This book describes the architectural and planning scene in India from the time of Independence in 1947 to date. In this period of almost half a century many momentous events have taken place, beginning with the resurgence of architecture and planning initiated by India's fist Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. He personally guided the building of the city of Chandigarh, which proved to be the real catalyst for an Indian renaissance in architecture. Chandigarh fired the imagination of young architect who transmitted its concepts to suit conditions in his won fearless, 'acrobatic' manner. Bereft of Corbusier in 1965, the architects who had seen him at work steered his ideas into the professional world, and also into the schools of architecture all over India.
For a period of over three decades Indian architects coped with the dichotomy of a universal and a local language of architecture. Lewis Mumford's comment on Nowicki best sums up the desired goal towards which they directed their efforts to resolve the challenge: "His institutions of form in India are visible in only a handful of sketches The result would have been no one-sided universalism, like that of the International Mannerists or Mechanical Functionalists, but a genuine universalism in which the warm, the intimate, the personal attributes of a local culture would have mingled with the ideas and forms that are common to all men in our time."
The book traces the contribution of various actors: the traditionalists, the elevationists, the die-hard modernists, and others. The story of contemporary Indian planning and architecture is as complex as the history of India. Therefore, it is presented in a format represent continuous reading for the lay person, and the even-numbered pages represent statistical and graphic information for the professional.
About the Author
Born at Delhi in 1940, Satish Grover earned his Bachelor's Degree in Architecture from the School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi, in 1966, after obtaining a B Sc Degree in Mathematics from the University of Delhi. He started his own practice immediately thereafter, simultaneously taking up a brief teaching assignment at the Women's Polytechnic, Delhi. In the last three decades of practice in partnership and independently, he has designed projects both in India and abroad. These include a national prize-winning design for the swimming pool for the Asian Games 1982, hotels, group housings, educational campuses in India, the Indian High Commission in Kuala Lumpur, and a Buddhist temple in Thailand. In 1982, he was appointed Professor of Architecture at his Alma Mater where he had earlier been a visiting lecturer. In the early 1980s he published two books on the history of Indian architecture titled, Architecture of India, Buddhist and Hindu (Vol. 1), and Architecture of India, Islamic (Vol.2).
Prologue
Architecture of Freedom
Planning for the Future
Capital Role of Delhi
At Crossroads
Building Beyond Borders
Glossary
References
Select Bibliography
Index
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