http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow/456339.cms
'City architecture needs no change'
NIKITA SINGH
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SATURDAY, JANUARY 31, 2004 03:46:17 AM ]
His association with Chandigarh goes back 50 years, at the time
when Le Corbusier was still planning the city. In fact, he was the French
architect's senior designer and supervisor on his projects in Chandigarh and
Ahmedabad. Today, BV Doshi is an eminent architect, educator and
academician, whose understanding and evolvement of architecture is revered
the world over. On a two-day trip to the city to supervise the plans of the
City Centre in Sector 62 Mohali, he tells Chandigarh Times that even
half-a-century later, Chandigarh doesn't need any changes in its
architecture.
Chandigarh revisited. "Every visit to Chandigarh just adds to my
wonder at the beauty of the city. And I feel a lot of pride in the kind of
work that has gone into its architecture. There isn't anything that needs to
be changed, Corbusier made sure of that. The buildings were constructed
against the backdrop of the mountains and they respond to them even now. He
drew from the primitive strength of the area and reinterpreted it in its
architecture. Chandigarh is his dream frozen in time."
Working with Corbusier. "I joined him in 1951 in Paris and then
later assisted him in India as well. And till date, he remains my guru. The
kind of music that he created out of light and space; the variations,
densities and nuances to his work have left a profound influence and
impression on me."
The shift in his style. "My initial approach to buildings was
very theoretical and after a point of time I begun to feel that they looked
alien in the milieu.
What they lacked was the social and cultural influence of the
place they were in. And suddenly I realised that my designs had to
incorporate the habits, lifestyles and emotions of the surroundings and its
people. Architecture took on a different meaning -not merely seeing the
building but experiencing it too. A building that attempted to bring
together lifestyle and nature along with its basic function." Vaastu-Shilp
foundation.
"I started the foundation 25 years ago to create a third force
for the architectural knowledge pool, a place for any kind of research,
documentation and application of architecture methods. And to come up with
means of low-cost housing, slum networking and sustainable architecture
through intense study of lifestyle, culture and technology."
Talent pool in the younger generation of architects. "There is a
lot of talent and potential in today's students and all we need to do is
really just encourage them to have confidence in their ideas. After all a
teachers job is to open the doors, it is up to the students to learn, absorb
and reinterpret. To go out and explore their minds and come up their own
viewpoint."
Calendar schedule in the future. "I want to make a new kind of
ashram in Rishikesh, a place of free knowledge where groups of people can
discuss the future of civilisation, on the course that society is going to
take, to talk about productive culture.
And most essential of all, relate the ashram to Rishikesh. The
second project is building a university in Pune that talks about heritage,
culture, and values in relation to the contemporary needs of society.
An institution where education will become very comprehensive
and attract the young and the old."