1.

January 11, 2021  
   
To
The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
 
   
Prof. Errol D’Souza, Director, IIMA Shri Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman, Governing Council
Shri Sanjay Kumar Sinha, Member, Governing Council Shri Pankaj Patel, Member, Governing Council
Smt. Anju Sharma, Member, Governing Council Prof. Vishal Gupta, Member, Governing Council
Shri Sunil Kant Munjal, Member, Governing Council Shri Ashank Desai, Member, Governing Council
Ms. Alka Barucha, Member, Governing Council Dr. Hasit Joshipura, Member, Governing Council
Ms. Kaku Nakhate, Member, Governing Council Ms. Roopa Kudva, Member, Governing Council
Shri Sanjiv Dangi, Member, Governing Council Prof. Pradeep K. Chintagunta, Member, Governing Council
Prof. Ajay Pandey, Member, Governing Council Cdr. Manoj Bhatt (Retd.), Secretary, Governing Council
   

Dear Dr. D'Souza and Members of the Governing Council of IIMA, 

We are heartened by the IIMA's decision to withdraw the Expression of Interest for the comprehensive design of student housing, as stated in your letter from Jan 1st. We appreciate that you have acknowledged the design community as stakeholders in this process and in doing so have listened to the overwhelming concern and affection for the collective patrimony of which you are proud custodians. We also welcome your willingness to deliberate on the options and consult the best global conservation and structural experts to chart a course of action which we hope will include the entire built environment - buildings and the spaces between them, that together constitute the east campus of the IIMA. 

As the IIMA considers immediate and subsequent steps, we feel it necessary to reiterate key concerns that remain unanswered. We believe these to be essential for any future process to have credibility towards building public trust and maintaining the support of key stakeholders:

  1. The institution must commit to transparency of process when consulting with, and appointing experts to future committees. These must includeprofessionalsof staturewho havethe breath and technical expertise to rehabilitate structures, to reimagine their adaptive transformation, and appreciate the intangible cultural legacy of its architecture.
  2. As stated in our appeal, the IIMA must embark upon a comprehensive conservation plan for the entire East campus and include the faculty housing, the Management Development Center, the Ravi Mathai Center, the Dining Hall, and all buildings on the campus designed by Louis Kahn, Anant Raje, and B.V. Doshi. 
  3. The IIMA must generate a platform for the conservation team of Somaya and Kalappa Consultants and their team of consultants, including Dr. Arun Menon (IIT, Chennai)to be heard and to respond to the key findings of the building committee, especially when these findings reference their work. Furthermore, they should be released from any non-disclosure agreements, allowing for greater transparency and trust in the process.
  4. Given that the IIMA has recognized the campus to consist of legacy buildings, the IIMAmust make public key reports and findings on the basis of whichfuture recommendations are made.

We are including with this letter an updated list of signatories to our appeal (of December 31, 2020). The appeal now includes representations from 218 universities and 58 nations. In addition to Deans, Chairs, Heads of Departments, Professors and PhD Candidates, the list includes three Pritzker Prize winners and hundreds of professional architects across the world, both renowned and emerging. The appeal, with over 1100 signatories to date, has now been mentioned at multiple places in the media, including The New York TimesArchitects Newspaper, and Times of India

This overwhelming support speaks to the intangible and collective legacy of IIMA's buildings, their place in an important phase of post-independence institution building across India, and their continued ability to inspire people across the world. We believe that done appropriately, the conservation of all of the dormitories will allow for creative repurposing with modern amenities and structural compliance. As further elaborated in our appeal, this would make sense from both a cultural as well as an environmental point of view - for the most sustainable building is one that has already been built. Including the entire campus in these conservation efforts, while allowing for future densities, can make the IIMA a global leader in conservation of modernist legacies, and only enhance the worldwide reputation of your institute..

[signed]
  Sarosh Anklesaria, T. David Fitz-Gibbon Professor of Architecture, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA
  Riyaz Tayyibji, Architect, Team Lead National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) Ahmedabad, India
  Shubhra Raje, Visiting faculty, CEPT University, Ahmedabad, India
 
CC:
Directors - Other IIMs Across India
CC:
President Council of Architecture New Delhi
CC:
President / Chairman – Indian Institute of Architects
CC:
Chairman INTACH
CC:
Chairman ICOMOS
CC:
UIA- International Union of Architects Secretariat – France
CC:
American Center Office– New Delhi
CC:
All Media + All Newspapers/ TOI/ UIA/ ICOMOS/ NYTimes/

2.

