He steered the country's largest industrial house Tata Group for over two decades and is a doyen among business leaders. Still, 82-year-old Ratan Tata regrets that he was not able to practise as an architect for long.

Tata on Monday emphasised that despite not being able to practice architecture, he gained directly from the sense of humanism that architecture renders.

"I always wanted to be an architect because it renders a deeper sense of humanism. Also, architecture has motivated me and I had a deep interest in that field. But my father wanted me to be an engineer and I spent two years in engineering.

"Those years of engineering convinced me that I needed to be an architect which is where my interest really was," he said during an online seminar organised by Corpgini on 'Future of Design and Construction'.

Now, the Chairman Emeritus of the over USD 100-billion Tata Group, Tata received a degree in architecture from Cornell University in 1959.

Tata said that barring those two years after his graduation from Cornell, he worked in an architect's office in Los Angeles till his return to India and joining the family business.

"However, I spent the rest of my life outside architecture," he said.

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