BV DOSHI, THE GREATEST ARCHITECT

BV Doshi, one of the most illustrious architects from India, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 95.

He leaves behind a significant legacy and an irreparable vacuum in the design community. In 2022,

BV, also known as Balkrishna Vithaldas, received the gold medal from the Royal Institute of British

Architects, joining a small group of renowned architects from around the world, including Le

Corbusier, Louis I. Kahn, and Edwin Maxwell Fry. The Mahatma Gandhi Labour Institute and the

Centre for Environment and Planning Technology (CEPT), both located in Ahmedabad, were

designed by Padma Bhushan recipient Doshi. His fusion of brutalist, modernist architecture from

Europe with Indian sensibilities won him many admirers. A coworker of Doshi's named Shiv Dutt

Sharma (93), who had worked on the Chandigarh project with Corbusier, describes Doshi as

“hospitable, amiable, simple and incredibly humble,” adding “He was a dear friend.” When this

reporter contacted Doshi in October of last year, his granddaughter Khushnu Panthaki-Hoof, Studio

Sangath's principal architect, stated that he was not speaking to many journalists and was still

healing from a COVID-19 infection he had two months before. He made an exception, nevertheless,

after realizing that the essay was meant to honor Corbusier's legacy. He had added at the time, "I

consider him my guru." Doshi produced plans for affordable housing in addition to developing one of

Ahmedabad's finest skyscrapers. He received the sixth Aga Khan Award for Architecture for his 1982

project, Aranya Low Cost Housing in Indore. Another instance of how his works have received notice

abroad is when Doshi received France's highest artistic distinction, the Officer of the Order of Arts

and Letters, in 2011. Paths Uncharted (2011), Balkrishna Doshi: Writings on Architecture and

Identity (2019), and Balkrishna Doshi: Architecture for the People (2019) are only a few of the books

on art and architecture that the renowned architect has written. International architects eventually

published books on Doshi in the interim. This included the 2014 publication of Balkrishna Doshi: An

Architecture for India by William J. R. Curtis. Former Chandigarh Chief Architect Sumit Kaur quotes

an excerpt from Doshi's book Paths Uncharted in which he states, "Frankly, at this time in life I even

hesitate in calling myself an architect since the more I ponder about what Architecture is, the less I
feel I know about its actual mission. Each new project that I have finished has made me aware of how

much I still have to learn about it.

- GAURI NANDKISHOR ATALKAR