Introduction : Modern Architecture and Indian Tradition

MODERN ARCHITECTURE AND INDIAN TRADITION

The history and criticism of modern architecture continue to reflect a Western bias, so vast areas of the developing world remain uncharted. When a more balanced version is eventually written, India will deserve a special place in it. A body of work has now been produced there which deals with rapid change yet touches roots in tradition. What began 30 years ago as a tributary of the modern movement has since become a stream with its own momentum: one more case, perhaps, of the absorption of foreign influences by deep Indian currents.1

Balkrishna Doshi has been a key person in this development from the beginning. Born in 1927, he belongs to that generation which came of age just after Independence, and which was confronted with the massive tasks of constructing a new nation. Nehru’s vision of an industrial future combining liberal democracy and technological progress was conducive to modern architecture. But freedom from colonial rule also provided a chance to reflect upon the meaning of the country’s past. The imaginative task for many Indian artists has been to find the right balance between old and new. Architects in particular have been drawn to Gandhi’s notion of the village as a repository of basic values. Doshi has tried to define a mutually useful and enriching balance between industrial town and rural base.

Doshi’s architecture embodies a vision of man in harmony with the natural order. It is an ideal which combines the reformist ethos of the modern movement with a far more ancient spiritual tradition. Beyond climatic design, Doshi explores the mythical and poetic dimensions of nature — the flow of breeze and water, the contrast of light and shade, the relationship between ground and sky. At a time of drastic urbanisation and deracination, he returns to the wisdom of the vernacular, with its timeless solutions for dealing with social space, climate, materials and human scale.

India has no room for the effete revivalism that afflicts the consumer societies of the West. Change is too pressing to admit nostalgia, and tradition is too vital to permit academicism. Rituals, crafts, clothing, even the way people carry water or use space, reflect long-standing patterns. India is a place of contrasts: between rich and poor, urban and rural, secular and religious. The artist grapples with these and draws a strong poetry from them.

Doshi sees no distinction between architecture and urbanism. The individual house is a hypothesis for a better kind of city; room, terrace, court, street and communal space are all related. Doshi’s researches have defined a set of types for the dwelling covering a wide range from industrial townships, to the socalled “informal sector” — a euphemism for squatter settlements. The architect is committed to visual quality at all social levels. He does not reduce human needs to the merely utilitarian but rather sees them in cultural terms. According to him, the architect must give symbolic shape to institutions as it is these that provide social life with coherence and continuity. Even a humble tap on a corner becomes an “institution” of a kind.2

Sangath, the architect’s studio, Ahmedabad, 1979-81 Doshi, sketch section through Sangath

FORMATIVE YEARS: LE CORBUSIER

To understand Doshi’s interpretation of evolving conditions over the past decades it is necessary to go back to his beginnings.3 He was born in Pune in 1927. His family had been in the furniture business for two generations. The Doshis were religious: the architect has retained a commitment to his Hindu inheritance. Some of his earliest memories are of visits to the villages of Maharashtra with their bustling streets, alleyways and courtyards. At secondary school he began to draw and paint, revealing a talent for colour and proportion. His art teacher at Fergusson College in Pune encouraged him to think about architecture, and in 1947 he enrolled at the Sir J.J. College of Architecture in Bombay. This school had previously enjoyed the stimulus of Claude Batley who had urged an arts and crafts synthesis of East and West. By the time Doshi arrived these ideas were faint: the historical diet did not extend much beyond the Western bias

Group portrait of Le Corbusier’s atelier at 35, Rue de Sèvres, Paris, taken in July, 1952, Doshi in the centre, Le Corbusier to the right.

of Banister Fletcher. Of traditional Indian architecture or of the modern movement, Doshi knew virtually nothing.

In 1951, Doshi decided to leave behind a stagnant situation and took ship from Bombay to London where he stayed with friends. Every day he trekked to the library of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) where he studied on his own and began to grasp the implications of the modern architectural revolution that had so changed everything in Europe 25 years before. Doshi also attended evening courses at the North London Polytechnic, his aim being to sit for the RIBA Diploma. About this time he began to keep a diary in which he recorded his impressions and reflections. It is clear from this that he was looking for a guiding truth and failing to find it.

Then Doshi heard of a Congress which was due to take place in Hoddesdon (CIAM — the Congrès Internationale de 1’ Architecture Moderne) and which promised to raise interesting issues. The shy Indian turned up to find that everyone was asking him about “Chandigarh”, a new city apparently being planned in the Punjab by Le Corbusier. Doshi met two South Americans from Le Corbusier’s atelier and eventually the master himself, asking immediately if he could have a job. A positive answer came back within a week and Doshi crossed the Channel without knowing a word of French. He found cheap lodgings in the Cité Universitaire, not far from Le Corbusier’s Pavillon Suisse, and embarked upon an apprenticeship that would be unpaid for the first eight months. Doshi survived on a diet of bread and olives.

The atelier at 35, Rue de Sèvres became Doshi’s “university” for the next 4 years. It was in the disused corridor of a convent and was about 30 metres long and 4 metres wide. Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier, Chandigarh, view from Parliament towards High Court Le Corbusier, sketches of Indian village, 1953 worked in a cubicle at one end and all the assistants had trestle-tables that were somehow squeezed in. People came from many parts of the globe and Doshi found that this broadened his perspective. He also struck up an amicable relationship with the “old man” who set him to work on the section of the High Court for Chandigarh. Later on he would also work on the Governor’s Palace and on the buildings for Ahmedabad, especially the Shodhan House and Millowners’ Building. Doshi was thus exposed to the rigour of an architectural language adjusted to the climate of India, and was forced to reflect upon Le Corbusier’s Olympian ideals of town planning — the “essential joys” of space, light and greenery; the vision of a new order reconciling industrialisation and nature; the unity of architecture, urbanism and the plastic arts.4

Doshi’s contact with Le Corbusier happened to coincide with an extremely fertile period during which the latter designed Ronchamp, La Tourette and the Jaoul Houses as well as the Indian buildings in Chandigarh and Ahmedabad. Le Corbusier used rough concrete and brick in these works, infusing them with a tactile sense of space and a magical light. His Indian and religious buildings combined cosmic and archaic themes while his domestic designs were (as one observer put it) “on the knife-edge of peasantism.”5 In retrospect Doshi has recalled how Le Corbusier opened his mind to a vision of modern urbanism, an experimental attitude to materials, and a philosophy of design that was nourished by primal statements from the past. He also remembers Le Corbusier’s Indian sketchbooks which were brimming with drawings of verandahs, vernacular buildings and rural life. The Chandigarh buildings combined grandeur and roughness, spatial drama and a feeling for natural forces like wind, rain and sun. While modern they also embodied a sense of the ancient.6 Doshi used his spare time to read, visit museums and travel. He spent long hours in cafes debating all manner of subjects with his friends and recording his reactions in his diary. Although overawed by Le Corbusier’s phenomenal inventiveness and wide range, he nonetheless questioned some of the assumptions of the Master, especially those to do with housing. Doshi took a great interest in painting and travelled to Italy where he examined the artists of the Quattrocento; he also sketched plazas and buildings. At times his thoughts wandered back to Asia. He read Tagore and Coomaraswamy, especially the latter’s Transformation of Nature into Art, and was intrigued by the notion that abstraction might heighten spiritual content. He also reflected upon the need for a new Indian architecture that would somehow address the needs of the poor and deal with the sun. On receiving a letter from his old Colombian friend German Samper who had

returned to Bogota, and was working there on low-cost housing, Doshi wrote in 1954:

