Fond Memories:

Tribute to Late

Ar. Anant Raje

Prof. Anant Raje, eternal learner, dedicated teacher, master designer and an extraordinary person passed away on June 27 2009. Insite pays homage to one of the legendary figures in Indian architecture. Chirashree Thakkar, who worked in the maestros design studio says, The art of making drawings in a way that every detail is explained in a most technically correct way is what I owe to Prof. Raje. The famous elevation drawings with intermediate sections behind is something I would have never known, had it not been for my one and half year stint in Rajes office DORM.18, IIM-A campus working on the Ravi Mathai Centre. This tribute includes what many of Rajes associates, colleagues, and students remember of him.

Special Thanks to: Amita Raje, Gautam Bhatia, J.L.Saha, M.S Satsangi, Nimish Patel, Palak Jhaveri, R.J Vasavada, Shubhra Raje, IFJ furniture journal. Text & Compilation: Ar. Chirashree Thakkar, Chapter Chairperson, IIID, Ahmedabad Regional Center.

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A D Raje, Ravi Mathai and Mrs. Mathai

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India is a country of great sadhus and sages. The blend of material and non-material philosophy makes this country unique and there is always something new to learn. Everybody says we must be futuristic, but it cannot happen without the correct perspective of the present. My teachers used to say history is past and one cannot change it. The future is unknown. Present is the only thing that we know, so why not work for the day. What you master in the present should be good enough to continue in the future, said Anant Raje, the late iconic architect from Ahmedabad. Design, for him, was a transition from spontaneous to formal. We are talking of that generation of architects, where architecture was a form of art that was guided by strong beliefs and a pure expression of style that was synonymous with the

architect. A building mostly reflected the philosophy and culture of the user. Architects have a responsibility towards the society and one must adapt to changes sensibly, otherwise what good would the change dohe would ask. Education has to be made fruitful with good quality residential schools. Nowadays, a child just goes to school and comes back; as a mere routine, he recently observed. Architectural education, of course, was his pet passion. Along with Prof. R. J. Vasavda and his wife Amita, Raje had started CALL - a research cell that worked on architectural research and documentation of several architects of the time. A manual for HUDCO was prepared on the lines of Architectural details of USA, which contained construction details employed in the construction of contemporary housing in India. It

specified standards for housing, ideology for housing, rudimentary materials and details. Around 1966-67 architecture in India was undergoing a phase of consolidation of values and setting up of standards for Indian architectural practice and maximum activity was happening in Ahmedabad. Architects from the rest of the country would come here in search of comrades. Raje played the major guiding role in these formative years. Innovation is not just doing something new, believed Raje. It is about seducing a customer and therefore creating a demand, leading to distortion of the values of the society. We want to sell things that the consumers dont really need. He continued giving the example of an umbrella where the need and the purpose of the product is simple to protect a person from the rain or sun But now we have a wide range

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LIGHT WELL AT RAVI MATHAI CENTRE

of complicated umbrellas! Is innovation about making things complicated? he questioned. Raje had similar views on another simple object the shaving blade. In the olden days; the barber hajjam used to make a tour of the locality shaving beards, trimming moustaches, giving haircuts to people of all sections of society in his morning round. This tradition was made redundant when the barbers blade was replaced by a self-usable razor with a changeable blade This was a marketing gimmickto change the blade after the earlier one became blunt; thereby creating a market for blades. Street-smart marketing is being pushed in the name of innovation. Innovation is to make life less difficult, save energy and time, but the question is to save the time for

what? There has to be another activity for the free time that the innovation has created. There has to be a responsibility in the innovation one chooses to make. Of course, there are other simple objects where Raje endorses innovation. The blown glass paper weight was a good example of innovation; a job was created for the artist to create the art which went inside the blown glass. Innovation must generate opportunities and make life richer rather than take time away from him. Ar. M.S Satsangi, who considered Raje as his good friend, boss, colleague feels that Raje was one of the best interpreters of Louis Kahns philosophy of architecture. As a trainee at the office of Doshi Raje and Thakre, he remembers his exercises on surface development

and making models to arrive at clarity on geometric configuration. At that time, NID used to take up projects and involve international designers as a part of the team. The IIM-A site office was like a Mecca for all the then young architects and students of architecture which included Sen Kapadia, Ekbote, R.J. Vasavada, M.S. Satsangi, and others. Raje was the most mature of the group as he spent maximum time at Kahns office. Raje was a perfectionist, his conceptualization of any project was complete, before it went for drawing and construction stage. He was finicky about design detail, precision of making drawings. Subsequently I assisted Raje in teaching at CEPT where detailing, use of space, feeling of the space and lighting were handled in all thoroughness over a

