PROFILES Ilh

'la' PROFILES Ilh, ANANT D. RAJE By Attilio Petruccioli Born September 1929 in Bombay. Graduated in Architecture, Sir J.J. School of Fine Arts, Bombay, 1954. 1957-1960 Professional practice with Mr. B.V. Doshi, Architect in Ahmedabad working on Housing for the Textile Indu- stry workers and Housing for Low-Income group, Gujarat University Science Laborato- ries and Textile Pavilion for Indian Industrial Exposition in New Delhi. 1961-1964 Professional work in Ahme- dabad. 1964-1968 In the office of Prof. Louis I. Kahn in Philadelphia. 1969- 1971 Working on construction of the Indian Institute of Busi- ness Management Building complex with Louis . Kahn, as his local representative to develop design details and or- ganize site office unit and construction work in Ahme- dabad Court of faculty offices. Indian institute of Management Ahmedabad. (ig Yl. 1974 since Extensions and new work to -the IIM campas Ahmedabad. Indian Institute ofManagement, Ahmedabad. (Fig. 92). Right. Management Development Centre. Main hall on three levels. (Fig. 93). He is Honorary Director of the School of Architecture, Ahmedabad. 68 :ti I J 69 Anand Raye is a shy personage of few words, whose talent merits greater fame, such as to go beyond the limited confines of the world in which he lives and works. In a world of great design companies (veritable holding companies), ba- sing their fame on the prima donna attitudes of the boss, on political and financial relations favoured by lf being located in the big "business cities" of India, the studio in which . Anand Raje stubbornly goes about his occupation of a good "craft- sman" of architecture, is a happy exception. More a "Renaissance workshop" than a representative office, it is in Ahmedabad, on the ground floor of one of the residential blocks of the fi Indian Institute of Management, where he works in just a few rooms, p-l surrounded by few students. As one of the last mediaeval architects, he FIRSTFILOR PLAN SCALE1/200 designs directly on the worksite in a constant direct verification between graphic experimentation and con- structive application. As many people know, the IIM is an institution that is constantly ex- panding, whose campus is an enor- 0GAE GER DiING ', $a.D ICEN mous area of work in progress on sECtION SCALE1/2 the outskirts of the city. Since 1969 Anant Raje, first as supervisor on behalf of Louis Kahn, and after the master's death, as head designer, has been the watchful guardian of this great worksite, contributing considerably towards constructing its physical structure and its myth. RIE ALaENY CH E 0EL In particular, after completing the SECTIONSCALE /20 cf central block with the library and I pi the students' quarters, he was re- Indian Institute of Management, Ptax Ahmeda- ~i at sponsible for the designs of the di- bad dining Hall: plan and sections. (Fig. 94). A ning hall and of the Management Management Development Centre, the th Development Centre. AR's archi- porch in front of the court. (Fig. 95). 1 St tectural world cannot be under- A stood unless one links it directly se with the city where he works: Ah- A5 fa medabad is a city that has experien- f of 70 _ _1_ 111_ witness to his civil and human com- mitment). To construct the environment of Ahmedabad, in the fifties they cal- led in such famous architects as Le Corbusier (responsible for four works there: the head office of the Mill Owners, the Museum, the Sa- rabhai villa and the Shodan house) and Louis Kahn. And under the wings of the two masters grew up B. Doshi, today the most international of Indian architects. Raje received his training in Bom- bay, a great metropolis housing all social and cultural groups with their relevant traditions. But this hotpot of traditions, sometimes conflicting with each other, means that none of them prevails. In the English university, the academic culture ack- nowledges infact the existence of so many styles, precisely to deny the possibility of a national "style". Typical in this aspect is the almost botanical classifying accent of the "Manual of Indian Architecture" of Batley, AR's maestro. But this western type academic training is important to explain this apparent detachment of AR from his past: "Now, I have gone back to the old folk forms, history" - he likes to say - "but I was wondering to my- self that all my influences are within this 20th century. Can I honestly re- construct a frame of mind which existed 1000 years ago?". It is equally important in explaining his elective affinity with L. Kahn. ced past splendours during the local enlightened entrepreneurial class The chaotic metropolis of Bombay pre-Moghul dynasties of the 15th laid the foundations for modern in- deeply influences