With painful surprise we received the news that the CEPT campus buildings of the School of Architecture by B V Doshi are being altered (to the degree of being defaced) without his consent. Concurrently we also received the news that Charles Correa's buildings are under threat. These buildings are part of a major historical creative moment of the New Architecture that took place after the WWII and during the postcolonial era. They stand for the identity of the emerging independent nation but they are also unique cultural landmarks of the evolution of humanity. We urge the Ahmedabad Education Society and the CEPT administration, to protect these buildings and instead of letting them be under threat by the creative forces of the new economic reality of India, offer them special conservation attention as part of the Indian, as well as the world culture heritage.

Professor Liane Lefaivre
University of Applied Arts
Vienna, Austria

Professor Alexander Tzonis
TUDelft (Professor Emeritus)

Liane Lefaivre and Alexander Tzonis have been collaborating since 1973 and are among the most accomplished architectural historian-theorists at work today. Their first joint paper on “The Populist Movement in Architecture” was written in 1973 and introduced the concept of populism in architecture. In 1981, they introduced the concept of “critical regionalism.” They have since co-authored numerous books, including The Origins of Modern Architecture (1984), Classical Architecture: The Poetics of Order (1986), Architecture in North America since 1960 (1995), Movement and Structure in the Work of Santiago Calatrava (1996), Architecture in Europe since 1968 (1997), Aldo van Eyck: Humanist Rebel (1999),Tropical Architecture: Critical Regionalism in an Age of Globalization (2001), The Emergence of Modern Architecture(2003), Critical Regionalism (2003), and Architecture of Regionalism in the Age of Globalization: Peaks and Valleys in the Flat World (2011). During the past 30 years, they have delivered lectures jointly in the U.S., Europe, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Israel and Brazil. They live in Delft and Vienna.