“It seems that I should take an oath and remember it for my life-time : to provide the lowest class with the proper dwelling.”7

PRACTICE IN AHMEDABAD

In 1955 Doshi returned to India to help supervise Le Corbusier’s constructions there. After a spell in Chandigarh he moved to Ahmedabad, the textile town in the Western part of the country (Gujarat) and the place that was to become his home. He now confronted the messy reality of the Indian building site where scaffolding was made of bamboo, and materials were carried in baskets or buckets on people’s heads. He saw ideas that had grown on the drawing-boards in Paris rising out of the ground. The Sarabhai House made a particularly strong impression with its cool vaulted spaces, its deep turf roof, its brick piers and concrete beams. A restrained shelter linked to a tropical garden through shaded loggias, the Sarabhai House was a retreat for a wealthy widow; nonetheless it contained housing ideas that could be transferred to all social levels.

In 1956 Doshi married Kamala Parikh, a girl from Ahmedabad, and set up his own practice in the city. He gained from the momentum of Le Corbusier’s projects and from direct contact with clients such as the Sarabhais and the Lalbhais. These were interconnected families of considerable wealth who had made their fortunes from textile mills and who wished to transform the “Manchester of India” into a city of culture. The majority were Jains and had a long tradition of philanthropy behind them. Ahmedabad itself had a splendid heritage well represented in the mosques, stepped-wells and merchants’ houses (havelis) dotted around the area. The old town was to the east of the Sabarmati River, but much of the new construction was to the west. Ahmedabad had played a role in the freedom movement — Gandhi had centred his activities there — and some members of the same elite that had supported him now wished to devote their energies to the foundation of museums, educational institutes and laboratories. It was a good moment for an architect starting out, and Doshi soon had plenty to do.8

Among his earliest independent designs was the project for scientific laboratories at the University of Gujarat constructed in 1959. The form was a direct expression of structure, services and attached shading panels in concrete. However the

Le Corbusier, Sarabhai House, Ahmedabad, 1953-55 (left) Doshi, sketches of peons’ housing for Chandigarh done when he was still with the atelier, 1953 Doshi, PRL housing, Ahmedabad, 1957-60, site plan Doshi, Scientific Laboratories, University of Gujarat, Ahmedabad, 1959

PRL housing seen from south-west (right)

utilitarian was elevated to an aesthetic level through a coherent rhythm, a controlled pattern of light and shadow. The accentuation of extract towers and the expression of “served” and “serving” spaces loosely resembled the Richards Medical Laboratories of 1957 by Louis Kahn, but Doshi did not know about these at the time.

In the same period he was invited by Kasturbhai Lalbhai to design low-cost housing for ATIRA (Ahmedabad Textile Industry’s Research Association) and for the PRL (Physical Research Laboratory). In both, Doshi used low brick vaults on parallel brick walls, a system that could be constructed by unskilled labour. The looping sequence of vaulted forms in the latter scheme recalls Le Corbusier’s projects for peons’ housing at Chandigarh9 (on which Doshi had worked in the atelier) as well as certain early studies for the Sarabhai House; there are even echoes of the Maison Monol project of 1919. But Doshi succeeded in “re-thinking” these prototypes in a way which incorporated the scale and spatial gradations of a village. Each unit has its own rear court that can serve as a sleeping terrace on hot nights, and small vertical slots assure a flow of air while still maintaining privacy. A gap between wall and vault lets in a crack of light that spreads a glow in the interior when glare is unbearable outside. Precinct walls, hedges and trees complement the low scale

Doshi, Institute of Indology, Ahmedabad, 1957-62, north façade (left)

Le Corbusier, Shodhan House, Ahmedabad, 1951-54, detail of ‘parasol’ roof and sunbreakers Palace at Sarkhej near Ahmedabad, late 15th century of the structures and make for sociable squares between the rows. The PRL is a demonstration that architectural richness is not expensive, and that standardisation does not have to mean monotony.

SEARCH FOR REGIONAL EXPRESSION

The design for the Institute of Indology in Ahmedabad of 1957-62 crossbred Le Corbusier’s principle of the “parasol” (viz. the Shodhan House or the Ahmedabad Museum) with the image of a monumental verandah. The building is a centre for scholarship, housing rare manuscripts that are often consulted by Jain monks. There was no question of using mechanical ventilation for the delicate documents so Doshi placed the collection half underground and lit it by natural means through slots around the edges. The roof over this area was insulated by a tank of water which in turn provided a calm, still surface for the scholar in a contemplative mood. The building has the character of a shrine; the approach is dignified; a bridge crosses the moat and enters off axis — the preamble to a circumambulation which gives access to offices as well as a chance to look at some fine antique sculpture. The overhanging top floor contains seminar rooms while the verandah cuts down the glare and also provides an airy transition around the perimeter. The building is constructed of bare concrete with Kota stone floors, marble inlays and dark stained wood for railings and doors. Beams, stanchions, slabs, mullions and trellises are handled in a way that recalls traditional timber architecture and are regulated according to Le Corbusier’s proportional system, the Modulor. In 1958, Doshi had received a Graham Foundation grant which he had used to visit U.S.A, Europe and Japan. He visited Japan again in 1960 and certainly knew of contemporary Japanese attempts at translating wooden trabeation into a new grammer for concrete, such as Kenzo Tange’s Kurashiki Town Hall. To judge from his travel notes Doshi also consulted the sources themselves:

