BOOK REVIEW-PATHS UNCHARTED

Author- Balkrishna Doshi

SUBMITTED BY- RADHIKA KHANDELWAL

Dr Balkrishna Doshi is foremost among the modern Indian architects. An urban planner and
educator for the past 70 years, Dr Doshi is a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects
and a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Architects.
Put together from the lifelong diaries and notes maintained by him, Paths Uncharted is a
personal recounting of the remarkable journey of Dr Balkrishna Doshi. This
autobiography captures Doshi’s career from his childhood to his studies in Bombay and
London, his work at Atelier Le Corbusier in Paris and collaboration with Louis I Kahn for IIM
Ahmedabad. It recounts his meetings with the most remarkable persons in his own and
allied fields, and his equally remarkable patrons, who include the likes of Dr Vikram
Sarabhai, Sheth Kasturbhai Lalbhai, and the story of his own family.
One of Doshi’s goals is to incorporate local traditions within Modern architecture, and he
includes among his gurus his grandfather, Dada (a furniture-maker), and a selection of
Hindu gods, together with Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn.
The architect stands out for special attention Sangath, his own architectural office in
Ahmedabad (designed in 1978 and completed in 1980), which incorporates hollow clay tiles
in its barrel-vaulted construction. The project serves as a particularly successful example of
his fusing of East and West, but is the only one in the book for which he provides structural
details. For him, its forms evoke ancient temples (his favorites are the famous Ajanta Caves
and the rock-cut temples at Ellora), but surely it also recalls buildings by his “gurus”,
especially Kahn's Kimbell Museum.
This autobiography comprises of selections from Doshi’s diary entries, taped lectures and
videos maintained over a long and significant career. It traces Doshi’s extraordinary journey
from an unpretentious middleclass childhood in a large joint family in Pune to his
architectural studies in Mumbai and London. Further, he writes about his work at the Atelier
of the most influential modernist architect Le Corbusier in Paris, the construction of
Chandigarh and, finally, of the establishment of his own home and practice Vastu Shilpa in
Ahmedabad. Doshi moves back and forth in time and between places with the ease of a
seasoned storyteller.
The book’s design has different font sizes to signal different topics: the architect’s narrative
is an average-size type, and his philosophical musings in sizes that increase according to
importance. The architectural sketches alternate with figures and drawings, overlapping
with the text.