The Man Behind the Largest Convention Center in India Delhi-based Sanjay Singh who is the director of Arcop Associates has been the architect for the IECC complex. The Project was conceptualized in association with Aedas Singapore. Sanjay Singh got associated with the project in 2016.
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On July 26, 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated INR 2700 crore International Exhibitioncum- Convention Centre (IECC) complex along with the redeveloped India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO) complex, to host the G20 Leaders' Summit in September at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi.
The IECC complex has been renamed Bharat Mandapam. PM Modi unveiled the name of the new complex through a drone in the presence of Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and other ministers.
During the inaugural ceremony, the PM said that the "world is accepting that India is the mother of democracy", and the world will witness the rising stature of India when the newly built Bharat Mandapam will host the G20 summit.
Modi also asserted that India will become the third-largest economy in the world with a faster growth rate than now. He then slammed people with negative thinking "for trying to stall" development projects in the country.
The redesigned IECC complex has a campus area of around 123 acres and was created as a national project for a cost of INR 2700 crore.
Delhi-based Sanjay Singh who is the director of Arcop Associates has been the architect for the project. The Project was conceptualized in association with Aedas Singapore. Sanjay Singh got associated with the project in 2016. Talking about the complexities of the project, he says, 'With this kind of a public project there are huge complexities with respect to, management of crowd and footfall. The biggest challenge was managing the footfalls. Not only do you have to ensure that it could be done seamlessly with respect to the periphery of the project premises, but also how do you sort of engage them within inside the complex and the public spaces, the movement spaces, all these were important issues. So this is what was the logistical side of it. If I talk about the conceptual side of it, we were sitting right next to Lutyens' Delhi. Sitting a stone's throw from India Gate, this is a project which was the most high-profile project, before the Parliament came in. And you had the aspirations of a modern India, which is sort of ready to go for convention facilities and hosting the G20 for the first time."
Talking about different interpretations of the space created, he says, "On the G20 pre-function wall, you'll sort of witness installation, which is a fusion of Madhubani art, which has been done in a three-dimensional way, infused with the marble inlay stonework of Agra and the brass works. So we just sort of brought that together and gave it a new meaning instead of just taking it and putting it on the walls."