“Farm houses, shrines, temples + palaces .... Ise shrine shows all the character of Japan — proportions of various elements, harmony, counterpoint. What can an architect do without a sense of proportion and values?”10 Equally the deep-cut ledges and gashes of shadow in the Institute of Indology have to be understood in relation to specifically Gujarati prototypes with their high relief of mouldings, beams, balconies and screens.11 In local temples, mosques, palaces and stepped-wells, trabeation is handled in a direct, even forceful, way which translates easily into the terminology of the modern concrete frame. The late 1950s witnessed the final dissolution of the International Style and a search on the part of many architects for a more substantial and more robust vocabulary. It was around this time that the message of Le Corbusier’s late works began to be absorbed around the world. Doshi kept in touch with recent developments in Europe, America and Japan and during his rare trips abroad made contact with Kenzo Tange, Eero Saarinen, Buckminster Fuller, Jorn Utzon and Louis Kahn. The demise of the International Style was not an issue of central importance to Doshi as he had never been under its influence and at this time he was more preoccupied with general architectural questions such as how best to achieve universality in modern forms but without losing regional character. He wrote of the need to transcend mere function and structure and to touch the spirit through proportion, light, space and form.12 Doshi immersed himself in Hindu philosophy and asked himself if it might be possible “to discover the genius of our country” concluding that three ideas summed it all up: “tradition, continuity, modern

application.” In an essay on “Regionality” (delivered in Japan in 1960) he bemoaned the “rootless expression of mere industrial functionalism” adding that the antidote must lie in a correct reading of region, including climate, geography, social habits and patterns of building.13 Doshi had no choice but to go on transforming Le Corbusier’s lessons, but he now had a better idea how to read his local context.

These reflections coincided with the design of a house for himself and his family on a site in Ellisbridge, a western suburb of Ahmedabad. The Doshi house was a tentative regionalist hypothesis for the hot climate of northern India; it was also a miniature laboratory in which the architect tried out various ideas and devices that might be used in low to medium-cost housing. It is square in plan, restrained in volume and each façade has an axial emphasis which is carried through to the heart of the plan where slots of structure intersect. The walls are rough brick with cavity walls between piers. Attached shading panels are of bare concrete and they hover slightly in front of the façade plane. The quadrants of the plan are used for flexible rooms, the slots between for permanent features like the kitchen, corridors or stairs. One enters the site through a gate and the route is then guided onto a plinth. An overhanging balcony in the north façade signals the front door.14 The ground floor opens out into a continuous dining/living area the entire breadth of the building. A large wooden door (with subsidiary apertures containing insect screens) can be swung open to extend the public area still further over a verandah into a garden at the rear. The stairs and mezzanine landing are also part of the space. Upstairs rooms extend into small alcoves at the end of each axis, and these are useful as studies; they also form nooks which afford glimpses of trees. The interlocking of large and small spaces horizontally and vertically lends life to

Doshi, own house, section Doshi, own house, Ahmedabad, 1959-62, view across garden from south-west

Doshi house, plan 1. Entrance 2. Living 3. Dining 4. Kitchen 5. Music alcove 6. Master bedroom 7. Children’s bedroom 8. Toilet-bath 9. Verandah 10. Garden 11. Kitchen yard the cubic forms, the more so as the promenade architecturale is guided by changing vistas and points of focus. Light filters in off the inside of the concrete baffles, casting a restful glow over textured ceilings and walls.

Doshi had promised himself never to imitate Le Corbusier’s brises-soleil (literally ‘sun-breakers’) directly, and the shading panels on his own house are really abstractions of Gujarati jharokhas — balconies fitted out with ledges, screens and alcoves that project from the façades of wooden houses or stone temples. Layers of protection (both psychological and climatic) are gradually peeled away, and energies focus on the centre: the plan is reminiscent of a symmetrical shrine and seems to answer a question posed in the diary a decade before:

“Why do we need buildings? Do they not have to provide something more than just shelter? .... A house cannot be just a barracks without a soul... In a house there is a man’s family as there is God in the temple..15

ABSORBING KAHN’S PHILOSOPHY

In 1962 Doshi arranged for Louis Kahn to come to Ahmedabad to design the new Indian Institute of Management (IIM) under the patronage of Vikram Sarabhai. This collaboration with Kahn deepened into a friendship that had a great impact on Doshi’s philosophy and vocabulary. Kahn’s mature works used light, geometry, construction and an intense abstraction to touch a timeless dimension. With each new task he tried to penetrate the fundamental human meaning of the institution and to give this an appropriate spatial order. The site for IIM was at Vastrapur to the west of the city on a flat piece of land. Kahn grouped the buildings

close together and angled them to catch the prevailing wind which comes from the south-west for most of the year. Bold brick forms were gashed with round openings, and concrete relieving beams allowed a façade language of shallow arches over loggias. Kahn distinguished dormitories from teaching zones by contrasts of diagonal and rectangular geometry, and linked the functions together with a network of streets allowing vistas through sequences of light and shade. He seemed to think of this particular institution as a “citadel of learning” replete with bastions, ramps and huge cylindrical stairtowers. It is quite possible that he was influenced by Mughal prototypes such as the Fort in Agra. The emblematic squares, diamonds and circles, the distinctions between fringe and central spaces, predisposed Kahn towards Islamic prototypes.16

Doshi, School of Architecture and Planning, Ahmedabad, 1966-68, view from north-west

Louis I. Kahn, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, 1962-70, (bottom left)

Shaded undercrofts on south side of School

Teaching studio with north lights Louis Kahn and Le Corbusier were the two main mentors whose lessons Doshi struggled to synthesise in a way that would deal with Indian conditions. One of the key buildings in this search was the School of Architecture and Planning (the first stage of the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology) designed in 1967. Again the site was on the western fringe of Ahmedabad (about a kilometre from IIM) where hot dusty winds might roll in from the not too distant desert, but in this case there were trees, slight dips in the land, and a few old brick kilns to one side. The studios needed north light and it made sense to exclude the hot afternoon sun by presenting blank walls to the west. If openings were cut deeply enough they could catch the south-west wind without letting in glare. Combined with the configuration of the site, these demands virtually

implied a building as a series of north/south slots. Doshi decided to interpret “school” to mean an open place in which “the class-room sense must be all over, outside as well as inside the building” and in which there should be “no restriction to the exchange of ideas.”17 He also wished the public to wander in, and it was this sense of invitation that led him towards a solution of interlocking terraces that would draw the ground under, then up into the building through a sequence of shaded porticos linking inside to outside.

