivated lands around the Auroville lands. Enjoy!
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Aspiration View
Here in Auroville we frequently hear tell the memory revisited of being able to see the sea from Aspiration in decades past. Since the past few posts have been on the topic of Aspiration, we thought we’d post this image below, in which are visible the sea on the horizon, and a few aspiration huts…
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A Hut at Hope
As we at the Archives were posting about pakka buildings at Aspiration and the Aspiration huts from the late-1960s and early-1970s, we were reminded by Anupama Kundoo that an earlier prototype of these huts was designed and built by Roger Anger and his team at Hope, before the Aspiration huts started to be built. So…
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Photos of Aspiration Huts by Indra Poddar
Before and immediately after Auroville’s inauguration ceremony in February 1968, people coming to live in Auroville were staying at locations such as Forecomers, Promesse, Hope and Nursery Pumphouse. From 1969 onwards, huts started to be constructed at Aspiration, which soon became the largest community in Auroville. Here the well known (world famous in Auroville) huts…
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Then/Now – Health Center
A couple of weeks ago we had posted about pakka buildings constructed in the Aspiration area in the early 1970s. Among these were a couple of photos of the Health Center building: We went back to the Health Center to see what the building looks like today. The original building is still intact and in…
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Then/Now – Aspiration Bridge and Handmade Paper Factory
Another pakka building that came up in the Aspiration area in the early 1970s was the Handmade Paper Factory building. Here is a construction photo of the bridge over the Aspiration “canyon” (which should properly be labelled a gully) with the factory behind it from January 1972. The next photo is of the bridge as…
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Photos by Indra Poddar of Pakka Aspiration Buildings
Continuing with the theme of Indra Poddar’s photos from early Auroville days, here are a few of his photos of pakka (permanent) buildings from the Aspiration area. These photos, some of buildings under construction and some of buildings just finished, were taken in the early 1970s. Aspiration was the first large community in Auroville, and…
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Bharat Nivas Construction in the 1970s
A few photos by Indra Poddar of Bharat Nivas under construction from the 1970s. Some of these photos nicely capture the landscape around the campus at the time! Photos from 1972 Photos from sometime between 1972 and 1977 Photos from 1977
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The Amphitheater Remodelling in 1973
This week we’re continuing to showcase photos taken by Indra Poddar in the early years of Auroville. The Amphitheater in the Matrimandir gardens was originally designed for the inauguration ceremony of Auroville in February 1968, when earth from (almost) all the countries of the world and all the states of India was poured into the…
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Photos of Matrimandir Construction from 1972
The Archives has digital copies of quite a few photos taken by Indra Poddar in the early years of Auroville. Here are a few construction photos of the Matrimandir from May 1972. These images belong to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram collection. Taken on 24th May 1972 Taken on 30th May 1972
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1931 Map of Auroville Area
The Auroville Archives recently received a large number of large drawings from the office and storage of L’avenir d’Auroville, also known as Auroville Town Development Council, which is the working group tasked with manifesting the township of Auroville. Among these drawings was a tracing of a 1931 map of the area around Pondicherry, which shows…
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1977 & 1978 Auroville Birthday Bonfire Photos
Auroville’s birthday (inauguration day) just went by on February 28th, and the Archives received a query asking when the first bonfire at the Amphitheater took place. We’re still finding out the answer, but we found a photo attributed to Feb 28 1976. However the photo is really dark, so instead of showing that photo here,…
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Auroville Charter
On February 28, 1968, the Auroville Charter was broadcast live at Auroville’s inauguration ceremony, read out first in French by The Mother from her room in the Ashram at Pondicherry. It was then read out in other languages by various people present at the inauguration. The Charter was prepared and written in the weeks before…
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The Urn
The Urn at the Amphitheater was a central feature of Auroville’s inauguration ceremony. Into it was poured soil from most of the countries of the world, as well as each state of India. It still stands today at the center of the Amphitheater. The Urn was designed by Charles Gianferrari, a designer who collaborated often…
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Delegates and Placards at the Inauguration
As we approach the anniversary of Auroville’s inauguration ceremony on February 28th, we will put up a couple more posts of photos from the ceremony. This week’s focus is on the placards that were used during the ceremony, with names of the various participating countries and Indian states on them, and the delegates holding these…
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Cultural Pavilions Brochure
This brochure from 1974 is quite different from the ones published before it, in that it focuses on a specific aspect of the future township. The city area of Auroville is divided into four zones: Residential, Cultural, Industrial and International, apart from the Peace Area at its heart. In the International Zone are to be…
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“Connaissance d’Auroville” Brochure
This brochure in French, titled “Connaissance d’Auroville” (literally “Awareness of Auroville”), was published in 1970 in France, to promote Auroville there. Though it contains information that is similar to the brochures that were being published in Pondicherry at the time, this one was published in somewhat higher quality, and the layout and design are quite…
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An Early Brochure with The Mother’s Signature
This week we return to our look at early Auroville brochures. This brochure is from 1970, and is about both the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and Auroville. The interesting thing about it is that the cover has The Mother’s signature and blessings.
