LAURI BAKER

A Gandhian by nature, Laurie Baker, known as the 'Gandhi of architecture', the ‘master of minimalism’
gave India low-cost building design with maximum efficiency and just the right amount of aesthetics.

He offered a unique tradition of architecture that blended man and nature. He re-defined the concept of
housing itself, aligning it with the local ecology and surroundings.

He emphasized local materials and traditional concepts in constructing dwellings, demonstrating a

strong commitment to mass, affordable housing.

A British-born Indian (He received Indian citizenship in 1989.) architect, Laurie Baker is renowned for his
initiatives in cost-effective and energy-efficient architecture and designs that maximized space,
ventilation and light and maintained an uncluttered yet striking aesthetic sensibility.

Influenced by Mahatma Gandhi and his own experiences, he promoted the revival of regional building
practices and use of local materials; and combined this with a design philosophy that emphasized a
responsible and prudent use of resources and energy. The influence of Mahatma Gandhi was visible
more on his thought and lifestyle than on his professional practice.

In Kerala during the 1960s and subsequently, Baker developed and applied an approach to architecture
derived from an intimate understanding of the local climate, available building materials and craft skills,
as well as from the detailed attention he paid to the specific needs of his individual, often relatively
poor, clients. He applied this approach to designing many hundreds of homes, hospitals, schools, and
religious and government buildings, and in the process created an elegant, simple and essentially Indian
architecture for the late 20th century, one in stark contrast to the western-influenced, resource-
intensive architecture of the time.

To build cheaply, he ruthlessly pruned all non-local materials. Thus cement plasters were eliminated,
while flat concrete slab roofs, window glass and bars were replaced by inventive uses of local bricks, clay
tiles, timber and lime. Window openings were replaced by patterns of small openings (brick jali) in the
pbrickwork, providing adequate light, ventilation and security.

He designed and built fishermen’s huts, hamlets for forest tribes, chapels and churches, factories,
schools, film studios, orphanages, residences, technical institutes, leprosy homes, a literacy village,
hostels, slum rehabilitation projects, an ornithology centre, government buildings and a museum. He
also did pioneering work in earthquake and tsunami-resistant housing. Kerala alone has over 2,00 Baker-
designed projects.
Le Courbusier’s Architecture, Capitol Complex, Chandigarh

Post-independence, Nehru ignored the revivalist ideas like Gandhi’s and Tagore’s for modernistic vision
icons like Chandigarh. Practice of this ‘tabula rasa’ approach is uncommon in the Indian history of
architecture, as it could have only happened through an institutional will. The modernistic vision was
justified through a projected need of creating an identity among the emerging powers of the world.
Later, the staleness of its repetition and illogical adoption reached its peak during the end of the
previous millennium when there was a paradigm shift in associated technologies. In the new century it
was later stolen by impatient capitalist (Mehrotra, 2011) that made us see a glass façade based
globalized architecture.