1962

Louis I. Kahn commissioned to design the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, Kahn makes his first site visit to Ahmedabad in November, and will make some two dozen more visits over the next 12 years.

Begins preparing plans for the campus, located on a 79-acre site near the small village of Vastrapur on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. Over the next two years develops his designs from his office in Philadelphia in collaboration with colleagues from the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad who, for the initial phases of construction, take on the role of executive architects. Architect Balkrishna V. Doshi leads the NID staff, several of whom are sent to Philadelphia to work with Kahn. Mahendra Raj served as the Structural Engineering consultant with Sharad Shah overseeing the day-to-day structural design.

Requirements for the first phase of construction included: Dormitories for 300 students; housing for 110 families; main complex, including class, seminar and faculty rooms, administration, library, kitchen and dining halls for students and faculty. [Marg, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Jun 1967)]

Kahn encouraged to use locally sourced brick for construction because of its economy.

During a lecture at Yale University in October 1964, Kahn elaborated on his IIM design: “The plan comes from my feelings of monastery. The idea of the seminar classroom and its meaning of ‘to learn’ extended to the dormitories comes from the Harvard Business School. The unity of the teaching building, dormitories and teachers’ houses—each its own nature, yet each near the other—was the problem I gave myself…[The] designs of the dormitories were composed as houses for [20] students with two stories of rooms above…a two-story house- clubroom facing the lake. This became the space of invitation vested in each house and adding to the inter-hospitality in spirit embodied in the seminar idea of exchange among students and teachers. The dormitory rooms, in groups of ten, are arranged around a stairway and tea-room hall. In this way, corridors are avoided, favoring the making of rooms which contribute to the central idea, calling for plan and residual spaces for casual and seminar study. The tea-room entrance and positioning of the stair and washroom serve to protect the rooms from sun and glare without obstructing the essential through breeze.” – [Perspecta 9/10 (1965)]

1963
December.

Kahn presents schematic designs for Dormitories. Design approved by IIM. In this set, Kahn divided the student residences into eighteen units, with small variations on the first two of their four stories. In each, he grouped ranges of five balconied rooms along two sides of an isosceles triangle containing a half circular stair and identified the spaces surrounding the stairs as lounges, places for casual meetings that he believed were a key ingredient of education. On the other side of the stair he placed a square projection containing bathrooms and a tearoom. [Kathleen James, p.369, 371, in Louis I. Kahn: In the Realm of Architecture]

1964
October.

Site preparations and initial foundation work for Dormitories begins. Construction starts with Dormitory unit D-12. Construction reaches the top of the second level by March 1965.

Kahn’s drawings include plans for the so-called “Advanced Student” dormitories (later D-16-18).

This first wave of construction include: Five Dormitories (D-3, D-6, D-9, D-12 & D-15) and almost fifty of the specified Faculty Houses: 20 units of Type-3 (a two bedroom unit with a double roof terrace), 24 units of Type-4 (a two bedroom unit with a large roof terrace and study), and 5 units of Type-5 (a three bedroom unit with a small roof terrace; 5 units). Dormitories D-1 & D-2 are underway in 1966. The first phase of Servant Houses is under way by mid-1966 (completed in early 1967). Dormitories D-4, D-5, D-7, D-8, D-10 and D-11 are underway by May 1968.

1965 
Jan-Feb.

“The Works of Louis I. Kahn” exhibition at La Jolla Museum of Art, La Jolla, CA.

Features models and sketches of his IIM work.

In the exhibition catalogue, historian Vincent Scully noted: “The Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad will surely be one of Kahn’s most effectivegroups of buildings. Here he has seized the opportunity offered by housing units andclassrooms to create a whole village, rising in a hierarchy of increasing sizes to the monumentalmain building…the various steps in the process are of considerable interest, as Kahn’s grasp onthe shape of the land becomes clearer and firmer and the crescendo of smaller to largerbecomes more melodic.”