December 31, 2020  
   
To
The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
 
   
Prof. Errol D’Souza, Director, IIMA Shri Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman, Governing Council
Shri Sanjay Kumar Sinha, Member, Governing Council Shri Pankaj Patel, Member, Governing Council
Smt. Anju Sharma, Member, Governing Council Prof. Vishal Gupta, Member, Governing Council
Shri Sunil Kant Munjal, Member, Governing Council Shri Ashank Desai, Member, Governing Council
Ms. Alka Barucha, Member, Governing Council Dr. Hasit Joshipura, Member, Governing Council
Ms. Kaku Nakhate, Member, Governing Council Ms. Roopa Kudva, Member, Governing Council
Shri Sanjiv Dangi, Member, Governing Council Prof. Pradeep K. Chintagunta, Member, Governing Council
Prof. Ajay Pandey, Member, Governing Council Cdr. Manoj Bhatt (Retd.), Secretary, Governing Council
   

Dear Dr. D'Souza and Members of the Governing Council of IIMA,

We would like to bring to your attention a letter signed by over 600 architects, and academics, many of international stature, representing

118 universities from over 30 nations. We believe the letter collectively embodies the voice and belief of the architecture and design profession. The letter states that the proposed demolition of the IIMA dormitories, will seriously damage the global reputation of IIMA. It would be an act of cultural vandalism. The letter calls upon IIMA to embrace a comprehensive plan for conservation of the entire old campus, and lead the conservation efforts of modernist architecture, by way of example.

Signatories include eminent architects, deans, heads of departments, noted scholars, professors, journalists and historians in architecture and related disciplines encompassing 34 universities from the United States, 18 from the United Kingdom, 13 from India, as well as representations from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Macedonia, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Panama, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, and Thailand. The letter has been signed by luminaries in the discipline such as:

  1. B.V. Doshi, Pritzker Laureate 2018, Padma Bhushan 2020, Ahmedabad, India
  2. Rafael Moneo, Architect, Pritzker Laureate, 1996, Emeritus Josep Lluís Sert Professor in Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Spain
  3. Juhani Pallasmaa, Architect, Writer, Professor Emeritus, Helsinki, Finland
  4. Alejandro Aravena, Executive Director ELEMENTAL, Pritzker Laureate, 2016, Chile
  5. Peter Rich, Noted Architect, Professor of Architecture, Johannesburg, South Africa
  6. Neelkanth Chhaya, Former Dean, Faculty of Architecture, CEPT University, Ahmedabad, India
  7. A G Krishna Menon, Architect and Conservation Consultant, New Delhi, India
  8. Marcos Mazari Hiriart, Dean, Faculty of Architecture, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), President, Mexican Association of Institutions for Architectural Education (ASINEA) and President, the Latin American Union of Schools and Faculties of Architecture (UDEFAL), Mexico
  9. Richard A Engelhardt, UNESCO Chair Professor of Culture Heritage Management; UNESCO Senior Advisor for Culture and World Heritage; Founder and Jury Chair UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Conservation Awards
  10. Rabindra Vasavada, Noted Conservation Architect and Historian, Ahmedabad, India
  11. Reinhold Martin, Scholar, Professor of Architecture at Columbia GSAPP, Director of The Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture and the History and Theory Curriculum, New York, USA
  12. Rahul Mehrotra, Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, USA/ Mumbai, India
  13. Nader Tehrani, Noted Architect and Dean, Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at the Cooper Union, New York, USA
  14. Tatjana Schneider, Professor for the History and Theory of Architecture and the City, TU Braunschweig, Germany
  15. Aldo Aymonino, Full Professor of Architectural and Urban Design, Iuav University of Venice, Venice, Italy
  16. Gabriela Manzi, Architect, Director of the Department of Architecture, University of Chile, Chile
  17. Anthony Vidler, Noted Scholar, Former Dean at the Cooper Union and Cornell University, New York, USA
  18. Tatiana Bilbao, Noted Architect, Principal at Tatiana Bilbao ESTUDIO; Norman R. Foster professor at Yale School of Architecture, Mexico City, Mexico
  19. Jeremy Smith, Design Director Irving Smith Architects, Professor, University of Auckland, New Zealand; International Advisor, SCAD, Chennai, India
  20. Marlon Blackwell, Noted Architect, Marlon Blackwell Architects, Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA

Please find attached the letter, which includes a full list of signatories. Additionally, a change.org campaign started by The Architecture Review has gathered over ten thousand signatures from the general public. We are receiving hundreds of new signatories every day.