The stepped section helps air flow through the interiors from one side to the other. Seen from the north-west, the low cascade of terraces rhymes with grassy hummocks. Underneath there is a solid townscape of brick floors, benches and steps that can be used for lectures and discussions. One

ambles through to a well-scaled precinct on the other side, and a stair then winds its way back into the studios which are of varying height. Finishes are rugged and durable; rough bricks, concrete beams and gutters evoke factories or mills. Planar walls (recalling Kahn) come into active collaboration with a section of sliding slabs that derives in the long run from Le Corbusier. But the result is a studied reinterpretation not a pastiche. The idea for Doshi’s school was born in the early 1960s, when the intellectual climate of Ahmedabad encouraged the planning and growth of a number of educational institutions, among them the National Institute of Design, formulated by Gautam Sarabhai in 1961 (with some stimulus from Charles and Ray Eames). The School of Architecture was supported by Kasturbhai Lalbhai and the Ahmedabad Education Society. For the curriculum there were few Indian precedents to draw upon. Initially a mixture was put together that included “basic design” (the Bauhaus idea), climatic and technology studies, and studio projects. Intensive building activity in the town stimulated the school: Dr. Rasvihari Vakil and Sukumar Parikh, engineers, and Hasmukh Patel and Anant Raje, architects from Ahmedabad contributed their point of view. There were also foreigners like Bernard Kohn and Christopher Alexander. In the late 1960s the school began to attract students and faculty from many parts of India and even to play a role at the Asian scale. The outlook broadened to include planning and many visual aspects of Indian culture. Students were encouraged to think of design in a wide context, with studies of the vernacular at one extreme and of international developments at the other. Doshi’s own office functioned as a training ground and many young Indians came to carry out their apprenticeship there. Some, like Suryakant Bhavsar and Suresh Shah, stayed on to become essential members of a team overseeing the realisation of ideas.

TOWNSHIPS AND HOUSING

Early in the 1960s the Government of India decided on a policy of regional industrialisation. New factories and townships were to go next to villages or on the outskirts of existing towns. High quality housing would be needed to attract white-collar people. It was also hoped that new settlements might stimulate tired rural economies. Doshi worked out a set of basic principles to deal with these situations. Prefabrication and local craft were to be combined. A limited set of types would be designed and then laid out along shaded streets. There should be a gradual hierarchy from the private dwelling to the outside world, going by degrees from steps and ledges to the small street or square and then to communal places for schools, markets, theatres. Indigenous structures were to be studied for suitable lessons. Individual units were to maximise cross-ventilation while overall layouts were to minimise the harsh effects of sun and allow the flow of prevailing winds down alleyways and

Terraces and courts in the traditional Indian city Doshi, Township for Gujarat State Fertilisers, Baroda, 1964-69

streets. Pedestrians, cars and natural features were to be combined in ways that did not conflict with each other. A lot of this was common sense: a critique of free-standing housing blocks with their arid and unusable surrounding space. In the township for Gujarat State Fertilisers Corporation outside Baroda (1964-69) Doshi used courtyards behind some units and between others. Balconies, terraces and steps were also treated as usable extensions of the houses. Brick was employed for alleyway floors as well as for walls and this lent unity to the scheme. In places, streets were bridged, giving access to upper flats or sleeping terraces; but the cantilevered landings also created transitional territories and framed views. At the heart of the scheme was an open space dominated by the water-tower which in turn stood above a theatre. A Western planning approach derived from Le Corbusier, Garnier’s Cité Industrielle and even from the Garden City tradition was cross-bred with layouts derived from Indian villages and towns. Doshi hinted at the sources of local inspiration: “Through study of existing buildings from hutments to mansions, from a workman’s house to a market-place, one sees the technical insight of the old in keeping buildings cool, getting cross-ventilation, providing direct and indirect natural light and protection from the sun, the rain, the dust... One understands the subtle significance of the porches, verandahs, staircases, open spaces, balconies, terraces, etc.,... Seen in their depth, they show the relations of classes and communities, their mutual actions and reactions. In short, the whole web of life.18 Similar principles were employed in the township for the Electronics Corporation of India (1968-71) at Hyderabad which was organised along a central spine bringing traffic in from the perimeter road. Smaller arteries were zig-zagged to define territory

between houses and to filter the approach. A limited set of units was worked out for different income levels but Doshi refused to allow rigid segregation. The pattern of the whole was like the plan of a village — though some of the geometrical devices also suggested the influence of “Team Ten”. Doshi attended two meetings of this international group in the late 1960s and found some interests in common, especially with Aldo Van Eyck’s notion of “thresholds” and with Gian Carlo de Carlo’s abstractions of the piazzas and streets of Italian hill-towns. At the centre of his Hyderabad scheme, Doshi sculpted platforms, valleys and steps to link together public places: markets, a school and a theatre. With their bold cubic forms in local stone, gashed by light and shade, and their massive external staircases and flat roofs, the Hyderabad dwellings made a robust modern equivalent of a traditional desert settlement.

In India most people build their own shelters out of whatever materials are at hand. The majority still live in villages and when the rural base is in a healthy economic state, the long established patterns of the vernacular can be followed using mud, stone, brick or wood. But when there is no work, or crops fail, peasants flock to cities to eke out a precarious living at the bottom end of the money economy. Prohibitive land costs and lack of space make illegal squatting the only feasible solution. Large cities such as Bombay and Calcutta have expanded beyond control and are liable to go on doing so. Millions live in a state of privation, filth and insecurity just to earn a trickle of rupees.

The problem is an imbalance between country and city and the individual architect can do little to help. But Doshi and his colleagues have avoided the temptation of retreating into an ivory tower. They have emphasised the need for small regional

Doshi, Township for Electronics Corporation of India, Hyderabad, 1968-71 (far left)

Mud architecture in Rajasthan Village street (plan) Ledges and balconies in the traditional streetscape (Jaisalmer)

(Overleaf) Doshi, Central Bank of India, Ahmedabad, 1972, south façade Doshi, Premabhai Hall, Ahmedabad, 1972

Model of Premabhai Hall showing the surrounding Bhadra area and projected low-rise offices, 1975

centres and have suggested that the professional can supply his expertise by designing just the infrastructure of drains, streets and service cores, leaving people to build their own houses bit by bit as they can afford to (e.g., low-cost housing for Indore, 1983). Meanwhile the population continues to expand at an alarming rate, putting more and more pressure on the big cities, and even eroding the natural environment through thoughtless deforestation. As basic natural resources are damaged, village life is further undermined, and so the vicious circle continues, with a new exodus to the overburdened cities.

CIVIC MONUMENTALITY

While much of Doshi’s effort during the 1960s and early 1970s was devoted to housing, he also dealt with some commissions requiring monumental treatment. One of these was the Tagore Theatre (1962) in Ahmedabad, a design which was inherited from Le Corbusier’s earlier scheme for a cultural centre including performing arts alongside the museum. Another was a prestige building for the Central Bank of India, also in Ahmedabad (1972). Opposite the site was an open square containing the 15th century Siddi Saiyad Mosque,

so Doshi placed the public banking floors on a plinth which matched the height of this structure. The plinth was detailed to read as a perforated wall behind which a sequence of large volumes was linked by stairs to lead to the mezzanine. Above this base was a tower of offices constructed out of concrete with a heavy grille of louvers and brises‑soleil lending a grid pattern to the façade and excluding the glare.

