Although little known outside his country, Balkrishna Doshi, is one of the most famous architects of contemporary Indian architecture. The architect who was born in 1927, in the city of Pune, near Mumbai, India, is about to turn 91 years old. Below, we tell ten things, so you can quickly know the new Pritzker Prize 2018.
1. He served on the Pritzker Prize Jury during three years, from 2005 - 2007.
2. He got his first unpaid job with Le Corbusier just by presenting a letter. Last year, Doshi told India Times that he was not asked to present a portfolio, but to "present a personal letter."
3. Despite having collaborated with Le Corbusier between 1951 and 1955, Doshi did not speak French and both communicated in very basic English. Later Balkrishna Doshi, commented "When you do not know the language, the conversation becomes more visual and spatial."
4. He first visited America on a Graham Foundation scholarship in 1959.
5. In 1962, Louis Kahn came to Ahmedabad at the instigation of Vikram Sarabhai (and on the advice of Doshi) to design the Indian Institute of Management, in effect a business school on an American model.
6. Where Le Corbusier constructed principally in bare concrete, Kahn worked with bold archaic forms combining brick arches, cylindrical towers and walls. Kahn’s influence can be sensed in Doshi’s School of Architecture (1966-68) in Ahmedabad, a building based on an interlocking section and an extension of the ground plane.
7. Doshi was involved in a sort of excavation of Indian traditions. Nation-building relies upon the construction of myths of ‘identity’ and in the newly independent democratic and secular republic of India, with its overlaid Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and other pasts, there was no question of settling on one period or one religion as a supposed repository of ‘Indianness’.
On the contrary, architects of Doshi’s generation such as Charles Correa, Raj Rewal and Anant Raje sought out ‘substructures’ in the rich heritage of past Indian architecture. Each architect established his own pedigree and Doshi in particular was deeply attracted to southern Hindu temple complexes such as Madurai and Tiruchirappalli, with their labyrinthine galleries and walkways, and their indirect approach to the spiritual centre.
8. From 1967 - 1971 he was a member of the international collective Team 10.
9. Doshi collaborated with Moshe Safdie and Iranian architect Nader Ardalan and Spanish architecta and Harvard professor Josep Lluis Sert to write Habitat Bill of Rights, submitted by the Government of Iran at the UN Habitat on Human Settlements conference in Vancouver in 1976.
10. His ideas on contact with the rural-natural base has gone and Sangath, his office designed with this idea, is surrounded by shopping centres, tall apartment buildings and the constant din of traffic. His work is a sobering reminder that architecture requires the right social conditions, cultural values and architectural intentions if it is to come into being, and helper to built a better society.
2. He got his first unpaid job with Le Corbusier just by presenting a letter. Last year, Doshi told India Times that he was not asked to present a portfolio, but to "present a personal letter."
3. Despite having collaborated with Le Corbusier between 1951 and 1955, Doshi did not speak French and both communicated in very basic English. Later Balkrishna Doshi, commented "When you do not know the language, the conversation becomes more visual and spatial."
4. He first visited America on a Graham Foundation scholarship in 1959.
5. In 1962, Louis Kahn came to Ahmedabad at the instigation of Vikram Sarabhai (and on the advice of Doshi) to design the Indian Institute of Management, in effect a business school on an American model.
6. Where Le Corbusier constructed principally in bare concrete, Kahn worked with bold archaic forms combining brick arches, cylindrical towers and walls. Kahn’s influence can be sensed in Doshi’s School of Architecture (1966-68) in Ahmedabad, a building based on an interlocking section and an extension of the ground plane.
7. Doshi was involved in a sort of excavation of Indian traditions. Nation-building relies upon the construction of myths of ‘identity’ and in the newly independent democratic and secular republic of India, with its overlaid Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and other pasts, there was no question of settling on one period or one religion as a supposed repository of ‘Indianness’.
On the contrary, architects of Doshi’s generation such as Charles Correa, Raj Rewal and Anant Raje sought out ‘substructures’ in the rich heritage of past Indian architecture. Each architect established his own pedigree and Doshi in particular was deeply attracted to southern Hindu temple complexes such as Madurai and Tiruchirappalli, with their labyrinthine galleries and walkways, and their indirect approach to the spiritual centre.
8. From 1967 - 1971 he was a member of the international collective Team 10.
9. Doshi collaborated with Moshe Safdie and Iranian architect Nader Ardalan and Spanish architecta and Harvard professor Josep Lluis Sert to write Habitat Bill of Rights, submitted by the Government of Iran at the UN Habitat on Human Settlements conference in Vancouver in 1976.
10. His ideas on contact with the rural-natural base has gone and Sangath, his office designed with this idea, is surrounded by shopping centres, tall apartment buildings and the constant din of traffic. His work is a sobering reminder that architecture requires the right social conditions, cultural values and architectural intentions if it is to come into being, and helper to built a better society.
![Balkrishna Doshi. 2018 Pritzker Architecture Prize [II]](/sites/default/files/styles/mopis_home_news_category_slider_desktop/public/lead-images/metalocus_pritzker_2018_bvd_headshot_08.webp?h=5c593260&itok=3D0AxMIW "Balkrishna Doshi. 2018 Pritzker Architecture Prize [II]")
