studio apaaar Builds a Raw Concrete Museum of Humanity Around a Split Tower in Tulapur, India

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This article covers topics related to Cultural Architecture, Installations. In Tulapur near Pune, a 181 m² concrete pavilion borrows from cremation-ground ritual to stage light, water and introspection.

In Tulapur near Pune, a 181 m² concrete pavilion borrows from cremation-ground ritual to stage light, water and introspection.

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UNI Editorial published Blog under Cultural Architecture, Installations on Oct 11, 2026

The Museum of Humanity is not a museum in the usual sense. Nothing hangs on its walls, and there is no collection to catalogue. Completed in 2023 in Tulapur, in Maharashtra's Pune district, the 181 m² pavilion by studio apaaar, led by architects Santosh Sadashiv Pisal and Kundan Namdeo Kshirsagar, exhibits a state of mind instead. Its stated subject is human emotion: vulnerability, resilience and the slow work of recovery. The architects frame it partly through a personal story about love and the inferiority complex it left behind.

What makes the project worth your attention is how literally it turns that inner subject into building. The plan is strictly symmetrical, a central nave flanked by two wings. Water runs through the site, and a split concrete tower rises over the middle. The reference point is the Smashan Bhoomi, the Indian cremation ground, and the cycle of birth, decline and rebirth it represents. That is a heavy idea to load onto a building smaller than many suburban houses. We think the project mostly carries it, because it relies on light, water and the human body rather than on symbols bolted onto the walls.

A Symmetrical Pavilion with a Split Spine

Front elevation of a low concrete pavilion with open timber shutters and a central concrete tower, framed by overhanging tree branches in hazy light

Symmetrical concrete pavilion with split central tower and open timber doors, seen at dusk under a pink sky with a bird overhead

Two angled concrete slabs separated by a thin gap, rising against a sky of scattered evening clouds

From the front, the building reads almost like a village shrine or a farm shed: low, pitched and grounded under overhanging trees. The tower breaks that modesty. It is cleaved down the middle into two angled slabs with a thin gap between them. At dusk the gap becomes the building's defining line, a vertical cut that pulls your eye from the threshold up to the sky.

The symmetry is deliberate and, according to the architects, symbolic. It represents the physical, emotional and spiritual dimensions of life, and it is said to echo the chakras of the body. You do not need to accept the metaphysics to see what it does spatially. It sets up a single axis of approach and makes the centre the place where something happens.

Timber Shutters as the Building's Skin

Corner of the concrete pavilion with pivoting timber shutters propped open and a figure seated inside, dappled tree shade on the lawn side

A brown horse with a red halter standing between open timber shutters beside a shallow rippling pool, with green trees beyond in late light

Two herders with goats and a resting dog on a polished concrete floor in front of timber doors in daylight

The raw concrete shell would feel bunker-like without its timber shutters. Pivoting and lifting panels line the perimeter, and when they are propped open the walls effectively disappear. The interior becomes a shaded porch that spills onto the lawn and the water's edge.

The photographs make a quiet but telling point: a horse standing between open shutters, herders resting with goats and a dog on the polished floor. Whether these images are staged or not, they suggest a building meant to stay porous to its rural surroundings rather than seal itself off as a precious object. That openness is the most humane decision in the project.

Interiors of Concrete and Filtered Light

Interior of rough concrete rooms with a pitched ceiling slit of daylight and tall timber shutters open to sunlit floors

Enfilade of concrete rooms seen through a square opening framed by open timber shutters, with soft light on the polished floor

Concrete room with a coffered ceiling, a square window onto a shaded courtyard and a lifted timber shutter letting in afternoon sun

Inside, the language is what the architects call essential and primitive: rough board-marked walls, a polished floor and very little else. Rooms line up in an enfilade, so square openings frame the next room and the one after it. A slit in the pitched ceiling drops a thin blade of daylight across the floor.

The two wings carry different programmes and themes. The right holds work and prayer spaces tied to spirituality. The left holds rest areas and a kitchen tied to nourishment and regeneration. That pairing of prayer with cooking and sleeping is the most grounded idea here. It treats spiritual life as something that sits next to eating and resting, not above them.

Skylights and the Roof as a Fifth Facade

Top-down view of the concrete roof with triangular skylights, a circular pool and rooftop basins, seen with palm shadows at the edges

Concrete roofline with two small gabled dormers and a split angular volume rising above timber doors under a pale hazy sky

Rooftop at dusk with a circular skylight rimmed in stone, a crouching figure on the parapet and a lit slot in the concrete wall

Seen from above, the roof is as composed as any elevation. Triangular skylights, a circular pool and rooftop basins sit on the concrete plane, and small gabled dormers punctuate the roofline. A large central skylight lights the nave, while the smaller openings feed daylight into the side rooms.

