"a few straight lines
creases along the forehead
hollow rooms and
empty eyes pouring onto the paper
he works tirelessly
through sleepless nights and endless pathways
a new design or a new dilemma?"
Fresh out of high school, sitting in my first design class, late 2018. The college was abuzz with the news of the Pritzker awards that year, little did I know it was the most prestigious architectural honors in the world. The word BV Doshi floated around the mouths of my professors who were beaming with pride, the first Indian to be awarded this accolade. This was my first encounter with Balakrishna V Doshi.
Born in '27, he had graduated from the J.J College of Arts in Bombay, I learnt, as I read up on his biography, I was fascinated by how he worked relentlessly to give back to the society that raised him. How it took him two years of negotiations with the authorities to prevent segregation for the Life Insurance Corporation buildings, how he collaborated with contemporaries like Louis Kahn, Anant Raje and Charles Correa to contribute to the society. He was not here for the accolades or the new design elements that he could bring to the field, he wanted to improve the way we built buildings to better suit our lifestyle without harming nature. A primal cause to our profession that each architect must keep in mind.
He was a pioneer in the field of academia by inaugurating several infrastructural developments like CEPT, IIM Ahmedabad and the School of Architecture. He was equally well versed in art, sculpture and literature. His book Paths Uncharted is one of the most interesting reads that gives insight into the mind of an architect. I recollect my first professor of design telling me his encounter with BV Doshi and how just a few minutes of conversation was so grounding and inspiring. His affiliation with nature and elements of life that were brought about in his designs were simply affirming to the fact that we are all beings interconnected with our surroundings. Architecture is a way of life rather than just a necessity, it is natural to us, and anything unnatural was meant it was not comfortable or was harmful to the way of life.
I consider architecture not as a profession but rather an act of service, a service that protects people through infrastructure, a service that treats society like a network of responsive elements, a service that cannot be measured with want but rather needs. This is a man that stood for this service all his life, truest in it's form. A man whose humility knew no time and boundary, a man who lived life in awe of nature, an avid academician and an architect justified for the title. He has set an example for generations to come, not just concepts or ways to design, not just the how, but also the why and what it takes to be an architect.
I am proud and privileged to have lived through an era where he existed. Through the course of five years of my undergraduate study, I have grown learning his principles and imbibing his values, just like how my professors have. The world is witnessing the end of one of the greatest eras in architecture, and as students and practicing architects, I hope we can keep him alive through our works.
"I hesitate calling myself an architect because the more I think I know what architecture is, the less I feel I know about its true calling"
- Balakrishna V Doshi (1927-2023)
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