AR.

JOSEPH ALLEN STEIN

April 10, 1912 – October 6, 2001
Submitted To: Submitted By:
Ar. Salman Pushkar Pratap Singh
1332781106
  INTRODUCTION
 JOSEPH ALLEN STEIN was an great Contemporary architect.
 He was born on April 10, 1912, in Omaha, Nebraska.
 He studied architecture at the University of Illinois.
 He died at age of 89 in Raleigh, North carolina on 6th October.

Professional Introduction:
 He worked with Elie acqules Kahn in New York.
 He setup his own organization in San Francisco in 1940.
 He designed modest home in California in San Francisco but
also increasingly interested in low cost housing.
 In 1952 he moved to India and became Head of the
Department of Architecture at the Bengal College of
Engineering, Calcutta.
 He worked with another American architect named Benjamin
Polk in West Bengal to design Durgapur Township.
 In 1955 he moved to New Delhi where he designed following
buildings:
 Triveni Kala Sangam Arts Centre
 India International Centre
 Indian Habitat Centre
 Ford Foundation Headquarters
 American Embassy School
 Other Projects
 1962 - Cultural Education Centre Kennedy House Complex of
Aligarh Muslim University, India.
 Four factories for Escorts Ltd., Faridabad, India
 Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode campus, Kerala, India.
 Indian Express tower, Nariman point, Mumbai
Personal Introduction
 Mr. Stein was married to Margret Suydam. She is not
only his better half but also a crucial design colleague.
 She was died in 1993.
 He is survived by his two sons David and Ethan
Achievements
He was awarded the Padma Shri, India’s fourth
highest civilian honor, in 1992.
He is noted for designing several important
buildings in India, most notably in Lodhi Estate in
Central Delhi, nicknamed “Steinabad” after him,
and where today the 'Joseph Stein Lane', is the
only road in Delhi named after an architect.
 Philosophical Changes
 In San Francisco: He Focused on the regionally-attuned home for
the common man, which was perhaps the most compelling social
need of the United States during the economic depression of the
1930s.
 Stein’s works of the time are noteworthy for their inventive
structural solutions to the problem of building minimum income
and war worker housing before and during World War II.
 Stein’s work at the time was characterized by planar form,
compact interior dimensions, fine detailing, and by the integration
of house and grounds.
 In India: Changes through the conditions of Indian culture and
beliefs.
 Also, the economic conditions of India.
 J.A.STEIN PHILOSPHY
 Architecture has long been known to be more than technique, and that more
usually the effort to express the imponderable……As the population of the world
doubles and doubles again, and man squeezes other other life almost off the
planet, one of the things we architects can do, within these limits, is to create
some sort of oasis by trying to work without spoiling the earth.
 Stein realizes that we are far from the pinnacle of civilization as the 20 th century
closes. He sees voluntary simplicity as the basis for a future environment.
 He says “Today’s need is less for great buildings than for architectural methods
and attitudes.
 I had long ago decided that for myself the principal architectural task was not
creating of innovative or striking forms, but to do my share of necessary work of
fitting more and more institutions on earth without spoiling the surroundings, and
indeed, seeking to enhance the environment as has long been the tradition among
those ancient builders and architects who in their work sought, by creating
beauty, to make amends for violence that is inherent in replacing the natural with
the man-made.
 WHY INDIA?
 He says “ I think India offers the great possibility
of beauty with simplicity.
 This is a rare and little-understood thing in world
today, yet one sees it here in so many different
ways.
 Stein’s India buildings are his finest achievements,
a testament to the promise for enrichment when
cultures meet and allow one another scope to
express what is held in common between them.
 Durgapur township
 This township was designed by Joseph Allen Stein and Benjamin
Polk.
 It is the second planned city after Chandigarh.
 Stein first Indian works of the mid-1950s: a garden –city inspired
housing and neighborhood plans for the Government of India’s
steel townships at Durgapur and Rourkela, and for the Tata Iron
and Steel Company’s township at the Jamshedpur.
 Stein attempted to balanced Jawaharlal Nehru’s ideal of an
industrialized, modern India by providing workers with dignifying
housing of timeless quantity, which he believed possible even at
low cost.
 Compact interior spaces open out to gardens and outdoor spaces
in these first Indian housing schemes, relations typical of stein
earlier work as well of traditional tropical design.
 The Durgapur township for 50,000 workers, which Stein designed
in collaboration with Benjamin Polk, is based upon a
neighborhood unit, or superblock, of up to 1,000 dwellings.
 These superblocks support a middle school and a community
center with small open-air theatre.
 Indian Express Tower
Mumbai
• Completed: 1972
• Renovated: 2008-2012
• Owner: Indian express tower
• Height: 105 meters
• Floor count:
Basement+Parking+Ground+25
• Floor Area : 400,000 SQ.Ft.
• Lifts/Elevators: 10
• Architect: Joseph Allen Stein
• It was the first major building to be built in
reclaimed land of Nariman Point.
• As he was well known for his elegant, simple, and
ecologically gentle architecture.
• Stein philosophy was to build a livable green
space.
• The site was located near sea coast so he designed
this tower in such a way that the building receives
the cool breezes of sea and balance the severe
heat of sun.
• Cantilevered balcony at lintel level protect the full
height windows from sun and rain, while
occupants have a magnificent views of the Arabian
Sea on one side and the city and the harbour on
the other.
 Triveni Kala Sangam
 Triveni Kala Sangam, an arts center in the heart of New Delhi.
 Due to the limitation of space a large garden landscape was
not possible, so stein created an internal garden
Amphitheatre surrounded by flowering vines and plants.
 Each of the functional units of the center-theatre ,
classrooms, studios and galleries is expressed in the building
massing.
 The initial building is organized into four story classroom
block with a canteen and a shaded tea terrace, a ground floor
gallery block with a shaded roof terrace, and opposite this, a
covered stage opening onto an outdoor garden theatre which
is the focus of design.
 Plants draping down from planter boxes placed between
jaalis on the face of the classroom block and tea terrace , and
flowering bougainvillea on the pergola fronting the gallery
form the backdrop for performances and make this space a
garden oasis away from the busy streets outside.
 THE KASHMIR CONFERENCE CENTRE
 The Kashmir Conference Centre was the largest of
Stein’s project in the Himalayas to be implemented.
 Situated on a lakefront site in Srinagar, it was
completed in 1984.

 Joseph Allen Stein has shifted a good deal of his

attention from designing individual building towards a
concept he calls “ total landscape” design.
 He has focused particularly on the regional
environment of the Himalayas, now threatened by
deforestation and cultural disintegration.
 The scope of Stein’s efforts in the Himalayas has
ranged from attempts to encourage restoration of
Kashmir’s famed Mughal gardens, to tourist
development plans undertaken with AR. B.V.DOSHI for
the Gulmarg and dal lake areas.
 Stein first project in Kashmir, commissioned in by the
Government of India in 1968, was to develop a plan
for Gulmarg.
 Working in collaborations with Doshi,
he sought to leave unspoiled the
surroundings while providing
improved amenities in articulate
building forms.
 The selection of this site was part of
larger, determined effort to introduce
new construction in ways having
minimal impact on the surrounding
landscape.
 Exposed green aggregates panels
with raised jali like pattern, and blue-
grey slate roofing which match the
colors on the surrounding mountains
comprise the exterior materials.
 Analysis
• What I personally feel that he respect the
nature, necessity and values of places.
• Functionality and collobration with nature is
the prime importance of their design.
• Open Spaces, Gardens, use of locally available
material are the key features of his design.
 References
• Wikipedia
• Paper document
THANK YOU