AD Classics: Indian Institute of Management / Louis Kahn

Written by Andrew Kroll

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INSTITUTE • AHMEDABAD, INDIA

Architects: Louis Kahn

Year:  1974

Photographs:  Dave Morris, Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Text description provided by the architects. While Louis Kahn was designing the National Assembly Building in
Bangladesh in 1962, he was approached by an admiring Indian architect, Balkrishna Doshi, to design the 60 acre
campus for the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, India. Much like his project in Bangladesh, he was
faced with a culture enamored in tradition, as well as an arid desert climate.

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For Kahn, the design of the institute was more than just e icient spatial planning of the classrooms; he began to
question the design of the educational infrastructure where the classroom was just the first phase of learning for the
students.

In 1961, a visionary group of industrialists collaborated with the Harvard Business School to create a new school
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focused on the advancement of specific professions to advance India’s industry.  Their main focus was to create a
new school of thought that incorporated a more western-style of teaching that allowed students to participate in
class discussions
Home and debates in comparison to the traditional
Projects Products style where students sat in lecture throughout
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It was Balkrishna Doshi that believed Louis Kahn would be able to envision a new, modern school for India’s best and
brightest.  Kahn’s inquisitive and even critical view at the methods of the educational system influenced his design to
no longer singularly focus on the classroom as the center of academic thought.  The classroom was just the formal
setting for the beginning of learning; the hallways and Kahn’s Plaza became new centers for learning.  

The conceptual rethinking of the educational practice transformed a school into an institute, where education was a
collaborative, cross-disciplinary e ort occurring in and out of the classroom.

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In much of the same ways that he approached the design of the National Assembly Building in Bangladesh, he
implemented the same techniques in the Indian Institute of Management such that he incorporated local materials
(brick and concrete) and large geometrical façade extractions as homage to Indian vernacular architecture.  It was
Kahn’s method of blending modern architecture and Indian tradition into an architecture that could only be applied
for the Indian Institute of Management.  

The large facade omissions are abstracted patterns found within the Indian culture that were positioned to act as
light wells and a natural cooling system protecting the interior from India’s harsh desert climate.  Even though the
porous, geometric façade acts as filters for sunlight and ventilation, the porosity allowed for the creation of new
spaces of gathering for the students and faculty to come together.
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Together, Kahn’s rethinking of the traditional principles of India’s educational system along with a group of ambitious
industrialists helped create one of the most sought a er, influential, and elite business schools in the world. 
Unfortunately, Kahn was unable to see his design come to fruition as he had died in New York City in 1974 before the
project was finished.  However, there is no question whether or not his design had completely transformed the way in
which modern architecture establishes itself in one’s culture.

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Project location

Address: Vastrapur, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

Location to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.

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