RAJ REWAL

"I    don’t believe in blindly copying our past. We have to learn from the precedents to solve our
existing problems. I feel we have to re-invent modernity in terms of our own traditions and cultural
heritage. It is an important task to search for a modern architectural language, which responds to
our requirements, lifestyle, climate and building materials. Market economy and the consumerist
culture are facts of life and architectural language is based on it.
Traditional architecture was based on a vocabulary of design which may not be relevant today even
in  Kashmir  or Rajasthan. We are building with concrete with concrete frame structures, infill walls
and now also beginning to build partially industrial structures. The base of contemporary
architecture has to be new techniques of building and a sensible use of modern and traditional
materials.”

Rewal's designs have some things in common with those of his contemporaries Charles Correa,
Balkrishna V Doshi and Achyut Kanvinde, such as broken-up forms, open courtyards and sociable
living or working environments. But Rewal's work has its own range and grammar. Unlike the other
architects, and like Joseph Allen Stein also in New Delhi, Rewal has built largely in one place and
climate - Delhi, and hot, dry north India

ARCHITECTURAL THEORY - Buildings should respond to complex demands of rapid

urbanization, climate & culture.

CONCEPT - Base of designing housing is traditional architecture of india and a dual concern for a
building's expressiveness by means of incorporating historical precedents into urban design.

FEATURES SEEKING CRITICAL REGIONALISM

 Clustering of buildings (Asian games

village)

 Courtyards providing public space within the

building. (Asian games village)

 Scatter of terraces permitting yet another set

of activities
(sheikh sarai housing)

 Streets : narrow, shaded broken up into small

units creating pauses, points of rest
& changing (sheikh sarai)
THE GRAMMAR OF HIS FORMS

Rewal has helped transform a modernism learnt from the West, quietly, into its very opposite. The
continuities with Modernism in his best work balance some relatively radical departures from
Modernist dogma. Rewal has developed a distinctive grammar of his own.

This grammar reflects two apparently opposed value systems: the traditional one of the hot and dry
parts of India, with its taste for pattern and ornament, and the Western Modernist one of abstract
expression. Rewal has been able to combine the possibilities that each one offers with the least
discord.
“Glass is for colder climates. Its transparency is nullified in hot weather as you have to cover
it with heavy curtains. As you shut the door to nature, the cost of air conditioning goes up
substantially.”

Rewal's grammar uses some of the principles of traditional architecture in Rajasthan—

Upper floors project outwards to shade lower walls, jalis cut glare or improve a façade.

He uses the same material – sandstone often, but as cladding for RCC (reinforced Cement concrete)
and masonry structures rather than structural work.

In effect, Rewal Reinterprets traditional stone architecture in modern brick and RCC.

Rewal has tried to express a new sense of

vocabulary that fuses
Urbanism and architecture. He has tried to
define a grammar
based on twentieth century technology that will
achieve the
richness, variety, climatic sensitivity, scale and
geometrical
discipline that he has perceived in great urban complexes of the
past such as Jaisalmer and Jaipur.

Particular attention has been paid to ways in

which the building
forms can temper the unremitting harshness of
the climate. On the
external perimeter, the upper floors overhang
to create deep
shadows. Throughout, windows are deeply
recessed to shield the
interior from the sun glare and give the
building an almost
sculptural articulation.

He not only relates the building to its

immediate physical and historical context, but
to deeper strains of Indian culture and history.
And he has married these to modern
technology and functional analysis.

Most of his buildings are contemporary

buildings expressing a liveliness, a boldness
and technical research whose real material
is neither steel, nor stone nor concrete, but
light and history.

REFERENCES

https://www.livemint.com/Leisure/67bf1jPfTMaKSDQGn9rgMO/The-difficulty-of-being-Raj-
Rewal.html

https://www.slideshare.net/9anku/raj-rewal-52992354