The Second World War forced the Jews to migrate from Germany and one among them was Otto Koenigsberger. The emigrant soon landed in India and found a job as an architect. Under the influence of Max Born, a renowned physicist, he rose to the position of chief architect and planner of the Mysore kingdom. He was the co-founder of India’s first architecture and design periodical, Marg. 

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In 1942, he raised a structure in the Aerospace Engineering Department which became the country’s first closed-circuit wind tunnel. He gave the walls a pastel tone, built a classic entrance with wide wooden doors leading towards the tunnel and a striking wing-shaped structure that slopes over the main entrance which accentuates its vintage charm interwoven with a traditional touch.

This evident passage of time captured in a Kodak moment does not however bear witness to the subsequent deterioration of the building that should have ensued way into its 75th year of existence. The massive well-designed windows that adorn a substantial part of the right wall of the building is quite regal and they are a fusion between double-hung windows and broader jalousie windows (a style of the mid-20th century).

The style of architecture that he employed in this building can only be described as austere with traditional structures like chajjas (overhangs) and jallis (grills). Koenigsberger baffled scientists and architects alike, that when he created the nation’s first and largest wind tunnel with no prior experience or knowledge about the functioning of a wind tunnel.

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