In the Premabhai Hall (1956 first version, 1972 final plan) for Ahmedabad, Doshi again resorted to a massive vocabulary in concrete, this time sculpting an interior stepped section — an auditorium of considerable spatial richness. But the back of the building abuts a square adjacent to one of the old city gates, and relatively little has been done to work out a harmonious relationship between the two. Doshi did draw up plans for a lower fringe of buildings, which might have helped to adjust the scale of his design to that of older buildings in the setting, but so far these have not been constructed.

Also in the category of monumental architecture was the entry Doshi submitted in 1972 to the competition for the National Assembly in Kuwait. In this, however, he treated topography and urban context as primary generators of the form. The site was next to the sea, with the flat desert landscape spreading behind, and the programme demanded two Assembly chambers, a mosque and a host of government departments. The building needed to embody the ideals of a ruling group combining regal, oligarchical and democratic elements. It was an unstated requirement that the Assembly should combine a regional character with broader Islamic principles.

Doshi’s design treated the main chambers as monumental polygons surmounted by flat domes. These rose out of a series of platforms containing lobbies and offices. The main Assembly chamber was splayed to respond to the access route by car in one direction and to the ruler’s palace further down the coast in the other. The second large chamber was for the Islamic conference centre, and its axis linked land and sea. The mosque was in the crook between the two and provided a third axis towards Mecca. The project envisaged evaporative cooling, landscape and courtyards. Doshi’s study sketches investigated the idea of buildings inside buildings with water gardens as cooling buffers between them. He sketched sections showing the transition from fierce heat outside to cooler and cooler layers on the interior, and doodled double-skinned tents as well as remains of the old desert towns.

Doshi’s project responded to three scales: that of the coastline, that of the approaching car, and that of the pedestrian moving over ramps, platforms and steps. From a distance there were overtones of a desert fort, though one of the inspirations was also Kahn’s Assembly in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) a project which was itself rich in Islamic echoes. But Doshi’s scheme was not chosen: it came second, behind a remarkable design by Jorn Utzon based upon a traditional souk in plan and a tent in section.

Doshi, sketch of Kuwait desert courtyard houses The principle of layers of climatic protection Interior water garden Studies of tents

Doshi, Kuwait National Assembly project, 1972, competition model

ANALOGIES WITH THE TRADITIONAL INDIAN CITY

The early 1970s was a deeply introspective period for Doshi during which he questioned the directions he had so far taken and weighed up the relative value of individual buildings that he had so far done. He was distressed by what he called the lack of “inner image” in the majority of them and by the degree of reliance upon “familiar examples”. In his notes he returned frequently to the need to understand specifically “Indian” characteristics in the architecture of the past — certain generic elements and spaces which might transcend the different stylistic periods (Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, etc.) and which might even be shared between vernacular and monumental examples. But Doshi wanted to go further than the visible aspects of past culture to the informing spirit. Guided by his father-in-law, Professor Rasikbhai Parikh, a scholar of Sanskrit, he immersed himself in philosophy, in the Shilpa-Shastras and in descriptions of ancient cities. His own “way” combined moral, aesthetic and meditative dimensions. As he recorded in his diary: “Indian art is essentially the art of rasa — the unfettered experiential identity with the spiritual reality of the world.”19 His problem, now that he was in the middle of life, was to find a better match between his guiding myths and the forms of his architecture. In a note of August 1972, he wrote of the need for a new synthesis:

“Architecture is not an isolated phenomenon.

“Art plays a great part in environment. Our environments are deteriorating — as is evident from cities like Bombay and Calcutta. We have to discover where our concern should lie.

“We should go back to our past — check our present problems, needs, and based on the future, determine the path. “Our ancient architecture and city planning are good examples. Let us take folk architecture, classical, domestic, religious architecture. “Let us take the examples of the known masters from West and East.”20 One of the key buildings in the transition towards a style of Doshi’s own was the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore designed between 1977-1979 in collaboration with Joseph Allen Stein, Jai Rattan Bhalla and Achyut Kanvinde. This was a synthesis of architecture, urbanism, plants and water. In Bangalore the climate is damp enough to support lush vegetation and temperate enough to permit social life to flow freely from room to verandah to garden. His visual image for IIM Bangalore was a web of indoor and outdoor spaces under pergolas with tendrils of vegetation woven through them. This eventually solidified into a design in which long galleries, blocks and courts were locked together in a single system. Stone walls, concrete columns and screens were used to guide the route along the interior streets which were often open to one side — or broken through in places to admit light and glimpses of sky through trellises. To distinguish buildings of importance such as lecture halls or the library Doshi varied the scale of fenestration and sometimes used symmetry. But there was no single axis dominating the scheme. IIM is discovered gradually over time, the route being guided by vistas and views. The minor axes of the more formal buildings are shifted off one another to avoid too much monumentality and to introduce tension and ambiguity. Doshi had been working gradually towards this idea of “layers” and “overlays” in some of his earlier schemes. His design for IIM Bangalore is clearly indebted to Kahn’s for IIM, Ahmedabad, but the geometry is deliberately less rigid. In this, he probably received stimulus from Shadrach Woods’

Doshi (with Stein, Bhalla, Kanvinde), Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, 1977-85 IIM Bangalore, plan with rectangular teaching courts and diagonal dormitories

Louis Kahn, plan of IIM Ahmedabad (top)

plan for the Free University of Berlin which envisaged the institution as a network of streets, open spaces and lecture theatres. However, IIM Bangalore has also to be understood in an Indian lineage, which stretches back to Islamic palace complexes and even to Hindu temple cities. Like other Indian architects trying to liberate themselves from the tyranny of the free-standing object, Doshi was attracted to such examples as Fatehpur Sikri near Agra, where cascades of terraces, pillared halls, courts of various sizes and airy pavilions are linked together in a subtle order of shifting axes and vistas. Southern temple cities like Madurai with precincts of shaded walls, courts and tanks also fascinated him. Strong axes are set up and then denied as one wanders into these mazes of mysterious corridors and shrines: architecture and urbanism are fused. In this connection, Doshi referred to the ancient concept vastu — “environment”.