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Living and bedroom

From entrance to the living room

A view from the swing

Tokonama unit

10 x10 space for one whole semester, recalls Satsangi. He also cherishes the memories of times they spent together at Philadelphia hunting cottage cheese with sugar which tasted similar to Shrikhand, he laughs. Going back to memories of Raje inspires me to work better Ar. Nimish Patel recollects, In 1969, with my batch of students at CEPT, I had done measured drawings of two streets of Udaipur with Raje. He was a minute observer of all aspects of life. Subsequently, I also worked with him on a project. While working on the drawings, he asked Raje a question about the geometry of some element. He simply said, do not question Satsangis geometry which made me realize how much faith he had in his senior associates, says Patel. Raje had a different way of looking at things and always had an eye for perfection, even the spacing

between the hatching lines over a 2 ft long drawing had to be the same all throughout... During 1980-81, Gautam Bhatia worked with Raje and was inspired by him to the extent that even after getting his Masters degree, he came back and continued working with him. He became a friend and a close associate eventually. The Institute of Forest Management was a dramatic point in Rajes architectural practice, opines Bhatia. This institutional campus had a wide range of buildings, all integrated with appropriate landscape. It was an opportune project, where he was an artist, architect, landscape designer. He saw the world in a particular way and most of the explorations were personal. His skills to link geometry aptly and yet have the little architectural nuances like a 3 degree twist in the library building were

always perfect. IFM was a project where the concept of dual wall, light wells to control direct sun, use of water as an intrinsic part of the plan, emerged as strong features of his architectural style. Raje believed that design has to be simple and honest, he recalls. The architects ideology and obvious inclination for simplicity was also reflected in his personal choices. Unlike most people who would consider Pandit Ravishankar as their favourite sitarist, A. D. Raje preferred the lesser known but highly accomplished Pandit Nikhil Banerji for the simplicity of his renderings!! The most insightful comment by R a j e , h o w e v e r, i s o n e o n architectural education. Whether we can teach art or architecture we do not know, but we are sure

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Study & dining area Another view of the living room Wooden ledge along the window connecting the living room with the bedroom

that it can be learnt, for learning depends on us and our mindset. Raje the interior designer A r. A n a n t R a j e s p h i l o s o p h y o f interior design stems from an intrinsic understanding of space and its qualities. Though the basic ideology of a designer can not change, he believed that his attitude towards interior design was different because of Kahns influence. I dont equate interior design with furniture. I have been trained to perceive like this while I was working with Kahn for almost ten years. An architect or interior designer improves a particular space and gives a character - you call it a house, school, auditorium, exhibition hall, hotel or a banquet hall. After all, it is a space enclosed. The idea of that space and character is improved by both, materials and architect. But

nowadays the emphasis is more on products than the quality of creation of space. For a 1100 sq ft apartment on Nepean Sea Road, Mumbai for K. Bhogilal with Sp+m as local architects, Raje had chosen a design with a Japanese spirit, where manipulation of space was the focus using materials that reflected light. It was a play of light and space, says Amita Raje. Shubhra, the couples daughter, and an architect herself, feels that the apartment perfectly suits the requirements of the users. It is an apartment for a young couple in Mumbai. The flexible, open plan takes into account the formality inherent within a domestic space. The strategy has been to resist the containment of rooms by elaborating extensions, remainders, drifting and unfolding. Flexibility here is

understood not as a measure of formal appearance, but of formal properties. The central element of the plan inextricably weaves the social functions with the private bedrooms, absorbing within itself partitions, alcoves, storage and display. The circulation within the apartment is organized around this element, reinforcing its role as an anchor to the plan. Wood acts as the material and symbolic connector of spaces within the apartment. Windows are transformed into places of light as life migrates towards the light, views and breeze. The Japanese architectural element of a Tokonoma (alcove) is interpreted into the articulation of the window, with the stained glass corner in the direction of the sea becoming the exclamation point of the composition, and of the apartment.

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