The roof also seems to be occupiable, or at least visited, judging by a figure crouched on the parapet at dusk beside a stone-rimmed circular opening. For a building this small, treating the roof as a second ground plane gives the plan room to grow.

Water, Purification and the Sacred River

Concrete wall with a recessed niche where water falls over a person's bare feet, with palms and a pitched roof edge in hazy air

Dark timber shutters above a shallow reflecting pool, with a strip of green plants glowing in the window at night

Narrow concrete passage framing a seated figure beside a round pool, with a leafy tree beyond and a reflecting water channel below

Waterways cross the site, and the architects tie them to India's sacred rivers, to purification and to the reincarnation of the ātman, the soul. The most direct expression is a recessed niche where water falls over a visitor's bare feet. It is a small, tactile gesture that does more than any inscription could.

Elsewhere, shallow reflecting pools sit beneath the timber shutters and along narrow passages, doubling the facade and steadying the light. At night a strip of planting glows above the water. The pools turn the building's edges into thresholds you have to slow down for.

A Building Measured by the Body

Interior of the concrete room with a round oculus overhead, pivoting timber doors and a figure doing a handstand in the far alcove

Corridor lined with timber panels, where a circular skylight casts a spread-armed figure's shadow onto the polished floor in low light

Recessed concrete niche with a reclining figure, a carved ceiling above and scattered small lamps glowing on the floor at night

Nearly every interior photograph includes a body doing something: a handstand under the oculus, arms spread in a pool of skylight, a figure reclining in a niche surrounded by small lamps. It could read as art direction, and partly it is. But it also clarifies the brief. These are rooms for yoga, prayer, rest and contemplation, and they only make sense when occupied.

The circular oculus works as a sundial for the body. Its disc of light moves across the floor through the day and gives a visitor something to align with. That is a precise use of a very old device.

The Tower After Dark

Twin concrete walls split by a glowing slot and flame, above a circular pool with a bather at purple dusk

Looking up through a curved concrete opening at the split tower, its glowing amber interior lit against the night sky

At night the split tower becomes a lantern. A flame burns in the slot between the twin walls above a circular pool, and seen from below through a curved opening, the tower's interior glows amber against the sky. This is where the cremation-ground reference comes through most clearly. Fire, water and an open cut to the sky are arranged on a single axis.

It is theatrical, and the architects clearly intend it to be. Because the gesture is concentrated in one place and the rest of the building stays plain, the drama feels earned rather than spread thin.

Plans and Drawings

Ground floor plan drawing showing two mirrored wings flanking a central passage, with two circular forms and a gate at the bottom

Section A-A drawing showing two pitched-roof wings either side of a central passage, with a standing human figure and the split tower above

Section B-B drawing cutting through the central tower, with a triangular opening above a long low roof slab and rooms below

Section C-C drawing showing a low building with projecting roof slabs, a raised central volume and rectangular openings in the walls

Section drawing of a low flat-roofed building with two skylit side rooms and a central void, a black human silhouette standing for scale

The ground floor plan shows how disciplined the scheme is. Two mirrored wings flank a central passage, with two circular forms and a gate at the base of the axis. The sections explain the vertical story. Section A-A shows the pitched wings on either side of the passage with the split tower above. Section B-B cuts through the tower and its triangular opening over a long, low roof slab.

The remaining sections show projecting roof slabs and skylit side rooms around a central void, with human silhouettes giving scale. Read together, they confirm what the photographs suggest. Almost all the architectural ambition is in the section, in how light and sky are let down into a low, compact plan.

Why This Project Matters

Plenty of contemporary architecture claims to be about wellbeing or introspection and then delivers a generic spa interior. The Museum of Humanity is more specific. It draws on a particular Indian ritual landscape, the cremation ground and the sacred river, and turns it into a small set of physical experiences: feet under falling water, a body in a disc of light, a flame in a split wall. You can disagree with the chakra symbolism and still recognise that the spatial moves are clear and well executed.

It also shows how much a modest budget of materials can do. The palette is raw concrete, timber shutters, water and daylight, and the building stays open enough to let horses and herders wander in. Its open questions concern how it weathers and how it is actually used once the photographers leave. As a statement of intent from a young practice working outside India's big cities, though, it makes a strong case for architecture built around emotion and ritual.

Museum of Humanity by studio apaaar (architects Santosh Sadashiv Pisal and Kundan Namdeo Kshirsagar), Tulapur, Pune district, India. Area: 181 m². Completed: 2023. Photography: Pranit Bora and Onil Shah.

About the Studio

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