“The famous cities described in the Gita and other scriptures were always based on Vastu-Shastra, the science of environmental design... Architecture was connected with the other arts of music, painting,

Fatehpur Sikri, late 16th century, the palace complex Plan of southern Indian temple (Madurai)

IIM Bangalore, covered galleries and interior street (right) sculpture, etc., and was integrated with the life pattern of the community.... This thought was so deep-rooted that religion, art, life, economic structure, everything, was inter-related. This is how the villages and ancient cities in India were planned. The ‘environment of living’ was the theme: cities were just means to this end.21 Doshi wished to re-interpret principles underlying great buildings of the past. He also wished to re-invigorate an essentially Indian attitude to spatial order which could be found in many periods. He thought of this in terms of multiple rhythms — vibrations of light, shade and faceting — that released a peculiar mystery not unlike the threading of themes and counter-themes through a piece of Indian music. The parallel was developed in private notes:

“Sharafat’s music — and Bhimsen’s music — visualise a sequence of events — which begins with the slow arrival, then an extended entrance promenade with a variety of spatial experiences — but repeated frequently with a motif (similarity but change of scale and texture). Then the main arrival with large scale volumes, and texture constantly juxtaposed; yet frequent mixing of the original motif repeated with subtle variations .... the outward movements are speedier and more complex but with a constant mixture of multiple tones, textures, scales and spatial variations. The end is anticipated by integration, a faster pace, repetitive expression of the earlier themes.”22

Doshi, Sangath, Ahmedabad, 1979-81, view from entrance to precinct looking north Sangath, plan of studios 1. Forecourt 2. Pond 3. Amphitheatre 4. Entrance court 5. Reception 6. Workshops 7. Conference 8. Toilets 9. Architect’s office 10. Subterranean meeting room 11. Engineers 12. Design studio 13. Library

SANGATH : AN EMBLEM OF DOSHI’S PHILOSOPHY

The real breakthrough came with Sangath, (1979-81) Doshi’s own studio on the edge of the countryside to the west of Ahmedabad — a green enclave of grassy mounds, steps, terraces, water cascades and earth-hugging vaults covered in chips of china mosaic to reflect glare and heat. “Sangath” means “moving together through participation” and the place is more than just an architectural office. At the back of Doshi’s mind there may have been memories of the atelier at 35 Rue de Sevres where the line between work and education had never been firmly drawn. The site was a quadrangle looking south over a road towards open country with camels and tribal villagers going in one direction, diesel trucks and new suburbanites passing in the other. Early in his design process Doshi decided to sink the main studio partly below ground, to protect it from the fierce heat, to maintain a low silhouette and to accommodate a middle level terrace at an easy distance and height from the garden. The visitor is welcomed to Sangath by a shallow cascade of grassy steps that make ah informal amphitheatre. A lateral section through the building shows how various internal levels are interlocked beneath the vaults to make a 20th century version of a primaeval dwelling. A plan reveals a collage of longitudinal rectangular and flange-shaped rooms linked ambiguously to one another through screens of structure including piers and walls placed at varying intervals to give a syncopated rhythm to the interiors. A longitudinal section hints at the way that single, double and even triple-height spaces flow into each other. At Sangath, Doshi has drawn together a number of themes from his earlier work — vaults on walls, platforms and terraces, maze-like interiors, ambiguous edges, dynamic sequences of structure — to serve a rich blend of ideas.23

Sangath, diagonal view across pool towards stepped amphitheatre Doshi, early sketch, 1979 Early sketch based on vernacular forms, 1979 (below)

Sketch comparing insulation of roofs to a turban

Sketch of vertical and horizontal faceting in temple Sketch examining continuity between ground and building Le Corbusier, sketch for an agriculturalist’s estate at Cherchell, North Africa, 1942 (bottom right) Sangath, model (showing possible addition of studios)

Before unravelling the intentions behind Sangath it is best to have an idea of how it feels to walk through the building. The first view is from the gate along a south-north line. A vault is seen head on, its curved silhouette hovering mysteriously at an uncertain distance behind and above a wall. A small rectangular opening in this wall gives a glimpse of the shaded interiors. The architect has spelt out the axis of the scheme but he then denies it, since one is forced to the left into a shallow valley which runs between a waist-high partition wall and some grassy mounds. Within moments it is possible to see the vaults on the diagonal, their low humps receding in perspective above a stratified foreground of steps, water channels and terraces. A niche cut into the garden wall echoes the curves of the vaults, as if one of them had been flipped into plan. Giant clay water jars squat in the long grass, their bulbous shapes, incised patterns and curled rims hinting at the source of the “peasant” forms behind them. Doshi has started the procession with a rustic address, and the theme is intensified by a sequence of stepping ponds reflecting the building in their still surface. Here the line of approach is clear: it is a diagonal axis leading up the shallow steps. Correspondingly the path turns, led around by the curved edge of the pool.

In fact there are two ways in, and the one most often used descends a few feet under the cover of a vault before encountering yet another choice: either a flight of steps which rise up through a triple-height volume or else yet another turn to the right, along a narrow passage. This passes Doshi’s own office and then continues into the main drafting room under the vaults. As one enters this long space there is a sense of release upwards. The undersides of the vaults are in textured grey concrete and this distributes a restful light broken in places by alternating bands of shadow. At the far end is the alluring rectangular window seen from the gate in the first view. If one turns 180° there is a similar window at the end of the passage, with a small clay statue framed in it. The main axis, for some time lost, is thus reaffirmed. To one side, steps lead down into a subterranean meeting room with a diagonal perimeter. It corresponds to the stepping amphitheatre above — also a communal place.

It is the mark of any resolved work of art that content and form should be fused, but there is still value in unravelling the various levels of meaning at work in Sangath. Sketches from the design process are a help because they hint at associations that may have been in the architect’s mind. Doshi’s earliest drawings showed low vaults abutting banks of earth, with straggling trees all around. Others showed a village with terraced roofs rising up to a domical structure on top, an image that was then gradually simplified into vaults rising from platforms. It comes as no great surprise to learn that in his own studio Doshi should have tried to evoke a small rural settlement. One of the earliest studies for Sangath was done soon after a visit to Egypt, where Doshi was impressed by domical forms in the village of Harania as well as by the vaults of the Crafts Centre by Wissa Wassef. In theme and form Sangath is a descendant of ATIRA houses, but now the communal space is more clearly articulated by means of the little theatre. The scale is very accommodating and the platforms encourage people to sit, to chat or just to contemplate a garden that is full of trees, flowers and birds. The turf mounds rhyme with landscape over the road, and this visual connection serves to underline the rusticity of Sangath still further.

The form and interior organisation of Sangath express the response to climate directly. The building dramatises the natural elements of land, sky, sun, rain. India possesses many subterranean

Sangath, water channels and grass steps of amphitheatre

or half-buried building types and in Gujarat there are varieties of stepped-well. At Sangath Doshi has invented his own procession into the earth. The interiors are further insulated by clay fuses within the vault structure. Western sun is absorbed by the grassy mounds; heat and glare are reflected off the white china surfaces. When the monsoons crash down they sluice easily over the shiny curved surfaces into gutters that gurgle into troughs. The sun makes deep-cut shadows under the white rims of the vaults and on the interiors light is baffled by slots and skylights to cast a restrained glow. At night the moon twinkles on the china mosaics and is reflected in the water — Sangath articulates Doshi’s private dream of harmony between individual, community and nature.

