B V Doshi: An Icon

A teacher, a speaker, an architect—Balkrishna Doshi is a man who has worn several hats. Along with a handful of pioneers, he is responsible for bringing modern architecture to India.

Early years

He studied at the J. J. School of Architecture, Mumbai, and soon after left for London, and then to Paris where he experienced work under the master Le Corbusier. Corbusier’s influence was to make a strong dent in Doshi’s work and life. These years in Paris (1951-54), taught him the strong fundamentals of modern architecture and the language of form, function in concrete. Doshi then returned to Ahmedabad to supervise Le Corbusier’s numerous works in the city (1955-59). In fact, he started his own studio, Vastu-Shilpa (environmental design) in 1955. Doshi worked closely with Louis Kahn and Anant Raje, when Kahn designed the campus of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. This was an important period in which modern architecture was being brought into the Indian landscape and there were many issues to be resolved.

Developing sensibilities

Working out his own ideas, Doshi developed a unique language of architecture and a sensibility that is a pleasure to see. Ahmedabad is dotted with Doshi’s buildings and each one has a scale, a sense of proportion and the mastery of concrete that is the trademark of Corbusian modernism.

His language expresses his work better than anyone else can. Of IIM Bangalore, he writes, “The response is achieved by adopting a system of major corridors for movement along which activity areas are disposed. And within the network of corridors, the space between the activity areas become courts for extended activities under Brahman. These courts regenerate the primordial sense of continuity, growth, and tenuous linkages of the living and their habitat environment…………”

Doshi used for this project an interesting linkage of external and internal spaces, taking advantage of Bangalore’s climate, inspired by Fatehpur Sikri. The functional and physical attributes of the design are related to the local traditions of pavilion – like spaces, courtyards, and ample provision for plantation. He writes, “Because these local elements by themselves do not necessarily touch everyone, the design also included long and unusually high (three storeyed) corridors with innumerable vistas of focal points generating a dialogue with one’s self. These corridors are sometimes seem open, sometimes with only pergolas and sometimes partly covered with skylight. To further heighten the spatial experience, the width of the corridors was modulated in many places to allow casual sitting, interaction or moving forwards to once destination or more towards.”

Access to classrooms and administrative offices was provided through these links as well as to generate constant activity. Owing to the varying rhythm of the solids and voids, i.e. wall and opening, coupled with direct or indirect natural light, these links change in character during the different times of the day as well seasons and offer the students and the faculty, occasion to feel the presence of nature even while they are inside. By creating such an environment the activities pursued within the building become enriched because they become one with the larger, total world.

What makes the building interesting is that the links appear and disappear, giving a sense of being and not being. In the mornings and evenings, the sun’s golden rays are reflected in the glazed windows, and the long corridors with main central court surrounded by classroom walls “give a feeling of being in a place not unknown to ones inner being.”

This connection of the spiritual and physical has dominates Doshi’s work. In Sangath, which he designed for his own use as a studio, the spaces typical to Indian traditional architecture are recreated in an astonishingly modern medium. Writes William J.R. Curtis in his book Balkrishna Doshi, An Architecture for India, “Sangath is a fragment of Doshi’s private dream: a microcosm of his intentions and obsessions. Inspired by the earth-hugging forms of the Indian vernacular, it also draws upon the vault suggestions of Le Corbusier. A warren of interiors derived from the traditional Indian city, it is also influenced by sources as diverse as Louis I. Kahn, Alvar Aalto and Antonio Gaudi. A work of art stands on its own merits and Sangath possesses that indefinable quality of authenticity. Even local laborers and passing peasants like to come and sit next to it, enjoying the low mounds of the vaults or the water-jars overgrown with creepers.”

Accolades

Balkrishna Doshi is a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Architects. Doshi has been a selection committee member for several international and national competitions including the Pritzker Award for Architecture, the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts, and the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Apart from his international fame as an architect, Dr Doshi is equally known as educator and institution builder. He has been the founder-Director of the School of Architecture, Ahmedabad (1962-72), initiator of the School of Planning (1972-79), founder Dean of Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (1972-81), Founder Member of Visual Arts Centre, Ahmedabad and first Founder Director of the Kanoria Centre for Arts, Ahmedabad.

B.V.Doshi has been instrumental in establishing the internationally known research institute Vastu-Shilpa Foundation for Studies and Research in Environmental Design. The institute has done pioneering work in low cost housing and city planning. As an academician, Dr Doshi has been visiting the U.S.A. and Europe since 1958 and has held important visiting professorships in American Universities. In 1976, the Government of India awarded Doshi with the Padma Shri, an esteemed national civilian honour. B.V.Doshi was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Arts by the University of Pennsylvania and in 1989 and from McGill University, Montréal, Canada, in 2006. Doshi was awarded the Gold Medal of the French Institute of Architects.

Continuing inspiration

Born in 1927 in Pune, Doshi’s work has spanned several decades and a few generations as well. His enthusiasm for the profession of architecture in addition to the art of making good buildings has been transmitted to hundreds of his students and lives on through their work in India’s metros and smaller towns as well. A few of these, like Bernard Cohn, George Anselvekies, Kabushan Jain, Anant Raje, Charles Correa and Christopher Charles Benninger have in turn made their mark on the architectural landscape of India.