To Balkrishna V. Doshi, the first Indian to win the the Pritzker Prize, the ‘Nobel’ for architecture, design is closely linked to his environment. The connect sums up his philosophy and how he approaches his work:“I think it is not in you, it is the world outside that makes you what you are, and so that outside world should be paradise.”
While he is grateful for the award, in all humility, he distils what it means at a larger level: “It’s a great lesson for everybody, that if we can do something significant, somebody somewhere in the world would recognise it.”
Mr. Doshi’s designs and architectural philosophy permeate our contemporary architecture. All one needs, according to him, is to keep doing what one does best. “If you have good aspirations and intentions and are connected to social service, that is all that counts in creating your world and the world around you.”
In a career spanning the life of independent India (he graduated from the J.J. School of Architecture, Mumbai, in 1947), pioneer of modern Indian architecture worked with masters such as Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn, and was involved in the founding of institutions such as the School of Architecture in Ahmedabad, School of Planning, the Centre for Environment Planning and Technology, and also Visual Arts Centre and Kanoria Centre for Arts.
Among Dr. Doshi’s many honours are the Padma Shri, France’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the Global Award for Lifetime Achievement for Sustainable Architecture from the Institut Francais d’Architecture, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, and India’s National Award for Excellence in Urban Planning and Design. He also has honorary degrees from University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A, and McGill University, Canada, and is a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. His Sangath design has been listed among 125 of the most important works of architecture since 1891 by New York’s Architectural Record magazine as part of its 125th year celebration.
At the recent 3rd World Congress on Vedic Sciences in Pune, he spoke on Architecture and Vedic Insights. Speaking of his experience designing the NIFT building, Delhi, he said, “How do you create a building that will adjust itself over time? A building without constraints? I considered the myth of the city in terms of migrations and movement. When you build an idea around a space, the client gets excited about the space and is more flexible to design ideas.”
In conversation with this reporter after the event, Dr. Doshi discussed sustainability at greater length. For him, it is not just a contemporary catchphrase; it is the ethos of architectural design. Sustainability, he says, it is “something which can hold itself for a long time […] without losing much energy. It is like somebody lives a long life, and doesn’t need much money or much sustenance. So, it is like self-generating balancing way of using energy.” Citing IIM Bangalore, one of his many iconic designs, he says it doesn’t need to spend money to be sustainable, “because it is natural stone, and there are creepers. The building that I design automatically happens to be sustainable.”
Amdavad ni Gufa, a museum displaying M.F.Hussain’s works on IIM’s Ahmedabad campus, is one of his most experimental projects. The most memorable creative design experience, for him, was all the architectural rules he flouted. ‘There are professional rules, structural rules of balance, and rules of how does it look like something else. So I was really trying to think, fighting with the crowd. What I did is a really completely new structure like soap bubbles, with brass. But then, how do you create them? So I found ferrocement, designed on the computer, built by the tribals.’
About one of his sustainable architecture explorations, the Aranya low-cost housing township in Indore in the early 1980s, Dr. Doshi asks, “What is the notion of shelter? Shelter is sacred. Shelter could be transitory or permanent. It’s in our mind. Low-cost housing means empowering people […] so that they find their own identity and grow beyond.”
Chance, Dr. Doshi says, is important: “Accidents become a part of architectural expression. Where there is chaos or order, there are hidden opportunities. Since I’m not sure about my design, I’m open to my surroundings.” While considering design, he incorporates the existing environment to enhance inherent characteristics. “For example, we look at whether you need to have more energy for air conditioning, or is it comfortable by using only nice brick walls or a hollow wall and proper orientation? If I get a good breeze, some good trees, or some water body, and the breeze goes through, then it will be very cool, comfortable; I don’t need air conditioning. Then, if I have proper windows at the proper place which reflect light, then I don’t need to use a lot more electric energy. So that is how to design a building; which is sustainable, and also doesn’t use much energy, money, material, and maintenance.”
When he follows his instincts, he says, “Spaces begin to flow, structures begin to flow, walls begin to flow.” What he focusses on is a set of questions: “How do you make materials speak? How do materials sing with you? How can materials induce you to become alive?”
At 90, Dr. Doshi is still looking for answers, for the kumbhaka, the gap within, “Between inhaling and exhaling, there is a gap. That gap is what we’re looking for in a building.” Among the projects he’s associated with is Naduhl (named for the Tamil word which means inner centre), an initiative in Pune promoting ‘energetic’ architecture. He explains that it fits his own pursuit of whether a building is “static or dynamic, rooted or moving” because “a building is alive; naduhl is intangible.”