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Galaxy Plan at the Inauguration Ceremony
The Galaxy Plan for Auroville was ready just a few weeks before the 28th February 1968 inauguration ceremony. The iconic model of the Galaxy was shown to and approved by The Mother. At the inauguration, the Galaxy model and some photos of it were displayed to showcase the design of the city that was to…
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The Exhibition Under The Banyan Tree
The event at the Amphitheater included the pouring of soil from many countries of the world as well as from Indian states, and the reading out of the Auroville Charter in various languages. After this, the other important part of Auroville’s inauguration ceremony was the exhibition installed under the Banyan Tree. We have seen Paolo…
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Crowds and Panoramas at the Inauguration Ceremony
Panoramic shots and photos of crowds from the inauguration ceremony. Panoramas: Crowds at the Amphitheater: Crowds at the Banyan tree:
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Transportation to the Inauguration Ceremony
Simply photos of transportation to the inauguration ceremony!
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Constructing the Inauguration
For the inauguration ceremony, the Amphitheater had to be dug out, the mound for the Urn built, and the temporary stands constructed. The Amphitheater was designed by Roger Anger’s team, and supervision of the construction work was assigned by The Mother to an Italian named Nata. Under the Banyan, the exhibition needed to be laid…
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Plans and Sketches for the Inauguration
Planning for the inauguration included construction of the Amphitheater which would house and surround the Urn, as well as designing the exhibition at the Banyan tree. Roger Anger’s team drew maps to show the route from Pondicherry to the site of the inauguration, and the layout and positioning of activities and locations at the site.…
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Invitations to the Inauguration
Before Auroville’s inauguration ceremony on 28th February 1968, invitation cards were sent out. A couple of days before the event, it seems that the Auroville Post Office was also inaugurated. On the day of the opening of the post office, 26th February 1968, the first of the two postcards below (affixed with a stamp portraying…
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Auroville’s Inauguration Ceremony
This weekly dose kicks off a series of weekly dose posts on the photos of Auroville’s inauguration ceremony. Many people reading this will already be familiar with photos of the inauguration, which took place on February 28, 1968. Two books that came out in connection with Auroville’s 50th anniversary celebrations in 2018 have published many…
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1969 (?) Brochure With Galaxy Plan
By the time the year 1969 ended, many different brochures about Auroville had been printed. The one below (if it indeed is from 1969), is one of the first brochures to include an image of the Galaxy Plan. The Galaxy Plan was shown to the public during the inauguration ceremony of Auroville on 28th February…
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The Very First “News & Notes”
Aurovilians and visitors alike rely on the weekly News & Notes newsletter to keep up-to-date with events and news regarding Auroville. The very first News & Notes (then called “Auroville Notes”) was published way back in December 1975, and was all of 2 typewritten-pages long. This started the long and continuing saga of Auroville’s in-house…
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Inauguration Brochure
We continue with our look at early Auroville brochures. After 1966’s “Nebula” brochure and 1967’s “Macrostructure” brochure, in April 1968, a few weeks after Auroville’s inauguration ceremony, the brochure below was published, announcing the inauguration and enshrining some of the iconic photos from the event!
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4 Photos of Matrimandir Under Construction
Four photos of Matrimandir under construction, from different years.
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Auroville’s second brochure, featuring the “Megastructure Plan”
After showcasing Auroville’s first brochure in the weekly dose a couple of weeks ago, we now present Auroville’s second brochure, published a year later in 1967! The first brochure featured the Nebula Plan, and this second one features the Megastructure Plan. In this way, these early brochures, which were published and distributed even before the…
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Origin of the Galaxy Plan’s Crown and Circulation Network
Since the topic of the Crown is very much in focus in Auroville these days, we thought we’d explore the origins of the Crown as an urban design element in the Galaxy Plan. This exploration necessarily also includes the overall circulation network of the Galaxy Plan that the Crown is a part of. What is…
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“Announcing the Formation of Auro Films”!
This week’s dose of history is a one-page tidbit from a brochure on Auroville from 1970 (probably). The last page of the brochure was an announcement for the formation of “A Film and Television Wing of Auroville” named Auro Films. The contents and formatting of the announcement are really interesting, reminiscent of the theatricality of…
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Then/Now – Irumbai Road
Auroville Archives has a treasure trove of photographs from decades past, and one of the many things we can do with them is compare what the landscape of Auroville looked like when a photo was taken and what the same spot looks like now. So we are starting a series called Then/Now, which juxtaposes an…
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Auroville’s first brochure, featuring the “Nebula Plan”
The idea to establish Auroville started to coalesce around end-1964/beginning-1965, and the Mother asked prominent French architect Roger Anger to design the township for her in March 1965. While the famous model of the Galaxy Plan was ready by Auroville’s inauguration day on February 28th 1968 and displayed to the public during the ceremony, there…
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The First Ever Building Application Processed by the ATDC
We are starting a “weekly dose” series of posts, in which each week we showcase an item from the digital archives. This week’s document is a fresh entry into the digital archives. In collaboration with the Auroville Town Development Council (ATDC aka L’avenir d’Auroville), the Archives is currently scanning all the Aurovilian building applications that…
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Beginnings
Welcome to the Auroville Archives website! This is our first post, and we begin this journey with a quote from the Mother that she wrote for the inauguration of Auroville on the 28th of February, 1968. Greetings from Auroville to all men of goodwill. Are invited to Auroville all those who thirst for progress and…
Auroville Archives 