Raje and he in and 16th centuries and after dustrialization. This class of indu- fact proclaims himself an "urban Akbar's conquest. Situated along strialists set itself up as the referen- man" contrary to Doshi (who al- the main connecting line between ce point for a cultural renewal in a though from the same school, looks Surat and the capital of the empire, modern sense, making a bridge bet- to village life). Parts of cities are his Agra, its wealth has always been ba- ween western and Indian culture (it architectures, from the IIM to the sed on trade and on a solid manu- should not be forgotten that Mahat- Pathan Institute of Indology, crea- facturing activity. In the latter half ma Gandhi was from Gujarat and ted for a city developing with the ty- of the 19th century a particularly his Ashram in Ahmedabad bears pical instrument of the compound 71 ¢ derived from colonial times, whose The way he looked at certain mate- functional fact of give and take, but great virtue was that of creating a rial forms through that little correc- something more. His stress is placed periphery of formally accomplished tion is still maintained. Now that's on the integration of culture and urban parts. But his meeting with marvelous. Now what he taught me spiritual wellbeing. His efforts as L. Kahn was to be decisive. The lat- that when I started to do my own designer are aimed at process of in- ter, in fact, as against Le Corbusier work, I was also always thinking of tegration of man, the space around and F.L. Wright, both linked to these corrections which means there him and the elements making up their own cultural environment, is is a past. Now, hereabout, when this space. Only in this sense does the one who speaks a universal lan- there is a past, you started to won- architecture become an "Institution guage more than anyone else, and der about what you are doing, is it of man". The Indian Institute of who more than anyone else takes as really a part of your concept, or so- Management represents an exem- his basis a common (academic) cul- mething that is a certain, of course plary effort in this sense. In the long tural model. As Raje himself says: all concepts come from certain be- course of the design of this work, "with this experience and this kind liefs, and therefore, when I say that from 1962 to 1974, Kahn's capacity of impact, which I just explained, your testing of them in these correc- was that of consultant architect. In meeting with Louis Kahn was a par- tions is testing a certain belief, the 1969 Raje returns from America ticular kind, talking with him the next question is there a break in be- with the task of official architect, first time, which he made me reali- lief?, is there a crack, is there a commisioned to follow the work ze, that there is a dichotomy that weakness in that belief? Now this and to transform Kahn's sketches even though we are, as human was marvelous, So I started to do into final drawings. It is as well to beings, a product of nature, that we my own work, Kahn was already emphasize at this point that in Phi- are not nature. Now this is a dicho- there". ladelphia, apart from various other tomy; that means that nature is the- And also his constant "interroga- projects, Raje had taken care of the re, a human mind is consciousness, tion" of the materials to under- design for the presidential residence is awareness, is something which is stand the most apt spirit and use and the Capitol in Islamabad, a not nature itself. Now this really thereof - brick wants to be brick, project of considerable expressive shook me up because we had never concrete wants to be concrete, steel potential, but unfortunately not thought of this before". constructed. But the key moment is his sojourn In 1969 the students' sleeping quar- in the Philadelphia workshop. Here ters were under construction, while Kahn's maieutic art based on perso- the central complex with the square nal teaching has a profound effect was still being constantly rethought on Raje's formation. Kahn's tea- (at least three main versions exist). ching vehicle is correction as an It is not to be excluded that the clas- example. When Kahn put yellow sical simplicity of the square ope- tracing paper over the drawing and ning into the landscape, much sim- redrew the design, coming to entire- pler than the earlier versions, was ly fresh terms with it, he went back due also to Raje's influence. The along the whole history of the de- sketches kept in the museum of the sign. The correction became the wants to be steel - are at the basis University of Pennsylvania are bitty moment of verification between the of Raje's design method.

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