For its creator, the building is also soaked in Indian associations — not obvious quotations so much as hermetic allusions — and these add richness to the forms. Doshi has often referred to the way in which temples are organised with stages rising to a plinth, from which the superstructure continues in facetted forms. Among his doodles there are some comparing the curves of Sangath to stupa forms and even to head-dresses. The ambiguous relationship between figure and ground, built-form and external space embodies Doshi’s notion of transitional places for multiple use. The circuitous path and shifting axes fit the preoccupation with processions through traditional complexes, while the staccato rhythms on the interior follow on from the spatial conceptions of IIM Bangalore.

Nevertheless these private agenda are expressed in a vocabulary that stems in the long run from Le Corbusier via Doshi’s various schemes using vaults. As well as the seminal Sarabhai House, one also thinks of the unexecuted project for a House for an Agriculturalist, Cherchell, Algeria, 1942, which wove together concrete vaults, greenery and water and of which Le Corbusier wrote: “En bâtissant moderne, on a trouvé, l’accord avec le paysage, le climat et la tradition.” (Building in a modern way, one has found harmony with the country-side, the climate and tradition.)24 Some precise features of Sangath are intelligent re-workings of “type-solutions” inherited from other areas of the modern tradition. The pool comes from Le Corbusier’s “ear-shaped” curves in the Millowners’ Building (which Doshi helped to design). The amphitheatre steps echo both Wright’s Taliesin and certain of Aalto’s ideas. The broken china recalls Gaudi’s Guell Park; the main watersplash was

Sangath, steps to left of entrance

Sangath, looking along axis of main studio certainly inspired by the one at Salk Laboratories in California by Louis Kahn; and so on. But Doshi has not just made an assemblage of quotations. He has blended together his sources, whether modern or ancient, Indian or international, into a new synthesis, an order that fits his own myths and ideas.

DEFINING INSTITUTIONS

Doshi later considered that Sangath was the building in which he became truly himself, but this still left him with the problem of deciding how literally to reuse the same forms. In the Administrative Complex of Madhya Pradesh Electricity Board, he employed polygonal courtyards of varying heights that were linked together by a linear pattern of roads. Lingering memories of Kahn (e.g. Erdman Hall at Bryn Mawr) are combined with references to polygonal courts and galleries of old Jabalpur. The plans suggest organic analogies with cellular structures while the silhouettes echo land forms. Figure and ground are treated with equal intensity: one is reminded that Doshi’s drawing style descends in the long run from cubism via Le Corbusier.

The Gandhi Labour Institute (1980-84) in Ahmedabad is barely a kilometre from Sangath and its forms are derived from a similar vocabulary. But the building is far bigger, so many of the gestures take on quite a different character. Doshi wished to avoid making a forbidding monument and therefore broke the programme down into different fragments which he disposed around an enclave and a court.25 As usual he related parts and whole using simple goemetries like the square and the circle, and proportioning devices such as the golden section. The building is entered after a diagonal approach past rhythmic vaults on high bases. A shallow flight of steps takes one up to the middle level and one route even continues straight through to the other side where an outdoor theatre dips down into the back garden

At Sangath, Doshi had used scraped concrete for the walls in contrast to the shiny china vaults. In the Gandhi Institute he employed washed terrazzo finishes. These provided a crisp, light-sensitive surface, almost like that of sharp-cut stone. Window embrasures were hooded by deep reveals and exterior silhouettes were deliberately varied against the sky. There can be little doubt that Doshi was influenced in this massing by an ancient prototype known from reconstructions: the city

gate of Kushinagara at Magadha (5th century B.C.) which also had vaults in both directions on a high plinth. The ends of the arches on the Gandhi Institute are elaborated in profile so that the rims make a complex shape against the blue background. In the period that these details were being worked out, Doshi was studying a number of arch systems in past Indian architecture from Buddhist chaitya arches to bow-shaped chhajjas in 17th century havelis nearly two millennia later. Despite all this, the Gandhi Labour Institute lacks the vital tension of Sangath. It was as if Doshi had applied the same formulae but without the same conviction.

In 1977 Doshi had formed a partnership with Joseph Allen Stein and Jai Rattan Bhalla, both architects working in Delhi. This had left each to pursue his own work and concerns, but had also allowed all to share common research. A fruitful exchange of ideas that had already gone on since the 1950s now continued under a more formal heading. The partnership allowed Doshi to follow through more at the level of detail in his buildings as it took some of the burden of engineering from his own office in Ahmedabad. Arguably it also opened up the chance of larger scale commissions than he had been used to up until then. Both Bhalla’s broad professional experience and Stein’s

Administrative Complex for Madhya Pradesh Electricity Board, Jabalpur, 1979-87, model of ensemble Doshi, sketch plan of Jabalpur scheme

Jabalpur, boulders adjoining the site

Gandhi Labour Institute, Ahmedabad, 1980-84, north façade South façade during construction Ancient Buddhist gateway at Kushinagara, Magadha (reconstruction)

commitment to an authentic regionalism grounded in a sensitive reading of context and a subtle use of craft were stimulating to Doshi. So too were his partners’ reflections on Indian urban and environmental predicaments. Throughout the 1970s he confided his thoughts on the problems of expanding population, poverty, rapid urbanisation and damaged natural resources, to a number of short essays. Always conscious of the interrelationships of big city and rural base, Doshi took the position that India was suffering from a severe imbalance that was gradually eroding the culture at the roots and leading to a grotesquely inhuman environment in the largest towns. He therefore felt that more must be done to inject vitality into villages and into towns of medium size.

Gandhi Labour Institute, sketch Plan at entrance level 1. Entrance 11. General staff 2. Parking 12. Terrace 3. Forecourt 13. Rector’s residence 4. Entry 14. Hostel room 5. Lounge/Reception 15. Amphitheatre 6. Exhibition 16. Foyer 7. Courtyard 17. Auditorium 8. Director’s office 18. Stage 9. Board room 19. Servant quarters 10. Assistant Directors

Doshi, sketch of women in Rajasthan Sketch of camel

Doshi office, studies of lighting angles in old Jaipur Sketch of street and gate, old Jaipur

