[Reader-list] [Announcements] Ravi Kalia on MODERNISM IN INDIA: FROM LE CORBUSIER TO LOUIS KAHN & BEYOND

[sadan Jha]

URBAN CULTURES AND POLITICS SEMINAR SERIES: Urban Experiences


Thursday, January 20, 2005, 3.30 P.M.

Sarai, CSDS, 29, Rajpur Road. Delhi-54

“MODERNISM IN INDIA: FROM LE CORBUSIER TO LOUIS KAHN & BEYOND”

by Ravi Kalia, Professor, Professor, The City College, New York

Professor Kalia specializes in South Asian studies, particularly 
urban-architectural history in colonial, post-colonial India. He is the 
author of “Chandigarh: The Making of an Indian City” (1987; revised, 
1999) and “Bhubaneshwar: From a Temple Town to a Capital City” (1994). 
He has recently completed “Gandhinagar: The Swadeshi Capital of Gujarat” 
(forthcoming).
Abstract:

“MODERNISM IN INDIA: FROM LE CORBUSIER TO LOUIS KAHN & BEYOND”

The colorful, cocky, controversial Frenchman Le Corbusier introduced 
Modernism to India. The patrician Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru gave 
political endorsement to the Modernist doctrine. And the mystical 
American architect Louis Kahn provided the transcendent dimension to it. 
India enthusiastically embraced Modernism because of its simple but 
powerful message: modernize your house, and life will follow. For young 
architects like Charles Correa, B. K. Doshi, and others in postcolonial 
India, Modernism offered a shimmering vision of escape from everything 
conservative, traditional, and limited. Modernism also gained acceptance 
because it was unencumbered by imperialist ideas: because parsimonious 
Modernist designs and unadorned spaces never represented much of a 
threat to religiously pluralistic India anxious to create a secular 
identity and create mass housing for refugees displaced by the 
partition. The lecture will explore and evaluate the works of Le 
Corbusier(Chandigarh), Otto Koenigsberger (Bhubaneswar), and Louis Kahn 
(Ahmedabad) in South Asia, and their legacy.

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