Faithful to its appointment, the Hyatt Foundation has announced this March the architect awarded the 2018 Pritzker Prize. And on this occasion the recognition has gone to Balkrishna Doshi. An Indian creator with a long career developed in his country during the last decades.
The conditions of the Pritzker Prize
Since the creation of this award by American businessman Jay A. Pritzker in 1979, this prize has sought every year architects capable of conceiving and building projects that are not only beautiful, but that enrich humanity. In other words, they have been rewarded for their creativity and quality, but also for the social character of their works.
Balkrishna Doshi
There have been years in which the awardees are discussed by the most specialized community. But on this occasion, everyone agrees that Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi meets all the requirements to be a just winner of what is considered the Nobel Prize for Architecture.
Balkrishna Doshi’s two major influences
B.V. Doshi was born in 1927 in the Indian city of Pune. And at the age of 20 he began his architectural studies in nearby Mumbai. A training that would end in London, and soon after would take him to Paris, where he met his great mentor: Le Corbusier. One of the most eminent architects of the last century.
I worked side by side with him. And he did so with the language barrier, since Le Corbusier was not fluent in English, which today Balkrishna Doshi sees as an advantage, since he considers that these talks were more visual, witty and spatial.
Balkrishna Doshi at work in his Ahmedabab studio.
Undoubtedly, the distinguished Swiss architect was his great influence and the reason for his return to India, since he returned in 1954 to carry out the projects that his office was carrying out in the cities of Chandigarh and Ahmedababab. But there was another architect with whom he worked in the 1960s and who was also a reference in his later projects. He is the American Louise Kahn.
A quintessentially Indian architect
With Le Corbusier and Kahn, the young B. V. Doshi learned the concepts of the most exquisitely contemporary architecture, and has never denied their influence. In fact, in his most personal studio he still keeps a photo of his inspiring Swiss master.
Tagore Memorial Hall today
But beyond that, Doshi soon realized the importance of the Indian building tradition. Forms that gave the guidelines to build the most suitable for that climate and those conditions. And that is a factor that stands out in all his production, merging modernity and tradition. Thus, in works such as the Tagore Memorial Hall of 1966 the prefabricated and the handcrafted, the most monumental and even brutal concrete with the spatial distribution based on local ways of life.
In short, a union of concepts that could only be achieved thanks to the talent and creativity of this architect.
The social interest of the work of Balkrishna Doshi
And there is still one last element that distinguishes the work of the Indian architect. He himself recounts that in the early 1950s he took an oath that he would fulfill throughout his life, and this consisted of: “provide adequate housing for the most disadvantaged classes“.
One of his most cherished projects: Aranya’s housing projects
He set out to do so after his first poor housing project, and he has certainly lived up to it ever since, carrying out such valued achievements as the low-cost housing in Aranya and the cooperative housing in Ahmedabab.
Your studio, your refuge
In 1980 he built the studio where he still works. It is located in Ahmedabab and is called Sangath, whose translation from Sanskrit would come to mean “moving together“. For many, this construction synthesizes all his art by using modern materials, traditional ones, elements as material as concrete vaults with other immaterial ones, such as the meandering surfaces of water.
This is the working studio of Balkrishna Doshi
In short, he proposes a space that becomes a place where nature, art and the individual come together, which is the inspiration for all his works.
Other works by Doshi
From that studio has come one of his most acclaimed, personal and experimental creations, such as the Amdavad Ni Gufa art gallery. It is a vaulted space with the appearance of a cave, and where the work of local artist Maqbool Fida Husain is exhibited.
Cover of the Amdavad Ni Gufa Gallery
He also designed the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, where the interior of the training center is just as important as the external campus. Taking into account not only the educational aspect of the place, but also the life generated there and the necessary interaction between people.
Interior of the CEPT University building
These works, along with others such as the collective housing for Life Insurance Corporation or the design of CEPT University, are the great designs of Balkrishna Doshi. An architect who wanted to materialize the story of his life in his buildings, with all his social and artistic concerns. For that motivation and for his attitude of responsibility towards architecture and his fellow citizens, he is undoubtedly worthy of the 2018 Pritzker Prize.
