Furniture designed for ATMA building was sold for paltry `37 lakh, may fetch `3.6 cr in today’s auction at Phillips
Ahmedabad: Another timeless Indian treasure is up for auction. This time, it will take place at the Phillips auction house in New York City on Tuesday. This auction is not about one of Mahatma Gandhi’s belongings but modernist furniture pieces designed by legendary Swiss-French designer and architect Le Corbusier and Ahmedabad-based architect Balkrishna Doshi. This furniture was designed for the Ahmedabad Textile Mill Owners’ Association (ATMA) building in 1953-54.
The auction called “The Collector – Icons of Design” has quoted a base price ranging between Rs2.6 to Rs3.6 crore ($4,30,000-$5,85,000) for the four articles of furniture: the ATMA managing committee table, a unique ATMA cabinet, five stools and eight armchairs.
Sarosh Anklesaria, a New York-based architect and CEPT alumnus, came across a notification of this auction. He feels that it is an architectural and a civic loss to find these works for sale. “The magnificent table of the ATMA managing committee and the inbuilt teak wood cabinet were custom-designed only for ATMA building and hence are unique in the oeuvre of Le Corbusier.
