BALKRISHNA DOSHI AND THE EXTINCTION OF MODERNITY

Published on Identity, pp 26-29 / Issue 216 Jan 2022

After being the first Indian architect to receive the Pritzker Prize (the Nobel of architecture) in 2018, Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi (b.1927) was recently awarded another prestigious award: The Royal Institute of British Architects Royal Gold Medal for 2022. As a few years ago, at the time of the Pritzker, the news did not surprise most. After that recognition, the Indian master's work received the attention of the most important architectural platforms and publications. From being an architect present more in history books than in trendy magazines and websites, Doshi has become the symbol of a generation of designers who have steered architecture from the twentieth to the twenty-first century. At least for the insiders, his name was always associated with some of the last century's greatest masters. Specifically Louis Khan, but above all, LeCorbusier. The latter has strongly influenced Doshi's architectural thinking since he was his assistant in the design and implementation of his projects in India. More than any other place, the Indian continent has managed to influence the work of LeCorbusier and modify, even substantially, the spatial proposal and the architectural poetics of the Swiss architect. India is a place capable of immense suggestions. Its millenary culture, the humanity of its populations, and the power of the natural dimension cannot leave anyone indifferent. These contextual conditions require the designer to, first of all, understand, identify, only then interpret. Both in his prolific professional and academic career, Doshi managed to express a personal reading of modern architecture. Using the materials and formal characteristics of rationalism common to many masters of the 20th century, he introduced the specificity of the context -in which he still operates- in his architectural expression. In fact, in response to local social and climatic conditions, we most appreciate his architectural research. His proposals to solve the scourge of lack of housing in India have made school for a "simple efficiency," with which he responded to the needs of communities in search of suitable housing. These projects promoted the idea that the architect is more than a sculptor. Indeed, he is an initiator of processes, a producer of "malleable material," as he defined his works in one of his interviews. His public buildings privileged spatial solutions that promoted a high permeability of the architectural envelope, responding to the climatic characteristics. In many works, one finds sectional solutions providing an assortment of spaces configured as transitory between the inside and outside the building.

According to this approach, it is not easy to recognize the architect's style at first sight. It is the ability of the great ones, of the masters. That of being indifferent to personal stylistic expressions while being carriers and catalysts of programmatic, social, and cultural needs. This way, the designer also alienates himself by proposing projects that, at first glance, seem to detour from a coherent design formula. On closer inspection, though, they contain the true thought of their author. In the case of Doshi, I am referring to Amdavad ni Gufa. One of his most famous projects. An underground art gallery in Ahmedabad seems to escape modern thought to incorporate the suggestions of the organic architecture of the late sixties. When some designers, premonitors of what would later become known as the environmental movement, began to reconsider the morphological laws of nature as generators of possible spatial solutions. Thanks to many prestigious awards, the Indian master is now finally known worldwide, even beyond the restricted circle of architecture scholars. Nevertheless, choosing Doshi as the recipient of the gold medal 2022 may suggest another reading. I wonder if, in addition to his precious architectural contribution, the jury intended to reward the designer mainly as one of the last initiators of processes for improving the social conditions of the population. It is the modern theme of the social impact of architecture in improving the living conditions of society. This theme is no longer prevalent in contemporary architecture, but it is not rare either. Alejandro Aravena's Venice Biennale exemplifies how an architectural "front" dedicated to social and environmental issues still exists nowadays. However, it must be considered that, on a global scale, the detailed study of socio-environmental contexts no longer seems to represent the driving force of the architectural discourse. There are other prevailing horizons fueled by the predominant capitalist forces. Above all technological research reigns supreme almost as the ultimate goal of an increasingly self-referential architecture. On the other hand, the teaching of architectural design, as primary knowledge in architecture schools, seems to dying out. Abstract design exercises are often replacing this topic. The design effort is often applied to the physical production of objects, to investigations on new materials, or it is simply relegated to self-narration, without the learning, control, and application of the architect's only proper tool: drawing. In this sense, the awarding of the Gold Medal to ninety-four-year-old Doshi is not only a sacrosanct recognition for a career full of architectural masterpieces, but it seems to represent a nostalgic greeting to the world that promoted architects as advocate of social transformations. A world that, net of a few rare exceptions, is disappearing.

The Indian master Balkrishna Doshi has been recently awarded with The Royal Institute of British Architects Royal Gold Medal for 2022. It is an opportunity to reflect on its contribution on architecture at the global scale and the historical meaning of his work.