1966 
April.

First units of the Dormitories and Faculty Housing completed

1966 
Apr-May.

“The Architecture of Louis I. Kahn” exhibition at Museum of ModernArt, New York Features: 4 models, 16 sketches by Kahn of his IIM work, as well as a large photomural of the recently completed D-12 dormitory

From a lecture Kahn gave in Boston on April 5^th: “…the dormitories and the school are really one: they are not separated.”

1966 
July-Aug.

Kahn’s IIM design profiled in a 9-page article published in Architectural Forum.

The first important article published about the building features a drawing of the campus plan on the magazine’s cover. James Bailey, “Louis I. Kahn in India: An Old Order at a New Scale.”

Italian critic, Maria Bottero, recalled her visit to Ahmedabad in an article in Zodiac 16 (July 1966): “…at Ahmedabad, the silk weaving centre, were some enlightened industrialists called in first [Le Corbusier] and later, Louis Kahn. Ahmedabad thus has the privilege, among all other places in the world, of being able to show those who visit it two different faces of modern architecture within a few miles of each other, each viewed from a different angle, and, in their differences, showing the changes wrought in the space of a generation.”

1968 
Jun-Oct.

“Louis Kahn: Ambiente” exhibition at the 34^th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy

8 sketches and a series of photographs of Kahn’s IIM project on-view with a selection of his contemporary works.

1968
November.

Foundation work on Academic Complex begins. Work largely completed by 1975. 1969 Summer. Anant Raje returns to Ahmedabad after 4 years working for Kahn in Philadelphia.

Asked by Kahn to “look after the project.” For the next 30 years – working in partnership with B.V. Doshi – he oversees completion of the Kahn designed buildings and adds three substantial buildings of his own design, along with over one hundred units of staff and married student housing, all sensitively continuing the language of Kahn’s vision and master plan.

Of this notion of the “continuation of a language”, Raje noted in 1997: “To Kahn, the beginning of a design is a question that invariable occupies the centre of a given space. The mark made for the question grows larger and larger until ‘what to do meets the means of doing it.’ This question and its mark, in the case of the [IIM], started with the school building, with the open-to-sky building within. The periphery of the court grew larger and larger until it broke up into several spaces, making classrooms, library, offices, and further, in their wake, formed the layers of students’ residences—which further broke up to accommodate the courts of light. In terms of ‘poche’ made by charcoal, the entire composition jelled into a plan where the first layers are apparent….Simply stated, Kahn raised the level of the intellect to a spiritual level, invoking humanistic and spiritual ideals in pursuit of timeless architectural solutions. His instinct for new technology, combined with abstract visual language and learning from the lessons of history, gave a new direction to the meaning and purpose of architecture.”

1970 
Fall.

Construction of Dormitories D-16 & D-17 underway.

Completed by February 1972. D-18, as well as D-13 and D-14 are completed after this time, possibly as late as 1978.

1972 
August.

IIM profiled in extensive article on Louis Kahn published inArchitectural Forum

Quoting Kahn from the article: “The school and the dormitories are a unit, like a monastery. Corridors are avoided by having deep porches, off all the dormitory rooms, were tea is served and things are discussed. The school is around a court which has in it an amphitheater. Everything here is planned around the idea of meeting.”

1973
January.

IIM Dormitory illustrates article about Kahn published in Time magazine.

1974.
March 17.

Louis I. Kahn dies of a heart attack in New York City on return journey from India.

Doshi recalled: “Before [Kahn] left for Philadelphia on March 17, 1974, he spoke of the Buddha. He spoke ofvalues. He spoke of consciousness. He spoke of spiritualizing matter. And in all this one couldsee that his definition of architecture was the offering of the spirit, which one can feel, but nottouch or smell. This reminds me of the temple complexes in India, which have order andinformality, have spaces and places for one and many, for joy and sorrow, and that is why thetemple tradition is still strong in India. It is this that keeps us going. The tradition of the ‘Institution of Man’, where faith is beyond oneself and the continuum is important. In Lou’s creation of theIndian Institute of Management, I feel that he has done a great deal for the temple tradition.”

