Archivo por meses: febrero 2022

PA5. Interpreting architecture

Balkrishna Doshi work analysis

I.I.M.

The Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore was designed by the Indian laureate architect Balkrishna V. Doshi. It was finished in 1983, and is distributed in 54,000 sq meters in a 100 acre site. It is designed to be a poly-nuclear building distributed in orthogonal plans, connected with intersecting corridors with triple heights, decorated with gardens.

One of its particular characteristics is the landscape design, which is also present in all Dr. Doshi’s work. The external and internal gardens blur the line between outside and inside space, providing the building the sensation of continuity, supported by the relation of vain over solid.

The nods generated by the corridors function as communication cores, both horizontally and vertically, as they connect the upper floors with stairs, and function as core service as well.

It is a building of contrasts. The use and repetition of the same textures all over the building, the great hard stone made with local granite, and the tall concrete columns, combined with kota stone in the floors, and the few application of black painted steel, makes the building pass almost unnoticed compared to the huge landscape design, made with a great variety of local flora, that provides the building with organic textures against the hardness of the textures in the building. These same textures are embellished by the game that lights and shadow play over them as they move constantly during the day time.

It’s scale may appear huge in photographs, but once is occupied by students in the day to day life, it truly fulfills its function. It is enriched by the shadows and repetition of elements and its orthogonal design, which gives the building a calm rhythm.

“The sun becomes part of architecture” says Dr. Doshi in the movie as he walks through the building, explaining the decisions he made to get to the final design.

The Indian Institute of Management invites the visitor to feel the spatial experience that fades the interior and the exterior into one, and the environment created by the scale, the use of light and its equilibrated proportion. It is considered the building that proved Dr. Doshi’s personal style, as in his previous work he presented a lot of influence of his masters, Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn. It is in this project where Dr. Doshi meets an agreement between functionalism, use of scale, use of local materials, and influence from ancient Indian architecture.

Bibliography

Think Matter, Indian online editorial that creates content on a curated selection of representative of contemporary practice in India.
https://thinkmatter.in/2019/11/14/indian-institute-of-management-in-bangalore-balkrishna-doshi-vastu-shilpa-consultants/
Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, institutional website.
https://www.iimb.ac.in/

Hidden Architecture, online journal published by a team of architects located worldwide.
http://hiddenarchitecture.net/indian-institute-of-managemen/

My Architect; the Journey of a Son

Movie Analysis

This film, directed and produced by Nathaniel Kahn, tells the story of his father, one of the most famous architects of the 20Th century: Louis Kahn.

The life of Louis Kahn reminds me of Vincent van Gogh, as both died without the “proper” recognition, and gained fame years later after they both passed away.

Kahn struggled to keep his studio afloat, being a misunderstood artist, who always thought of a bigger scale, as he searched for the truth from materials used to assemble his mythic monoliths.

With an important track as a professor, Kahn influenced thousands of students around United States, Europe and Asia, as he went everywhere he was invited to speak. He is remembered as a great and honest architecture philosopher.

Although he struggled to get as many projects as he wished, he accomplished to build an important series of “masterpieces” as I.M. Pei qualifies during his interview in the film. Like the “Salt Institute in La Jolla, California; and the Indian Institute of Ahmedabad (in collaboration with Dr. Doshi); the Kimbell Museum of Art, in Forth Worth, Texas; and the great posthumous work, the National Parliament House of Bangladesh, in Dhaka.

Salt Institute in La Jolla, California

Kahn was distinguished for getting deeply involved in all his projects, to the point that his personal life was a disaster.

The film constantly talks about the precarious quality on the personal relationships Louis Kahn had during his life. He had three simultaneous families with three different women, and is presented as a very detached and absent father with his three children.

National Parliament House of Bangladesh, in Dhaka

In the movie, Nathaniel Kahn, whom narrates all the work from his father, presents several interviews with important colleagues of his father, such as: Philip Johnson, I.M. Pei, Dr. Balkrishna Doshi, Frank Ghery, among others. Simultaneously, we observe interviews with all Kahn’s widows, and their children. It’s not coincidence that all Kahn’s colleagues talk much better about him than his close relatives.

In my opinion, he is absolved by his son at the end of the film, as he recognizes that although he was an absent father and spouse, he was a true genius in his field of his day and age.

He traveled a lot, and accomplished to build great structures in many cities in United States, and a couple of countries in Asia. Returning from one of his many trips to India, he died in Pennsylvania Station, in New York, allegedly from a heart attack, and was not recognized until many days later. Leaving behind an important legacy in the management of light, space and the honest use of materials.