The Pritzker Prize for Architecture 2018 went to a man whose work and

oeuvre emphasises the interconnectedness of architecture, economics,

civics, and nature.
g India. | AP
As I scrolled through my Facebook news feed last Wednesday, I saw a continuum of posts and
accolades about the announcement that Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi had won the Pritzker Prize for
Architecture 2018, most of the posts suffused with a personal sense of elation and pride — much like the
news of AR Rahman winning the Oscar, Sachin Tendulkar’s retirement, or Sridevi’s influential film career.
The difference being, this was within my filter bubble of architect-friends. Not many outside the
architecture community are aware of either Doshi or the Pritzker Prize.
For many Indian architects, even watching the movie 3 Idiots meant spotting Doshi’s designs for IIM-B in
the background, and his unusual cameo in Mani Ratnam’s OK Kanmani was more amusing to discuss
than the plot of the movie. The gap between architecture and popular culture is not a new fact, but with
the complex urban challenges that India is facing today, Doshi’s recognition through this award is another
reminder that we need a wider understanding of the interconnectedness of architecture, the city and
society.
As the founder-director of CEPT University Ahmedabad, with a career spanning a 70 years in
architectural practice and academics, BV Doshi’s is one of the first names you learn as an architecture
student in India, as somebody not so far removed from you, and one of whose buildings the city in which
you live very possibly contains. The ‘Pritzker’ on the other hand always held a mythic quality, an elusive
Nobel Prize of architecture that never reached India, which was won by people whose names we saw on
book jackets and quiz questions. After being initiated in 1979 by Jay Pritzker in the United States — the
first award went to the American modernist architect, Philip Johnson, who famously designed the ‘Glass
House’ — it has been awarded to the biggest names in the field of architecture often known for their
iconic buildings and experimenting with building forms and materials. Renzo Piano’s The Shard in
London, Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Rem Koolhas’ CCTV headquarters in Beijing are
soaring buildings likely to be found on the must-see lists on city brochures with a recommendation to
gaze at and photograph them.
In recent years, the Pritzker Prize has tended to recognise architects engaging with broader social issues
such as public and social housing, low-cost architecture, disaster rehabilitation. Recent awardees who
won under such a consideration include Alejandro Aravena from Chile for ‘Siamese Towers’ (2016
Pritzker) and Japan’s Shigeru Ban for the Centre Pompidou-Metz (2014).
Doshi’s award-winning design showcases a vision of how architecture integrates the modern society —
you may experience this walking amidst the trees and stone buildings of IIM Bangalore, through its wide
corridors and intimate nooks and begin to appreciate what a building in an Indian context can mean, what
an atmosphere of learning could feel like, how a building cannot be imagined without the natural
environment around it.
Doshi’s architecture represents important lessons for students and professionals: on the craft of making
optimal use of the existing site and landscape, of using materials, of climatic controls being inherently
‘sustainable’ without the need of artificial tags, of trying to strike that careful balance between the past
and the present rather than imitating a global vision of modernity. At the larger level of the city and
society, the ethos of an architect like Doshi, who began his career in India in the ’50s, was closely linked
to the changes and challenges in the constructed environment of a newly independent India. With the
establishment of the Centre for Planning and Environmental Technology (CEPT) in 1962, and through his
Vastu-Shilpa Foundation for Studies and Research in Environmental Design, Doshi intended to question
and reinterpret larger ideas about what a city or home could be like, how the teaching and practice of
architecture needs to respond to the society and climate where it is situated.
The idea of modernist architecture in India in the post-independence years was aimed at broader goals
than spaces and materials, which reflected the realisation that the power of an architect to influence
society cannot be seen in isolation — independent of economic and political systems. Doshi and other
modernist architects of the period like Charles Correa, Achyut Kanvinde, Raj Rewal were eager to
engage with the challenges faced by society in their period. The advent of modern architecture charted a
break from the burden of colonial imagery dominating Indian cities, had the “third world” make a mark on
the “developed world”, and worked with challenges of housing shortage, economy, urban migration and
increasing population.
Architectural historians discuss that modern architecture’s functional utility, free of fuss and
ornamentation, lowered costs and allowed more people to be accommodated, a key reason it had appeal
in India — socialist ideas of affordability and equity were certainly part of the dialogue. Housing was thus
naturally a key area of focus, and one of Doshi’s most well-known projects is the Aranya Housing in
Indore, built in the 1980s with the idea of ‘incremental housing’, where the basic site plan and structure
allowed upgrades based on the family’s economic improvement, and the overall target group of the
project was not homogenous, with houses of varying budgets placed together. The project was designed
with courtyards, open spaces and natural climatic controls to provide a breathable living space conducive
to Indore’s hot climate.
Given the many factors that go into building a housing community — besides architecture — critics are
often cynical on how far social goals can be met by physical design. However, in an era of skyrocketing
property prices, where open spaces are the privilege of the very rich, contemporary builders and
architects should study the housing projects of Doshi, where design, financial model and affordability
were all blended into the aim of proving housing and shelter for the most number of persons.
Indian architects of the period were also preoccupied with ‘identity’, which remains a relevant topic in the
era of homogenising cities, where a mall and multiplex in Surat is designed the same way it would be in
Seattle or Dubai. The interpretation of ‘modern’ remains a key question for architects influenced by the
likes of Doshi and Charles Correa. And Doshi himself was influenced by one of the foremost modernist
architects of the world whom he worked with, the French architect Le Corbusier, famously known in India
for designing the city of Chandigarh — an experiment that has seen much debate over its suitability for
India.
Nehru’s ideas for a new India were a strong influence for this new architectural identity built by ‘brand
new’ cities that were free from the past, like Chandigarh, but later underwent a transition to look inwards
and understand Indian domestic life, to draw influences from local culture and suit the spirit of the place.
Strong design controls and uniformity in the streetscape, which were highly valued in many non-Indian
contexts, were not so attractive in India where regional influences are important. In one of his essays,
titled Le Corbusier and Louis I. Kahn: The Acrobat and the Yogi of Architecture, Doshi writes, “I have
gradually discovered that the buildings that I have designed seem somewhat foreign and out of milieu;
they do not appear to have their roots in the [Indian] soil. With the experience of my work over the years
and my own observation, I am trying to understand a little about my people, their traditions, and social
customs, and their philosophy of life…”
It is thrilling to imagine the self-reflections and experiments the 90-year-old Doshi must have worked
through over all the years as India’s milieu transitioned from the relative idyll of the ’50s into the chaos of
today’s Indian city.
The new battles and challenges today are many — rapid urban transformation, each square-foot being
directly calibrated with real-estate profit; gated housing that seeks to close itself off from the city
swamped with problems of traffic, pollution, infrastructure and safety. The Pritzker Prize coming to an
Indian architect is then an important juncture to begin the reevaluation of architecture with a broader
vision, and understand how to address balance the ecosystem of buildings, society, nature and the city.