India based Balkrishna Doshi will be awarded the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in April. He gave Eleanor Young a rare insight into how Ahmedabad and his studio there taught him the importance of sound and silence to design, about flexibility and rejoicing, and putting people first — The RIBA Journal
The recent RIBA Royal Gold medalist Balkrishna Doshi spoke about various episodes and challenges in his six-decade career, stating that in his view, client directives are the single-biggest obstacles he faces as a designer.
“As architects, we say ‘I have made a nice verandah, but somebody has encroached’ — we think encroaching or deviating is incorrect ethics. But when you are living and celebrating life, you forget the original purpose, and that is important.”
Doshi also described his passion for working with young people and credited an early incident outside the Parisian offices of his mentor Le Corbusier as a formative event in his life and career.
“I clearly remember my first day at 35 Rue de Serves, when I entered Monsieur Corbusier’s office with a suitcase on my head. I had crossed the road without thinking about the traffic light, and suddenly there was a huge honking, everybody braked, and I was saved,” he said. “Looking back, my time at the atelier was almost like rebirth from being saved on the road to understanding the true meaning of architecture. So even today, every day, I try to reinvent myself and look at everything as if for the first time.”
1 Comment
B. K. Doshi is a good architect. HIs designs are authentic and resonates because it is contextual and is not pretentious.
In a world where most every architectural firm touts itself as an award winning firm, award winning has lost all meaning. Doshi, Correa and some others in India do not have to broadcast their award winnings, for other do it for them.
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