1975
June.

Global Architecture 35 (special issue), focused on IIM.

The author, Romaldo Giurgola, asserted that: “The educational group, made up of the school and the students’ housing, is a ‘building within a building’ according to Louis Kahn, and is the gravitational area of a large composition which includes residences for the teachers, separated from the educational group by a lake. The water of the lake actually becomes the unifying element, water being the emphasis and the binding factor in this climate…The natural elements are uncompromising: the sun’s glare, the cool shade, the dry fields, the life-giving breeze. Architecture is made an instrument to work with them, interweaving the organizational aspects of the school with their plastic dimensions; ‘a building within a building: one open to the sun, the other to life’, Louis Kahn comments.

1978.

Completion of the Kitchen and Dining Building

Designed by Anant Raje, the Kitchen and Dining Building is sited by Kahn prior to his death on a site on the lake across from the dormitories. In choosing this location and in developing the subsequent design, Raje recognizes the possibility of future connections across the Ring Road, “for future activities.”

1978.

Collaborating with noted artist Haku Shah, Raje arranges for installations of Indian folk and tribal art throughout the campus. These include several groupings of terra-cotta votive figurines from Gujarat located at the main entrance steps and near the Dining Hall (Shah, in a contemporary project, was installing similar figurines in traffic circles throughout the city), as well as applique artwork by Sarojben Lal installed in the Library.

1981
October.

Doshi publishes a reflection on “Louis Kahn in India”

In the article, published in the Architectural Association Quarterly, Doshi, recalled: “When one walks around the complex silently, either in cool winter or hot and stark summer, one gets the vibrations of conversations, dialogues, meetings and activities. The spaces that are created for these activities link the entire complex…Apart from the silent and yet predominant interlinking structure of the spaces, [Kahn’s] ‘Treasury of Spaces’ has varied dimensions. They change their character from place to place and function to function. Like the variation in spaces, there is variation in volume and structure. The apertures in the buildings, their directions and the surfaces of the load-bearing brick walls confirming the openings, seem to tell us of the type of activity one should anticipate.”

1989.

Completion of the Management Development Center.

Based on an initial concept by Kahn, the MDC building was developed and executed by Anant Raje. The making of openings in brick masonry follows the established order of the Kahn buildings. The exposed brick masonry-bearing wall is the predominant architectural expression.

1990
September.

27-page, in-depth article about Kahn’s IIM design published in Casabella Text by French architect Christian Devillers in Italian, French and English is the first comprehensive re-assessment of Kahn’s IIM design. It is followed by articles in Architect’s Journal (14 March 1992); Arquitectural Y Vivenda(Nov-Dec 1993); and in the Journal of Architectural Education where scholar Kathleen James-Chakraborty examines the origins and evolution of the design (Sep 1995). Additional studies, including two doctoral theses, were completed after 2000.

1991
October.

“Louis I. Kahn: In the Realm of Architecture,” opens at the Philadelphia Museum Art First comprehensive retrospective exhibition of Kahn, organized by the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, highlights Kahn’s IIM design with two models and a pair of drawings in addition to 8 photographic images. The shows international tour includes the following venues: Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Pompidou Center, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, Gunma, Japan; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas; and the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio.

Assessing IIM, historian and curator David B. Brownlee wrote: “The [IIM] possesses a completeness and a unity of vision that is rare for works of thisscale. It is the nearest the twentieth century has come to creating a successor toThomas Jefferson’s great academic village at the University of Virginia. There, as inAhmedabad, the essential elements are an integrated environment for faculty andstudent life, interwoven by covered walkways and dominated by a great library.”

1993.

Completion of the Ravi Mathai Center Designed by Anant Raje. Important addition to Kahn’s school complex, extending Kahn’s language of building into new programs, including a large auditorium space.

