Arts
An architect remembers
Balkrishna Doshi’s engaging book of memories brings Le Corbusier, the master architect who was a major influence in his life, as a warm and humane being, aware of himself but divested of any aura

Francois Truffaut, the great filmmaker, once said: "Every film should have a beginning, middle, and an end. But not necessarily in the same order." One could say this of Balkrishna Doshi’s highly engaging, inward-looking book of memories, ruminations, self-examination: Paths Uncharted. That it has a movingly simple beginning is clear: "I grew up in a joint family in a modest house in Pune", the famous architect says. But then, not long afterwards, it begins to move in a range of directions. The interesting thing, however, is that the reader’s attention is never allowed to wander or waver, for nearly on every page, one would find some insight, or anecdote, or sliver of reflection that makes one think. But one has to walk fast to keep pace with him. For, in a trice, he might shift from talking about senior members of his family or circle who deeply influenced his view of life — Dada, his grandfather, for instance, or Motabhai, steeped in Indian thought and tradition — to the big, glittering world outside, peopled by celebrated names in the world of architecture whom he met and got to know: Louis Kahn, Saarinen, Philip Johnson, Luigi Nervi, Sert, Eames, Siegfried Giedion. Countless names flit in and out, and one can see that they come in, when they do, because they contributed in some manner or the other, some from close, some from a distance, to making him what he has remained for long years: an iconic figure.

But the one person who keeps appearing with delightful regularity in Doshi’s ‘account’, and is of evident interest to us here, is Le Corbusier. Not only because the master architect was a major influence in Doshi’s life and shaping his native talent but because somehow he is able to bring us close to him: as a warm and humane being, aware of himself but divested of any aura. We find him now writing a charming letter to Doshi and his newly wedded wife, now gifting to the young architect not one but two paintings of his, now sitting down to share with him some of the basics of the field that both of them belonged to: architecture. We hear of Corbusier taking Doshi along to the eating joint, Moti Mahal in Delhi, for the preparations there he felt were special! We also see him holding admiringly a miniature painting of Radha and Krishna in hand — "two of them in one being" — and trying to produce a variant of it; at another time, taking the treatment of space as seen in miniatures and using it to carve out different kinds of spaces in a private house that he was building for an affluent, fun-loving client of his in Ahmedabad. At the same time, he finds time to chide Doshi for not knowing the name of a tree that he himself was unfamiliar with. "Pity, how can architecture be complete without the knowledge of trees, plants, forests, gardens, and the ecosystem?" Words of a man who always spoke of making a "Pact with Nature".

It all began with Doshi, who left, early in his life, the safe environs of his home and country to go abroad and landed up eventually at Paris where he joined, with the help of a friend, the master architect’s atelier. The atmosphere Doshi evokes of the initial days that he spent in the celebrated atelier is remarkable, both for its candour and its warmth: the tremulousness of his own heart, the hushed silence in the studio, the sight of assistant after assistant bending over his desk, working, working, working. To him, the terms sternly offered by the Master himself — ‘no pay for the first eight months’, for he was going to be watched and assessed — were acceptable, for where else was he going to get an opportunity like this? But he toiled hard and won approbation, enough to keep working there for the next four years, learning, absorbing.

Chandigarh does not figure with any prominence in Doshi’s account even though, back in India, he was all too aware of the Master keeping a keen eye over the great work being done in the town, and came here at the asking of P. L. Verma, who played such a vital role in the coming up of the capital project, to join the team.

But here it did not last long, for reasons that he cites in his book; and he decided to leave for Ahmedabad. But in between, he was witness to a wonderful exchange between Le Corbusier and P. L. Verma. As he records, one day, the Master asked — who knows why, but all of a sudden — spreading a sheet of paper on the table in front of him: "Verma, do you know what truth is?"

Surprised by the suddenness of the question, Verma shook his head in the negative. At which, Doshi writes: "Corbusier drew two parallel lines and said, "These are two banks of the river". Then, drawing a meandering line between the parallel lines, he said, "Truth never touches any of the river banks. It flows in the middle, sometime more to the left, sometimes to the right, and eventually meets the ocean of greater truth. It never takes sides, or be so definitive as to lose sight of the essential." Quite unlike what a European would ordinarily think: evidently the eastern ways of thinking had made an impact.

All this is woven — this remembering of Corbusier with warmth and reverence — in Doshi’s thoughtful work, into engagement with traditional Indian ideas going back to centuries: vikas, vistaar, drava and kshobha (meaning, respectively, blossoming, expansion, melting and churning) being the essence of life.

But it does not end here. Towards the end, Doshi asks, almost breathlessly, a series of questions about life, practices, the direction we are taking, thinking ahead. But of these another time, perhaps.

From top: Design for a chair. Different Planes. Piazza San Marco: “the biggest living room in the world”, according to Corbusier. An Entrance Hall. All sketches by Balkrishna Doshi

HOME