Padma Awards 2023 | What Padma Vibhushan Architect B.V. Doshi did for India

Architect B.V. Doshi (26 August 1927 - 24 January 2023) received the Padma Vibhushan title posthumously. (Image source: Twitter)

Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi was one of the most celebrated architects of India, and not without reason. After he passed away earlier this week, tributes have been pouring in from his peers, students, architects, artists and a host of others who are aware of his work and persona. When the honours list for 2023 was announced on the eve of Republic Day this year, it was only fitting that Padma Vibhushan (India's second-highest civilian award) was added to the string of honours bestowed on the legendary architect who passed away on January 24. He had received the Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian award, in 2020; and the Padma Shri in 1976.

Doshi was the only Indian architect to have worked with two pioneers of modern architecture - Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn. Among his projects are the Institute of Indology, CEPT University and Kanoria Centre for Arts in Ahmedabad, the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, and Aranya Low-Cost Housing in Indore.

Also read: Tribute | Pritzker Prize winning architect Balkrishna Doshi in Ahmedabad

In 2018, he received the Pritzker Architecture Prize, considered one of the most prestigious prizes in the field of architecture, becoming the first Indian architect to receive the honour.

Doshi won the gold medal awarded by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in 2022. The award is given to a person who has had a significant influence, either directly or indirectly, on the advancement of architecture. They described his work as combining "pioneering modernism with vernacular, informed by a deep appreciation of the traditions of India's architecture, climate, local culture and craft."

The ‘Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters’, equivalent to the Padma Bhushan award in India, was conferred on Doshi by the French consul general Jean Raphael Peytregnet at a function hosted at CEPT, Ahmedabad, by the Alliance Francaise of Ahmedabad in 2011. The choice of venue was apt, considering that he is the ‘founding father’ of the Centre for Environmental Planning & Technology (CEPT). The title of ‘Officer’ recognises Doshi’s association with France’s master architect Le Corbusier and his contributions to facilitating relations between the two countries in the field of architecture and art.

My close encounters with this iconic Indian architect left me even more in awe of his spirit than I was after reading about him. An unassuming personality, both in the way he dressed neatly in traditional Indian attire and interacted humbly with his peers and juniors, he displayed none of the flamboyance that characterises those who have achieved just a fragment of his success. His life, and his work in the realm of natural materials, energy-saving techniques and interpretation of traditional Indian architecture in a contemporary vocabulary, have inspired scores of architects and will undoubtedly do so for generations to come.

Naturally, I was delighted by his promise to me when, in September 2011, I met him at Sangath – his masterpiece of an office in Ahmedabad – soon after he received France’s highest honour for the arts. “I’m going to give you a book. It has the whole story of my life,” he declared. And he kept his promise, handing me the first issue that arrived at his office - making me the proud owner of a signed copy of 'Paths Uncharted' (his book based on notes from his diaries).

“If you are highly motivated, your thoughts about your aspirations and dreams travel, reach out and eventually the cosmic forces create situations for them to happen really.” One of the brilliant gems contained in 'Paths Uncharted', this is the most probable explanation for the incredible events that led Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi, born in 1927 as the son of a furniture maker in a joint family in Pune, to the atelier of Le Corbusier in Paris (1951-54) – and thence, thanks to “a series of seemingly disparate coincidences”, to oversee his guru’s projects in Ahmedabad.

Doshi set up his own studio, Vastu Shilpa Consultants, after he returned in 1955. His experience in Paris was a stepping stone to accomplishments such as working closely with Louis Kahn when the American architect designed the campus of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. In 1958, he was a fellow at the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. “I got this fellowship because I happened to meet Dr Sigfried Giedion, the Swiss architectural historian and critic, in Corbusier’s office, just a few days before I left Paris,” explained Doshi.

Soon after, came his formidable achievements as an educator and institution builder – the founder director of the School of Architecture, Ahmedabad (1962-72), founder director of the School of Planning (1972-79), founder dean of CEPT (1972-81), founder member of the Visual Arts Centre, Ahmedabad, and founder director of the Kanoria Centre for the Arts, Ahmedabad.

Doshi’s work is at once modern and traditional, his architecture interpreting the Indian vernacular in a contemporary idiom. Among the significant institutional campuses that he designed are IIM, Bengaluru; Madhya Pradesh Electricity Board, Jabalpur; NIFT, New Delhi; CEPT University, Ahmedabad; and Yashwantrao Chavan Development Academy, Pune.

Doshi also designed Amdavadi ni Gufa, an underground art gallery. (Photo: Pratyush Thaker/Wikimedia Commons 4.0)

His urban scale projects include the planning for the Bandra-Kurla Complex, Mumbai; development of the Kharghar node, Navi Mumbai; and the proposal for the new city of Jaipur, Vidyadharnagar. His mastery over housing is evident in Aranya, Indore – a slum redevelopment township, for which he received the international Aga Khan Award in 1996.

Indeed, Doshi travelled a long way from the time when he gave up his share of ancestral property in Pune for just enough money to survive in London, where he headed at the invitation of a friend (Hari Kanhere, his senior at the JJ School of Architecture, Mumbai). In 1951, his unquenchable thirst for knowledge took him to Hoddesdon for the Eighth Conference of the International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM), which he managed to attend against great odds after persistently calling up Cadbury Brown, secretary of CIAM.

Since he was neither a member nor a full-time architecture student (but studying independently for the RIBA examination), he had to use all his persuasive skills. “I often wonder about this bold and courageous act of calling him up, considering that I was quite shy and could not converse properly in English,” confessed Doshi, who went on to become a fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) for his “lifetime contribution to Indian and international architecture” and has been on the selection committee for the Pritzker Prize, the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, and the Aga Khan Award for Architecture.

A chance meeting with German Samper from Bogota, Colombia, who was working with Le Corbusier on the master plan for Chandigarh, prompted Doshi to write to the French master, asking if he could work with him. At the time, he knew almost nothing about him, though he learnt later that Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, whose work impressed him, had been influenced by Le Corbusier. “Cosmic forces” must have been at work, for the aspiring young Indian architect received a reply immediately: “You would not be paid for 8 months. If you want to come, come.”

That was enough for Doshi to leave for Paris, with his meagre savings, on a boat from Dover to Calais. “Thus began another chapter in my life, in another strange city, just as in Mumbai and London earlier,” recalled the architect a decade ago, six decades after that momentous decision. The language barrier and having no acquaintances outside office took its toll. “I kept asking myself: why did I come? Lonely, exhausted and nervous, I would go to the hotel, drink some milk and cry.”

What kept Doshi going was the advice his “dada” had given him: “Bal, don’t leave anything halfway because, if you do, you will repent it all your life, think of it as a failure and, chances are, you will never take another risk. Determination to go on is very crucial for excellence and success.”

Doshi's determination took him to unimaginable heights, but he remained grounded all through his life's journey along Uncharted Paths – and for that we salute him.