Matrimandir – a hymn to the builders of the future

Dominique first came to Pondicherry in 1970, with her friend Klara Siritzky. “Klara was a hatha yoga instructor and was aware of the teaching of Sri Aurobindo,” she says. “We were both interested in spirituality, and in 1968 we attended a conference on Auroville at the Trocadéro in Paris, where we met Roger Anger and many other architects, the physicist Gabriel Monod-Herzen, and various Ashramites. We came to know about the Sri Aurobindo Association, and a week later we joined Roger Anger. We became friends. We subscribed to the Bulletin of Physical Education of the Ashram and went on to follow the work of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

“When we arrived in the Ashram in December 1970, we were told that we were just in time to participate in the Ashram’s Christmas celebrations. There, Mother’s grand-daughter Purna Prema introduced us to The Mother. Afterwards, we were allowed to meet Her a few times more. The second time was the most interesting as Purna Prema insisted that I show Mother the book Japon des Réalités, a photo book about Japan that I had once published together with writer Marcel Giuglaris. I assumed that Mother would not be interested in books of devotees. But I was mistaken. She leafed through the book carefully, often smiled when she saw a scene that was familiar, and laughed when she saw a photo of getas, the Japanese wooden slippers. We also brought her some laminated photos of Sri Aurobindo and Herself. In those days, photo lamination had just taken off in France. She was immensely pleased to see them, particularly the photos of Sri Aurobindo. What went on inwardly between Her and me is something I cannot explain.

“We have been coming back to Pondicherry and Auroville regularly. In 1971, Pranab allowed me access to a terrace opposite the balcony to make a photo of The Mother giving balcony darshan. I made another photo of Her in 1973, during Her last birthday darshan. This photo I took from down below in the street, as I had fallen out of favour with Pranab for having become interested in Auroville. For, increasingly, we were drawn to Auroville.

“So we would come to Auroville every year, and my friendship with Roger intensified. I was with him when he was making Last School. The experience was fascinating. For example, there was this one curved wall, and he wasn’t happy with the shape. He took a handful of mud, and was directly sculpting it on the wall to show what he wanted.

“But I was not the only photographer in Auroville. Yesterday Paulette showed me some beautiful photos from the early days I have never seen, and asked if they were mine. They weren’t and (laughing) I must admit, some were better than mine!

“Over the years, Matrimandir became my main interest and the focus for my lens. I must have been shooting thousands of photos of its construction. The book Matrimandir – a hymn to the builders of the future shows a drastic selection of these photos, taken from 1972 to 2008. They, of course, only give an aspect of such a rich development.

“The book has been decades in the making. There were many people involved, and we went through numerous trials and errors. At some point in time I thought we had something nice and we went to Roger to show it to him. ‘This is absolutely awful,’ he replied. We were crushed. The help came only two years ago, when a Spanish artist and a German volunteer in Auroville, who was a professional graphic designer, got involved. With their help, the book finally got completed.”

Matrimandir – a hymn to the builders of the future has twelve sections, each opening with a quotation from Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri and having an introductory text in French and English. There are wonderful photos of the excavation, showing how the local population started contributing to the building of the Matrimandir; there are photos of the slowly emerging sphere; close-ups of its anchoring and the scaffoldings; photos of people and concretings; photos of gold leaf fixing – the first failed attempt – and the making of the gold-in-glass sandwiches; and there are rarely seen photos of the amphitheatre and the Peace area.

The book launch is scheduled for December 20 at the Art Center of Les Citadines in Auroville. These pages of Auroville Today carry some of these photographs as selected by Dominique. For those who love Matrimandir, this book is an absolute must – documenting the birth, as Dominique writes, “of the symbol of the realisation of the future, where spiritual and material extremes meet generating a power of action and the birth of a new energy for the transitional human beings we are, according to the teachings of Sri Aurobindo.”