It was at the beginning of the 1950s when Le Corbusier arrived in India to work on the new East Punjab state capital, Chandigarh. In addition to this monumental urbanist project, the Swiss/French architect received commissions in the city of Ahmedabad, a rich textile industry centre that offered him important projects in the course of which he could test his ideas about using raw concrete in specific climatic conditions. Le Corbusier worked with open concrete structures where exteriors merged with interiors and façades were structured through the use of huge concrete sun shades. Villa Shodan, Villa Sarabhai, Sanskar Kendra Museum and the Mill Owners’ Association building were exemplary of a new Tropical Modernist style.
The architect who helped Le Corbusier with these projects was Balkrishna Doshi, who had worked for the famed Modernist in Paris a few years earlier. ‘Le Corbusier was his guru; he would often refer to him as an “acrobat”,’ says Doshi’s granddaughter Khushnu Hoof, principal at Studio Sangath and director of her forebear’s archives. ‘He described his relationship to Le Corbusier as [that of] grandfather – someone who guided him, taught him with a lot of patience and left him with lessons for life.’
The relationship had a tremendous influence on Doshi’s later career, mainly after founding his own studio, Vastu-Shilpa, in 1955. Doshi established a strong position in Ahmedabad, learning from European avant-garde movements and marrying new ideas to local cultural, historical and climatic conditions. Working closely with Louis Kahn on the design of the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, Doshi absorbed experiences and skills from the best architects of the time. ‘He was always extremely humble and giving. Always celebrating, finding joy in small things, be it a tree swaying in the breeze or the way the light moved in a building,’ says Hoof. ‘[He was] generous with his time… I don’t think I ever heard him say “I am too busy” to anyone. He was someone who loved life and was constantly fascinated by it. His openness to learn from everyone around made him extremely approachable and giving.’
At the beginning of the 1960s, Doshi was finally able to use his accumulated knowledge to embark on a project of his own. The Institute of Indology launched his prolific career and a singular collection of buildings in Ahmedabad. All concrete, raised on the platform above the ground, the institute is a lesson in Le Corbusier’s Brutalism adapted to the hot Gujarati climate. Largely perforated façades channel a flow of air into the building, and brises-soleil keep the strong sun at bay. The raw virtuosity of concrete flourishes here in the best way. Inside, the concrete skeleton is enriched by use of colourful elements in other materials, such as wooden room partitions, beautifully sculpted handrails and a massive door on a central pivot.
Doshi highlighted the monumentality of concrete constructions a few years later in the Tagore Memorial Hall, completed in 1971. In collaboration with structural engineer Mahendra Raj, the architect designed a box-shaped exterior dominated and supported by a series of concrete triangular folds, housing the foyer and main auditorium with a capacity of 700 people. The building, which was reconstructed in 2013, sits next to Le Corbusier’s Sanskar Kendra Museum, built in 1954. Both buildings have a strong resonance in Ahmedabad’s modern architectural history, and Doshi was crucial in developing Indian Modernism. ‘He started the School of Architecture in Ahmedabad in the 1960s and it completely changed the face of architectural education in India,’ says Hoof. ‘Demonstrating an approach that is humane, grounded, not pretentious or stylistic, and creating beautiful work out of frugal means for the masses was his idea.’
As Doshi’s work evolved, it incorporated more vernacular influences from local architecture and craft. In the 1970s, Doshi began to use vaulted concrete roofs covered with mosaics traditionally used for the domes of temples, including, for example, the Girnar Jain temples in the nearby Junagadh district. These vaulted roofs became Doshi’s trademark, and he used them in three important projects in his mature period. In 1979, he completed his own studio, Sangath. Partly buried, the structure is covered by a rhythmical series of vaults. The building remains in use. ‘Sangath, he would often say, was his sanctuary,’ says Hoof. ‘It is special because it stands for everything that he believed in: use of low-cost material, reusing waste material, response to climate, challenging the idea of what a studio space or office should be. Even though Sangath has a well-defined character, it has no beginning and no end. One can never draw a line between where the landscape ends and the building begins. That idea of ambiguity as the essence of life is beautifully put together at Sangath.’
A similar use of vaults is significant to another of Doshi’s projects nearby the studio. The Mahatma Gandhi Labour Institute was built around the same time as Sangath across the street, and Doshi used similar principles of long, narrow vaults covered by mosaic tiles. Inside, the original wooden furniture and Le Corbusier-inspired colour scheme is still in evidence.
Doshi’s series of vaulted roof buildings found ultimate expression in an art gallery, Amdavad ni Gufa, built between 1992 and 1995 for Indian Modern-art pioneer and member of the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group Maqbool Fida Husain. The cave-like underground structure is covered by a series of irregular domes with mosaic tiles and circular skylights. Inside, sculptures and murals by Husain create an experimental juxtaposition of architecture and art.
The work of Balkrishna Doshi is both local and global. Transforming important tenets of Western Modernism into his own stylistic language and cultural environment, he was able to create original architecture, deeply grounded in the place he lived, and inspirational to a generation of Indian Modernist (and other) architects. In 2018, he was awarded the Pritzker prize.
Hoof is dedicated to keeping her grandfather’s legacy alive. ‘Through his exhibitions, publications, and online and physical archives, we want to evaluate his work,’ she explains. ‘We’ve initiated an award in his name, the Balkrishna Doshi–Guru Ratna Award for exceptional teachers in the field of art, architecture and design, and we are also involved in the documentation of [his] earlier works and working on extensions and additions to these.’
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