1917 -2007

Ashutosh Mukherjee
Ridhi Kanwar

Laurie Baker, an Indian architect of British origin, passed away last

Sunday at the age of ninety at home in Thiruvananthapuram. The
conscience keeper of Indian architecture, and a widely admired
(but imperfectly appreciated) icon of alternative practices of
modernity in Indian life, also had a great sense of humour. Was
the departure on April 1- that had us scrambling for confirmation
after the first sms- his little parting joke then?
For over four decades, Baker has been known for his pioneering
practice of cost-effective architecture in Kerala. Famous as the
builder of affordable homes for the poor, Baker was (is it
already was?) also a unique creative artist whose originality,
technical control and a unique sense of whimsy made low cost
yield high architectural quality for everyone .
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His greatest contribution was showing that cost-effective and

ecologically sustainable construction does not automatically
imply shoddy building and reduced creative freedom.
Baker showed, in fact, that sustainable technologies when
adopted with care and creativity, could lead to a unique
architectural expression, one that moved the expert and the
layman alike.
Bakers life and practice were often marked by strategic
inversions of conventions in the pursuit of foundational
ideals. His method of practice was the very opposite of the
statutory model in India which followed the British system.
Thus, while Indian architects around him followed the British
way of designing and directing operations from their
drawing boards as consultants far removed from the bustle
of the site, Baker organized his work as a designer-builder in
the manner of the traditional Indian master craftsman. He
never maintained a regular office or a battalion of
assistants, often sketched on waste paper, and designed
largely on site. Unlike most practicing architects, he knew
the trades well enough to train his workers himself and be
open enough to learn from them at the same time. Every
project was thus design-built with teams of craftsmen he
had himself trained. This hands-on approach made it
possible for him to pursue cost-effectiveness in design,
otherwise impossible in the normal professional mode.

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ARCHITECTURAL STYLE
Throughout his practice, Baker
became well known for designing
and building low cost, high quality,
beautiful homes, with a great
portion of his work suited to or built
for lower-middle to lower class
clients. His buildings tend to
emphasize prolific - at times
virtuosic - masonry construction,
instilling privacy and evoking
history with brick jali walls, a
perforated brick screen which
invites a natural air flow to cool the
The Indian Coffee House in Thiruvananthapuram
buildings' interior, in addition to
creating intricate patterns of light and shadow.
Another significant Baker feature is irregular,
pyramid-like structures on roofs, with one side left
open and tilting into the wind. Baker's designs
invariably have traditional Indian sloping roofs and
terracotta Mangalore tile shingling with gables and
vents allowing rising hot air to escape. Curved walls
enter Baker's architectural vocabulary as a means to
enclose more volume at lower material cost than
straight walls, and for Laurie, "building [became]
more fun with the circle." A testament to his frugality,
Baker was often seen rummaging through salvage
heaps looking for suitable building materials, door
and window frames, sometimes hitting a stroke of
luck as evidenced by the intricately carved entry to
the Chitralekha Film Studio (Aakulam, Trivandrum,
197476): a capricious architectural element found in
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a junk heap.

ARCHITECTURAL STYLE
Baker's architectural method is one of
improvisation, in which initial drawings have
only an idealistic link to the final construction,
with most of the accommodations and design
choices being made on-site by the architect
himself. Compartments for milk bottles near the
doorstep, windowsills that double as bench
surfaces, and a heavy emphasis on taking cues
from the natural condition of the site are just
some examples. His Quaker-instilled respect for
nature lead him to let the idiosyncrasies of a
site inform his architectural improvisations,
rarely is a topography line marred or a tree
uprooted. This saves construction cost as well,
since working around difficult site conditions is
much more cost-effective than clear-cutting. ("I
think it's a waste of money to level a wellmoulded site") Resistant to "high-technology"
that addresses building environment issues by
ignoring natural environment, at the Centre for
Development Studies (Trivandrum, 1971) Baker
created a cooling system by placing a high,
latticed, brick wall near a pond that uses air
pressure differences to draw cool air through
the building. Various features of his work such
as using recycled material, natural environment
control and frugality of design may be seen as
sustainable architecture or green building with
its emphasis on sustainability. His
responsiveness to never-identical site
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2010 for the
conditions quite CCA
obviously
allowed
variegation that permeates his work.

