indian architecture styles after independene

1. Styles after Independence
Oberoi Hotel, New Delhi-Bajpai and Mody

2. Styles after Independence
New Secretariat Building, Kolkata-Habib
Rehman

3. Styles after Independence
ATIRA Building, Ahmedabad –Achyut Kanvinde

4. Styles after Independence
Supreme Court of India, New Delhi-CPWD

5. Styles after Independence
Ashok Hotel, New Delhi - B. E. Doctor

6. Styles after Independence
Vidhan Soudha, Bengaluru-SPWD

7. Styles after Independence
Telephone Bhavan,
Hyderabad-Jeet Malhotra

8. ACHYUT KANVINDE
“Over the years, I have come
to believe that it is imperative
that an Architect develops a
sensitivity to human nature
and respect for human values.
This, after all, is the very core
of his work.”

9. About
• Achyut Purushottam Kanvinde (1916–2002) was an Indian Architect who worked
in functionalist approaches with elements of Brutalist architecture. He received the
Padma Shri in 1974.
• He was born in Achare, in the Konkan region of Maharashtra, in 1916 in a large
family. His mother died when he was two and his father was an arts teacher in
Mumbai.
• Kanvinde, influenced by his father, a portrait and landscape painter, took up art and
graduated in architecture from Sir J.J. School of Arts, Mumbai in 1942, then headed
by Claude Batley, who was also the premier architect of the country.
• Kanvinde remembers him as "a very important man in shaping the outlook of many
architects of my generation, also of the earlier generation.“

10. About
• In 1946 Kanvinde joined the Architectural programme of the Graduate School of
Design at Harvard University. He was probably one of the first Indian architects to
study abroad. There, under the guidance of Walter Gropius, he encountered the
thinking and teachings of the European masters of the Bauhaus.
• The school atmosphere was very liberal, with student activity going on
continuously day and night, and a quiz being held every week. The classes in History
of Architecture exposed him to medieval European Architecture leading upto the
development of Venice.
• In Harvard GSD, Modern architecture was studied with particular emphasis on
developments during the previous 100 years, including the great exhibitions which
brought to light the major technological advances of that time.
• He was charged with the ideas of the Bauhaus teachers, and fired by the vision
which seems to have gripped the minds of powerful policymakers in India at that
time – that science and technology held key to the growth of the nation. In the next
few years Kanvinde and Rai – executed several important commissions. These
buildings, it has been said, helped to establish the International Style in India.

12. About
• Kanvinde came back in the latter half of 1947, and joined the Council of Scientific
and Industrial Research, one of the Central Government organizations responsible
for the development of science and technology in India.
• It was during this period, that he had to tackle the problems of flexibility, growth
and change, and the criticality of functional usage in planning and building design.
His own architectural contribution came with the design of the Council of Scientific
and Industrial Research headquarters in New Delhi, the Central Building Research
Institute in Roorkee, and the Central Engineering Research Institute in Pilani.
• Kanvinde established a private practice partnership with Shaukat Rai, a civil
engineer and structural designer, in New Delhi in the 1950s.
• There was a strong lobby resisting the straightforward adoption of the
International Style, with Claude Batley as one of its leading protagonists. They held
that traditional Indian character and motifs in building had to be expressed in
contemporary work. He had to try to reconcile several forms of expression and the
effort was successful.

13. Philosophy
• “…It is imperative that an Architect develop a sensitivity to human nature and a
respect for human values. This, after all, is at the very core of his work. In India the
search for a new architectural expression must continue – and this must go beyond
the satisfaction of matter of fact functional needs. I think the designer’s sensibility
here must become aware of the accumulated wisdom of generations, but this
should go together with the idea of progress reflected in the evolution of
technology.”
•About his work in the later half of his career. “I think the decade of the 1960s
brought a new phase of self-discovery. I see now that the large slab blocks and clean
lines emerging out of a strict orthogonal geometry – characteristic of Gropius and
the Inter– national Style – began to break down and I was searching for a more
human scale.”

14. National Science Centre

15. National Science Centre

16. National Science Centre

17. P K Kelkar Library, IIT Kanpur

18. P K Kelkar Library, IIT Kanpur

19. P K Kelkar Library, IIT Kanpur

20. JOSEPH ALLEN STEIN
.

21. About
• Born in 1912 in Omaha, Nebraska, US, Mr Stein studied architecture at the
University of Illinois, and Ecole des Beaux Art in Paris, France. He worked with
renowned architects such as Ely Jacques Kahn​ and Richard Neutra​, and was inspired
by the likes of Frank Lloyd Wright​ and Eliel Saarinen​. He was a major figure in the
establishment of a regional modern architecture in the San Francisco Bay area in the
1940s and 1950s.
• In 1952, Mr Stein arrived in Calcutta as a professor of architecture at Bengal
Engineering College (now University) in Sibpur.
• India under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru​ was a liberal land open to ideas and
hungry for progress. Mahatama Gandhi​ and Rabindranath Tagore​ lived on in people’s
minds.
• Their ideals of creative thinking and simple living shaped Mr Stein’s philosophy of
integrating man-made construction with nature’s expressiveness. Three years later,
Mr Stein moved to Delhi, a city he made his home.

22. About
• He typically designed two- to four-storey buildings that fused with the surrounding
trees, gardens and pools; flowers and vines would spill over the walls. Mr Stein’s
designs were modernistic, but inspired by India’s past.
• “He brought a ‘California modernism’ sensibility to this country,” says artist Ram
Rahman, whose architect father was a friend of Mr Stein. “He was good at working
with local materials, be it granite or glazed tiles, both influences of Tughlaq
Architecture.”
• Stein foresaw what the juggernaut of progress would do to the delicate balance of
ecosystems; his designs sought to find harmony. In an interview in 1982, he said:
“India has intense and sharply drawn environmental problems. There is probably no
possibility of solutions here except along what may be called Gandhian lines, which
means essentially seeking simple and ecologically gentle solutions.”

23. About
• This thought was best translated in the IIC, an oasis for Delhi’s intellectuals.
Completed in 1962, this is a world of grassy open spaces, placid pools, paved
walkways, jaalis, porticos and canopies. The buildings, instead of soaring high, give a
feeling of coming down to meet the earth. Bougainvillea crawls up the stone walls,
mynahs nibble on the grass, and lotus leaves float in the water. The daylight falls
soft, and shaded spaces are close by.

24. India International Centre, New Delhi

25. India International Centre, New Delhi

26. India International Centre, New Delhi

27. India International Centre, New Delhi

28. India International Centre, New Delhi

29. India International Centre, New Delhi

30. About
• Mr Stein created gently on earth. The India Habitat Centre, constructed in the late
1980s, was his last major work. The pinnacle of his art, he designed it as a series of
blocks, linked by shaded courtyards, stairs and walkways, screened from the sun as
well as the noise of traffic. To soften the concrete and tarmac, the vertical face of
each building sported flowers and creepers—as do the Ford Foundation
headquarters and Triveni Kala Sangam.
• Writing in 1982, Mr Stein shared his wisdom: “In the 20th century, the pressures of
population, land speculation, the tight and often sterile industrialised construction
requires that the architect consciously seek not to spoil the earth with his work as he
extends hard constructions even onto the last recess of Nature.”

31. India Habitat Centre, New Delhi

32. India Habitat Centre, New Delhi

33. India Habitat Centre, New Delhi

34. India Habitat Centre, New Delhi

35. India Habitat Centre, New Delhi