Post-1947 architecture merits conservation

Rajnish Wattas

Former principal, Chandigarh College of Architecture

IT was just a year back that India’s world-renowned business school, the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, celebrated 60 years of its inception. And today, ironically, it is talking about demolishing some of its iconic core buildings. Ostensibly, the reason cited is that with decay, they are now beyond structural restoration and, therefore, raise safety concerns.

We need to pause and reflect. One is not talking about just any building developed by an ordinary mind, but a rare masterpiece of modernism designed by none other than Louis Kahn, feted all over the world as a genius of architecture.

Are great institutions only bricks and mortar or do they embody more? In their timeless structures are embedded collective memories of their alumni — hotly-contested debates outside classrooms, impromptu colloquiums in corridors and the buzz of camaraderie and laughter of the country’s best and brightest.

A defining feature of the IIM-Ahmedabad is its numerous cuboid-brick structures punctuated by arched and circular ‘moon windows’ carved out in mute facades. The juxtaposition of masses and voids weaves an ethereal poetry inspired by the ancient and vernacular architectural forms of India. These openings are also designed as light wells and natural cooling systems imparting the interiors a shaded coolness, protected from Ahmedabad’s harsh climate. “He designed more than just a collection of buildings; it is a citadel of learning. It weaves together solids and voids, light and shade, materiality and immateriality in a timeless manner,” writes eminent architectural author and critic William JR Curtis. In fact, he is the one who set the alarm bells ringing across the global architectural fraternity about the demolition plans. This has now led to a chorus of protests from leading lights of the profession, cascading by the day.

Luminaries are lamenting this mindless ‘bulldozer’ and ‘wrecking ball’ approach to modern icons in the name of making room for new, slick and glossy pastiches of shallow architecture devoid of a great, timeless soul.

Can we ever imagine the dreamy spires of Oxford or Cambridge being pulled down to make room for utilising more floor area ratio (FAR) or sprucing up the old moss-laden stone facades for more tacky, glossy, new-age claddings?

So marvellous are the present-day techniques of conservation architects and other related experts in adaptive reuse of old buildings that while retaining their external authenticity, they are retrofitted with the best of amenities inside. And Indian structural engineers are none behind the world’s best to shore up some merely 60-year-old buildings!

Modern architectural heritage is particularly vulnerable to such vagaries of capricious erasures. There is very little protection available to them under the existing laws covering mainly ancient monuments. Also in the case of modern buildings with so many competing claims, there will be a need to establish their outstanding merit by experts enjoying unquestioned trust. The other limitation is that as most of them are functional, everyday-use buildings sans the mystique, romance and veneration that old historic forts, palaces or places of worship enjoy, there is little popular support to preserve them. Even UNESCO included the category of modern heritage for recognition only in 1975. And it is this clause that perhaps will protect Le Corbusier’s Capitol Complex, Chandigarh, one day from the fall of a whimsical sledgehammer!

Sometime back, there was even talk of demolishing Corbusier’s Mill Owners’ Building along the Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad. But then better sense prevailed and the devouring mercantile interests were defeated. The recent laissez-faire approach to pulling down modern buildings to make way for ‘newer and better’ facilities is worrisome. Paucity of land, greed of hungry capital and tacit political patronage often combine to weave business interests where there is “the price of everything, but value of nothing”.

Just a couple of years ago, it was the Hall of Nations complex at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, that despite concerted and impassioned protests by international architectural experts, was pulled down to make way for a new ‘state-of-the-art’ business-cum-convention centre. The fascinating structure designed by architect Raj Rewal and India’s foremost structural engineer Mahendra Raj was the first of its kind to build a huge column-less hall to showcase exhibits at the India Trade Fair held in 1972, marking 25 years of Independence. The structure was both ingenious and indigenous as space frames were usually built in steel internationally. “But, since that could not be afforded in India at that time, the alternative was to make it in prefab concrete,” recalls Rewal.

At the time of Independence, India had only colonial edifices built in eclectic, neo-classical styles or some art deco buildings in big cities. In a great act of farsightedness, it invited two world-famous masters — Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn — to come and build.

While Corbusier went on to raise buildings in Chandigarh and Ahmedabad, Louis Kahn — then designing the Assembly building of the new capital city of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) — came to design the IIM. Inspired by the presence of these two masters, many young, talented Indian architects like BV Doshi, Achyut Kanvinde, Charles Correa and Raj Rewal, also took leaps of faith and returned home to participate in the great adventure of building in a free India. They brought with them a unique combine of nationalism and internationalism.

No wonder, the recently concluded exhibition organised by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, titled ‘Projects of Independence: Architectures of Decolonisation in South Asia’ had the largest display from India. These projects ushered in an era of independent India finding its architectural voice and idiom. They merit conservation and celebration. Not bulldozers.

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