Few iconic institutions live in iconic buildings. The Indian Institute of Management (IIM) at Ahmedabad is among those few. As the leading management school in India, its campus was designed in the 1960s by American architect Louis I. Kahn and is one of the classics of modern architecture. The project for a major extension just across the road—a new campus in itself, actually—was recently completed by architect Bimal Patel of HCP Design and Project Management Pvt. Ltd.

Patel, a designer in his mid-40s with several awards to his credit (including the Aga Khan Award for architecture), was given the commission in 2000 after a nationwide search. He must have known that this was one project that would always be looked at through the filter of its iconic predecessor, never entirely on its own terms. So, how has the interplay between the old classic and the new offshoot turned out?