1997.

Proposal for a New Campus on Adjacent Land for IIM-A (not acted upon), Design prepared by Anant Raje. Programmatic focus on spaces for 3 academic programs: International Management, Public Policy Management, and Postgraduate Programme

2001.

Gujarat Earthquake (26 January 2001).

Damage to Classroom Building roof terraces result in the removal of enclosing walls and large brick arches. Dormitory stair towers shortened, resulting in the loss of head room, clerestory lighting, as well as visibility from ground level.

The editor of this chronology summarizes:“This moment also marks an important transition point in the history of the site and institution. Urban growth in the Vastrapur area of Ahmedabad increases dramatically and the resulting development hems IIM in and reduces options for growth. With no possibility of acquiring more land, future planning begins to focus on increasing density. Secondly, it is around this time that Anant Raje resigns and leaves his position as the informal campus architect. For thirty years he had kept an eye on the project, pressed administrators for needed maintenance and repairs, and served as a vital connection to the early development of the site and institution. Raje is not replaced.”

2001.

National Design Competition for IIM’s New Campus.

39-acre campus housing an International Management Center and accommodates additional hostels for an expanded postgraduate program in management. Commission awarded to HCP Architects and Planners, under the leadership of Bimal Patel. Patel will be the driving force shaping future development of the new and old campus under five IIM Directors.

2003
Fall.

Premier of “My Architect: A Son’s Journey”, directed by Kahn’s son, Nathaniel Kahn.

This film, nominated for an Academy Award, features a moving interview of B.V. Doshi in front of IIM’s Library.

2009.

IIM-A New Campus, Initial Phase completion

Facilities include: International Management Development Centre (IMDC), Academic Buildings, Dormitories for Postgraduate Students (9 structures), Married Student Hostels (22 structures), and utility buildings. HCP Architects and Planners.

2012
September.

“Louis Kahn: The Power of Architecture,” opens in Rotterdam.

A major traveling retrospective exhibition of Kahn seen by over 450,000 visitors in 9 venues. The installation includes two models, a series of original sketches, and large-scale photomurals of IIM. Venues include: The Netherlands Architecture Institute (2012); the Vitra Design Museum, Weil-am-Rhein, Germany (2013); The National Museum of Art and Design, Oslo (2013); Design Museum, London (2014); Taipei Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan (2015); Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, WA (2016); San Diego Museum of Art (2016); Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX (2017); and the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia (2017).

2013.

Road Widening & Construction of Highway Flyover crossing 132 Feet Ring Rd.

Alignment of so-called “IIMA-Vastrapur Flyover” encroaches directly on the main public entry to IIM-A as well as the New Campus. Completion of this plan, overseen by HCP Architects and Planners, necessitate shifting entrances for both campus to the two ends of the flyover.

2014

Master Plan for the Growth of IIM (new and old campuses).

The plan, prepared by HCP Architects and Planners, organizes development of the campus in three phases over a 25-year time span. The plan is not publicly available. HCP’s website provides a summary and identifies “two unique assets of the existing campus…the iconic buildings by Kahn, Raje and others…[and] the network of mature green spaces in between and around the buildings.”

Text on HCP website notes: “New developments must be efficient and economical in their land use, be sympathetic in form and material to the existing iconic buildings and respect the grain and underlying order of the existing campus.”

