...as shown to us by Pritzker Prize-winning architect, Balkrishna Doshi, who has just created a magazine cover in concrete
However, here is a rare chance to make this visionary's aesthetic your own. The July-August edition of Architecture Digest India (AD) has, quite possibly, the world's first concrete-finish magazine cover designed by Doshi. As an influential architect of post-Independence India, Doshi, 90, was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize (the Nobel equivalent for the field) earlier this year, becoming the first Indian to receive the award. The Pritzker jury statement read, in words that have now become synonymous with Doshi: "[He] has always created an architecture that is serious, never flashy or a follower of trends." In an interview, Doshi share his thoughts on contemporary Indian architecture.
Do you think there is a scope in the country today to implement such designs as the ones you did for low-cost housing?
Integration. Integrating life and your daily habits. The role of an architect is to find a way by which everybody gets a home, a place to not only live in but one where you have your own community. I have done my housing projects with an idea that you will feel, over time, over generations, a sense of cohesive society. There you will feel: This is mine, this is what I like, this is the way I live.
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Several infrastructure projects in the country don't take into consideration their local environments. It is very much the case with Mumbai's coastal road, the metro, and residential or business projects.
I think it goes without saying that it is the responsibility of the architects and also other people to consider the larger plan. Where is the urban plan? Where is the future? I think we always go by repairing a flat tyre. Every time something happens, we try to repair and that is not how cities are made. I think this is where our problem is. We go piecemeal; we have no vision and we have no idea how long term visions are made.
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