[signed]
  Sarosh Anklesaria, T. David Fitz-Gibbon Professor of Architecture, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA
  Riyaz Tayyibji, Architect, Team Lead National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) Ahmedabad, India
  Shubhra Raje, Visiting faculty, CEPT University, Ahmedabad, India
 
CC:
Directors - Other IIMs Across India
CC:
President Council of Architecture New Delhi
CC:
President / Chairman – Indian Institute of Architects
CC:
Chairman INTACH
CC:
Chairman ICOMOS
CC:
UIA- International Union of Architects Secretariat – France
CC:
American Center Office– New Delhi
CC:
All Media + All Newspapers/ TOI/ UIA/ ICOMOS/ NYTimes/

3.

December 31, 2020  
   
To
The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
 
   
Prof. Errol D’Souza, Director, IIMA Shri Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman, Governing Council
Shri Sanjay Kumar Sinha, Member, Governing Council Shri Pankaj Patel, Member, Governing Council
Smt. Anju Sharma, Member, Governing Council Prof. Vishal Gupta, Member, Governing Council
Shri Sunil Kant Munjal, Member, Governing Council Shri Ashank Desai, Member, Governing Council
Ms. Alka Barucha, Member, Governing Council Dr. Hasit Joshipura, Member, Governing Council
Ms. Kaku Nakhate, Member, Governing Council Ms. Roopa Kudva, Member, Governing Council
Shri Sanjiv Dangi, Member, Governing Council Prof. Pradeep K. Chintagunta, Member, Governing Council
Prof. Ajay Pandey, Member, Governing Council Cdr. Manoj Bhatt (Retd.), Secretary, Governing Council
   

Letter to IIM Ahmedabad to stop the demolition of dormitories designed by Louis Kahn

Dear Dr. D'Souza and members of the Governing Council of the Indian Institute of Management,

We write this letter to express our profound concern regarding your recent plans to demolish most of the dormitory buildings designed by Louis Kahn at the Indian Institute of Management. We represent a diverse, local, and global community of architects, academics, cultural critics, and historians. We beseech you in the strongest terms possible to reconsider your decision. These buildings represent the finest examples of the late work of Louis Kahn and demolishing them amounts to an act of cultural vandalism. It seriously jeopardizes the legacy of Louis Kahn and of modernist architecture, especially in the Indian subcontinent, where there is a dire need for the conservation of modernist heritage.

The dormitory buildings are intrinsic to the historic core of IIMA and cannot be separated formally or experientially from the buildings around the Louis Kahn plaza (the Classrooms, Library and Admin block). Their rich and complex spatial interweaving create diverse scales of shared, intimate open spaces that complement the plaza’s grand ceremonial spaces. Together they make a singular campus setting with no precedent nor match in the world. To keep one and not the other would destroy the architectural soul of your esteemed campus, and undermine the very commendable efforts you have undertaken in conserving the Library & Lecture block. As you know, the work of IIMA's restoration architects Somaya and Kalappa Consultants, received UNESCO recognition in 2017 for conserving the Library & Lecture ensemble. We understand that SNK deliberately undertook restoration of the worst hit dormitory block D-15. We believe this serves as a proof of concept in demonstrating that the restoration of the others is viable and achievable. 

There are many successful examples across the world of modernist architectures being creatively repurposed, retrofitted, and in some cases rebuilt, while preserving their architectural ethos. Doing so can allow for new uses, modern amenities, and structural compliance. Conservation entails skilled labor and is ultimately less extractive than new construction, which is why the most sustainable building is one that has already been built. We believe it would be in the best interests of IIMA not to abandon these conservation efforts, but instead to expand upon them to include the faculty housing, the Management Development Center, the Ravi Mathai Center, and all buildings on the campus designed by Louis Kahn, Anant Raje, and B.V. Doshi. 

As an ensemble, the built fabric of the IIMA campus has continued to generate attention and study in classrooms and architecture offices around the world, with architects, students, and tourists coming to study the work in person. Together, these buildings mark an important phase of post-independence institution building across India and the subcontinent. Various institutions with aging modernisms are looking up to IIMA to lead by way of example. A comprehensive conservation effort for the entire campus would be a befitting tribute to your own rich architectural heritage, which is also our collective heritage. Done appropriately it would warrant a UNESCO World Heritage status.

We hope you act out of empathy and wisdom to conserve an irreplaceable work of architecture for the present and posterity.