1. Phase one continues and completes the build-out of the New Campus, adding additional classroom and learning spaces, dormitories, staff & faculty housing, sports facilities and an auditorium. It also anticipates construction of a second tunnel connection between the new and old campuses.
   • For the old campus, phase one massing drawings anticipate the demolition of two groups of low-rise housing units (designed by Doshi / Raje architects) and on these sites the building of four high-rise (12 story) buildings, containing 52 apartments for faculty (in two blocks) and 100 for staff (in the other two). Based on Google Earth observation, these sites have been cleared.
   • The publicly available drawings for phases two and three suggest far-reaching and consequential changes to the old campus, including the following:
2. Phase 2: Demolition of Raje’s Kitchen and Dining Hall; Demolition of twenty Kahn designed Type-3 Houses (#s 301 to 320). Demolition of Doshi / Raje’s Transit Housing complex and additional staff housing units. The main entrance to the campus will be realigned in this phase with extensive parking areas added.
3. Phase 3: Demolition of Raje’s Management Development Centre and Annex, complete removal of Doshi / Raje’s staff housing, and the loss of an additional twelve Kahn design faculty housing units, Type-4 (#s 407-409, 416-424).

The final drawing, “Proposed Massing at 25 Years” suggests that all that will remain of Kahn’s faculty housing units will be the five original Type-5 units (501-505). Units 506-514 (completed to Kahn’s design but after his death) are to be demolished. There is some consolation in that one area of housing appears to be unaffected: the servant housing (designed by Kahn in 1966) located at the site’s Southwest perimeter.

See drawings at: https://www.hcp.co.in/project/iim-a-master-planning

2014.

Conservation Master Plan “workshop” led by Peter Inskip + Peter Jenkins

Simultaneous to the initiating a master planning process for growth, IIM, contracted with Peter Inskip of Inskip + Jenkins, to conduct a “workshop” to assist in guiding the future development of their “heritage buildings.” The results of that effort are not publicly available. As such, the process and action plan remain unknown. Further, it is not clear if these two efforts (conservation planning and master planning) were coordinated in a meaningful way.

HCP’s website does note that they provided support to the institute as they “facilitate the conservation work for the heritage buildings by identifying spaces within the campus for temporary relocation.

2014.

Somaya & Kalappa (SNK) appointed Conservation Architects

One clear and positive result of the Heritage Planning workshop was that the firm of Somaya & Kalappa was commissioned for “ongoing” preservation and restoration work on the campus, including dormitories 1-18 and the main complex building housing faculty blocks, classrooms and Vikram Sarabhai Library. Their first phase of work (2014-15) focused on a detailed conditions assessment. A seismic analysis of the buildings was also carried out by a team of experts from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, Chennai.

2016

IIM-A announces continuing development of the New Campus (March 2016)

In line with the proposed phase one master plan development, IIM-A hires three architects to design for 5 buildings, including: Rahul Mehrotra for the Jindal School of Public Policy; ARCOP for faculty, and student housing [see link], and HCP for the new academic block and sports complex.

2016

Restoration work on Vikram Sarabhai Library and Dormitory D-15 begins under supervision of SNK

2019 
October 14.

Asia-Pacific “Award of Distinction” for Cultural Heritage Conservation given by UNESCO for restoration of Vikram Sarabhai Library

SNK architects and IIM-A receive the awards. “The restoration of the monumental Vikram Sarabhai Library heralds an important step forward in the preservation of 20^th century architecture in India. The linchpin of Louis Kahn’s iconic Indian Institute of Management campus in Ahmedabad, the library was rehabilitated from a state of extensive material dilapidation. Through careful studies and extensive modeling, the conservation team has conquered a range of difficult and technical challenges to extend the life of the composite brick and concrete structures with its distinctive geometric forms. The project has recovered configurations and uses of space in line with the architect’s original vision, while upgrading functionality to ensure that the library is ready to meet contemporary requirements and provide universal access. With Modernist heritage enjoying increasing acclaim, but still facing the widespread threat of demolition, this initiative promises to have major policy impact within Ahmedabad and throughout India.”

2020 
November 28.  

Brinda Somaya lectures on the restoration efforts at IIM at CEPT in Ahmedabad
View here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnSksJc1gxI

2020
December 4.  

IIM-A issues EOI for the comprehensive design of student housing on old campus Outlines rationale for demolishing and replacing all the Kahn designed dormitories, citing cost and safety concerns.