Bakers must also rank among the freest of

architectural imaginations in contemporary Indian
architecture. His India Coffee House, a small
building for an inexpensive restaurant outside the
main bus stand at Thiruvananthapuram , shows
how free he was from pre-conceived ideas as well
as from any fear of the apparent strangeness of his
own solutions. Here the dining area is a curving
ramp that rises about two floors and winds tightly
about a functional service core housing the pantry
and stores. Built-in seats and tables hug the
curving outer jali wall, whose perforations throw a
playful pattern of light on the spiraling floor while
lending a tapestry-like feel to the wall when
viewed from outside.
It was in one of the last houses that he built in his usual
hands-on manner, however, that I came to appreciate
to the fullest, the sheer poetry, quirkiness and
humanity of his architectural imagination. The house
for Suresh and Neerada is built around a mango shaped
open courtyard. A continuous filler slab roof spirals up
from the lowest level to the highest in a continuous
sweep. There is not a single straight line in the plan.
The living room has a little window seat with a rare
luxury - an almost traditional wooden 3 window seat
with a trellis. The living space curves deeper into the
house and the glowing darkness at the other end is
leavened by a dramatically lit nook to one side. And at
the centre of it all, the long rising, curving wall has
what looks like a large scatter of stained glass, but is
actually a multi-coloured pattern of recycled bottles
built into the brickwork . The experiential richness of
that space has not dimmed in my memory for seven
years.
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List of Architectural Work

Institutions and Buildings
Leprosy homes for Mission to Lepers across India
Pithoragarh house, school and hospital complex
Nepal Hospital
Allahabad Agricultural University
Lucknow Psychiatric Centre, Noor Manzil
Literacy Village, Lucknow
Centre for Social Studies, Surat
Ahmedbad & Baroda factories
Jyothi Pumps, Baroda
Childrens Village, 1965, Kulashekaram, Tamil Nadu
Mitraniketan, Vagamon
Horst Kowski orphanages and homes across India
(other than Childrens Village Nagercoil)
Houses for the Archbishop of Trivandrum
Tourist Resort near Muttam
Loyola Womens Hostel, 1970, Sreekaryam
Loyola Chapel and Auditorium, 1971, Sreekaryam
Centre for Development Studies (CDS), 1971, Ulloor
St Johns Cathedral, 1973, Thiruvella
Nalanda State Institute of Languages, 1973,
Nandankode
Chitralekha Film Studio, 1975, Aakulam
Pallikoodam (Corpus Christi), 1972, Kottayam
Fishermens Village, 1974, Poonthura
Mitraniketan, Vellanad

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List of Architectural Work

Tourist Centre, 1980, Ponmudi

The Indian Coffee House, at Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India
Chapel for Sacred Hearts Centre, at Monroe Island, Quilon
Navjeevodayam, Thiruvalla
Nirmithi Kendra, 1987, Aakulam
CSI Church expansion wing
Paruthipara Church
Salim Ali Centre, Anakatti, Coimbatore
The Hall near Jawahar Nagar
AHADS (Attapadi Hill Area Development Society)
Latur Eathquake buildings
Jilla Panchayat Office, Thevally, Kollam
Kanyakumari Boat-building Yard
Nrityagram, Bangalore
Dakshina Chitra, Chennai, 1996
Building Centre at Anna University, Madras
Some buildings in Kishkinta, Madras
Sewa, Villapilshaala
International Blind Childrens School
Chengalchoola Slum Dwelling Units, Trivandrum
Nava Yatra, Villapilshaala, Trivandrum
Karimadom Colony, Trivandrum

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The Hamlet

Baker's house in a quiet

niche in Kerala's capital
city represents a
captivating fusion of
nature and home. The
feeling of being away from
nature always brings a
certain melancholy to the
city-dweller. The fact that
nature and home have
become two separate
entities brings so much
pain that one can barely
think of anything else. In
Baker's creations one can
always see a great respect
for nature.
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The true personality of an

architect is reflected in
the way he designs his
own house. The design of
his house is the
manifestation of his
character, principles and
architectural beliefs

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Centre for development

studies

A low entrance of the

perforated wall cut into
the centre and directs
the visitor up into a
lobby lit by a skylight

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He designed on the principle of

open lattice wall planning,
breezeways and built of natural
brick and stone.
Baker introduced a double
walled building with an outer
surface intersecting circles of
brick jalis which followed the
design of the main academic
block.

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Loyola womens hostel

This was his first institutional
project in Trivandrum.
For baker it was necessary that
the prison like feeling should
not exist.
He avoided single room for
girls, and preferred the safety
and comfort of a cottage.

He identified with the

needs of the
occupants and
accordingly gives a
character to a
particular space.

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Lauri Baker 1917 -2007

CREDNTIALS

LAURIBAKER.NET
ARCHITECTURE+DESIGN MAGAZINE
ISSUE NO. AUG 2007
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurie_Baker

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