COSMOS AND CITY

In 1984 Doshi was invited to work out a town plan to deal with the drastic overflow of people in Jaipur. Founded in the early 18th century by Jai Singh, the city had been laid out according to ancient Hindu town planning principles by the architect Vidyadhar Bhattacharya and thus, in its own time, constituted a renaissance. The primary geometry was a deformation of nine squares. The plan of the whole referred to a mandala and implied that the city, its affairs and its rule were linked to the cosmic order. This notion was intensified by Jai Singh’s observatory, a major space in the city that was furnished with extraordinary abstract devices for reading the position of the planets. The palace was based upon courtyards, pavilions and gates. Less monumental versions of the same elements were used along the wide main streets. Behind these façades was a rich network of courtyard havelis, terraces and smaller streets. Known as the “pink city”, Jaipur was a model of urban sensitivity and intelligent arrangement, combining beauty, utility and meaning. Jaipur was already expanding beyond its city walls in the 19th century, but the sprawl has become drastic in the past decade and a half. Wasteful of land and resources, the resulting mess typifies what is happening all over India on the outskirts of towns; trunk roads with fringes of factories and small businesses leading to jumbled collections of concrete villas and flats. Little land is kept for recreation, vast amounts of time and energy are wasted on moving about, pollution is at epidemic levels and there is little sense of community or connection to nature. Unfortunately Western planning models such as the sector system at Chandigarh have provided answers only to a few of these problems, however sensitively they may have dealt with issues of fresh air and greenery. With

the new Jaipur — known as Vidyadhar Nagar — Doshi felt the moment was right to attempt a synthesis of two traditions. One was the reformist urbanism of Le Corbusier with its emphasis on nature, circulation and hygiene — the “essential joys” of light, space and greenery; the other was the ancient urbanism of India with its tight-knit streets, urban courts and mixed uses. Obviously there was no need to start from scratch, as Doshi had spent most of his working life trying to work out just such a synthesis at the level of individual buildings, townships and institutional complexes.26 The challenge of the new situation was that it forced him to think of the city in totality. The site for the new Jaipur was to the north-west of the old and about four kilometres away from it. Doshi decided to orientate the plan geometry so as to accommodate the prevailing winds and cut down on western exposure to afternoon sun. To the north was a parched slope which desperately needed replanting, so he placed a water tank of monumental proportions in this position. Water, a life source, was then guided down to slope into channels feeding fingers of greenery through the entire city. As the plan was devoted to energy conservation, Doshi decided that it would be relevant to celebrate this principle in a new mandala form that alluded to the recycling of spiritual energies. A main artery was run through the nine square sectors which were in turn subdivided into subsectors maximising privacy and containment. Doshi’s office set up a study group to analyse old Jaipur and to distil its essential principles. This work established typical layouts, lighting angles, social uses, dimensions, façade proportions and so on. Following some of these guides Doshi set down a pattern for dealing with major roads using façades and gates which then led to agglomerations and precincts to the rear. In effect, his plan crossbred aspects of Le Corbusier with aspects of old Jaipur — two powerful types

Maharaja Jai Singh and his architect Vidyadhar Bhattacharya, plan of Jaipur, 1727 Le Corbusier, plan of Chandigarh, Punjab, 1951 (below) Doshi, diagram of principle behind plan of Vidyadhar Nagar, 1984-86 (opposite)

Statistics of Indian’s accelerating urbanisation since Independence

Population in Millions Urban Total 1951 62.4 361.1 1961 78.9 439.2 1971 109.1 548.2 1981 157.7 665.3

based on different spiritual and intellectual ideals. In the process Doshi hoped to cancel out the disadvantages of both and to provide a model for later small scale urban developments in India. Behind his urbanism and his architecture, there were fundamental beliefs concerning an ideal order between individual and community, nature and cosmos.

SEARCH FOR A MODERN INDIAN ARCHITECTURE

By the mid-1980s Doshi was in a position to look back over his architecture and to formulate lists of objectives. In one list of 13 propositions (reproduced in full in the section devoted to the Gandhi Labour Institute), he referred to the need to make buildings of “interposed open spaces, courts and terraces.” Architecture was to serve basic human needs but also to provide the framework for social rituals. Climatic adaptation was to be “expressed through the main structure.” Buildings were to be thought of as aggregations capable of growth and change. There were also strong hints about the forms that would best express his ideas: 1. The building profile will have natural light + air + movement + access elements against the sky to express the cosmic relationship. 2. The building base will gradually widen towards the ground through platforms, terraces, steps. 3. The building mass will integrate roof, rainwater, cascades, water bodies, natural landscapes, gardens, foliage. 4. The external finish of the building will express one homogenous mass but will have adequate details/textures/surface modulations. 5. The main arrival to the building will be at a higher or raised level — with provision for a lower entry to express duality.

6. Not all movements within the building will be symmetrical but will shift axis to give unexpected experiences and provide ambiguous/dual impressions...

And finally: 13. Aesthetic considerations will take into account local symbolism, context, associations. Casting of shadows, breaking of mass, rhythms in structure, solids, voids, will be the mode of expression.27 But there is more to designing a building than illustrating theoretical concerns, more to establishing unity than adding together stylistic elements mechanically. Once a rationale has been established, there is still the poetic leap to form. A sublime order is sought which may move the observer, no matter what his preconceptions. Doshi has been preoccupied with just what it is in ancient buildings that guarantees this effect upon the mind. In his view it is not sufficient to make historical quotations: the sequence of spaces must touch psychic chords through a rhythm and pacing of the elements as well as through subtle allusions that touch upon archetypes within Indian experience. Doshi’s attempt at formulating a modern architecture in an Indian tradition shares certain features with the efforts of contemporaries like Raj Rewal, Charles Correa and Anant Raje. Each in his own way has tried to generate forms that fuse the more durable principles of modern architecture with fundamental lessons drawn from the past. Their contribution has great relevance for other developing countries undergoing drastic change but also trying to re-incorporate features of their ancient heritage. Sometimes the reaction against Western models becomes so fanatical that there is retreat into a Luddite pretension that all modernisation is evil. There may also be a misguided attempt at reproducing the external features of past local styles. But change is relentless and the real challenge is to come up with vital new solutions that crystallise the needs and aspirations of today while touching the timeless levels. Skin-deep modernity and shallow traditionalism are both to be avoided.

It is still too early to gauge how Doshi’s contribution will be absorbed — or rejected — by the younger generation in India. They may think that the filters through which he has looked at the country’s problems are too coloured by a Western formation; or they may on the contrary look at him as a vital link between certain universal dimensions in Le Corbusier and Kahn, and a regionally sensitive modern architecture. However these judgements are made, they are most likely to be sensible if based upon an understanding of the ideas and processes behind Doshi’s forms. It has been suggested that this is an architecture grounded in principles, and it may ultimately be these that have most to give to the future.

In much recent writing on architecture there is the tacit assumption that cosmopolitan centres in the West are generating the waves behind which the rest of the world should follow if it is to remain “up to date”. It is a model that makes no distinction between fashion and substance, and which remains totally ignorant of everything beyond the United States, Western Europe and Japan. The irony of this situation is considerable, for it is precisely at the moment that a regression into superficial stylism is afflicting the West that an architecture of substance is emerging in some areas of the Third World. One such place is India and Balkrishna Doshi is “at the heart of a resurgence now affecting many areas of Indian culture after the sleep of the colonial years. As a body of architecture and ideas, his contribution shows that it is possible to do as Coomaraswamy suggested: “Follow the old wisdom yet not despise the new.”28

Sangath: architecture and nature