Described by 16th-century European travelers as “the handsomest town in Hindustan,
perhaps in the world,” in the 17th century as a “city comparable in size and wealth to
London” and as “the Manchester of the East” for its thriving textile industry, Ahmedabad
eventually hosted an architectural treasure trove in the 20th century. This metropolis in
western India, with a population of more than 2.8 million, is home to four key buildings
designed by Le Corbusier (1887–1965), the well-crafted Indian Institute of Management
Campus (1962–73) by American architect Louis I.Kahn (1901–74), and outstanding
projects by leading Indian architects Charles Correa (1930), Balkrishna Doshi (1927),
and Achyut Kanvinde (1916).
Named after its founder, Ahmed Shah, Ahmedabad was established in 1411 on the site
of Ashawal, an earlier trading settlement that was abandoned in the 11 th century.
Occupying the east bank of the Sabarmai River, the original city of Ahmedabad,
popularly known as the Old City, continues to serve as a distinct commercial and
Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture 54
residential core of the present-day metropolis. With the building of the Ellis Bridge in
1870 (a wooden structure replaced by steel in 1882) and subsequent construction of a
series of reinforced-concrete bridges capable of withstanding monsoon floods, the city
started to expand across to the west bank. New bridges opened the less crowded west, or
right, bank of the river. The empty west bank was more attractive for development
compared with the crowded east side. This remains so today, even as the city is now
spread equally on both sides of the river. The expansion of the west bank in the 20th
century encouraged a wide range of new architecture. It would be a mistake, however, to
overlook the Old City, because the living architectural heritage from the last five
centuries can be found alongside 20th-century buildings. Noteworthy modern projects in
the Old City include the Premabhai Hall (1972) and the Central Bank of India Head
Office (1966) by Doshi, the Reserve Bank Headquarters (1969) by Hasmukh Patel
(1933), the Roman Catholic Church of Gaekwad-ni-Haveli (1979) by Leo Pereira (1943),
and the Geodesic Domed Calico Shop (1962) by Gautam (1917–95) and Gira Sarabhai
(1923).
Foundations of 20th-century architecture of Ahmedabad are primarily Western in
origin, beginning in the early 19th century, when the British took control of the city from
the Maratha kings. They established a military cantonment to the northeast of the Old
City in 1830. The railway was introduced in the 1860s with the first textile mill. In the
1870s, new gates were opened in the city wall, and large portions of it were pulled down
after World War I. Early expansion of modern Ahmedabad occurred on the side of the
Old City and in the direction of the cantonment. Suburban Shahibagh still holds a number
of well-designed homes of the rich mercantile class, including the Retreat (1936)
designed by Surendranath Kar (1892–1970), and Le Corbusier’s ground-hugging, vaulted
structure of the Sarabhai House (1951).
The completion of the Ellis Bridge was followed by increased development on the
west side of the river. Not too far from the bridgehead emerged the educational complex
of Gujarat College (c.1890), an eclectic Public Works Department project with Gothic,
Tudor, and local touches, where the George V Hall (1910) was renamed Mahatma
Gandhi Hall after India’s independence. Other important buildings include the Town Hall
(1940), designed by an influential British architect, Claude Batley (1879–1956); the
Bombay-based partnership of Gregson, Batley, and King is inspired by Indian traditions
and Western classical orders. The Town Hall, the Relief Cinema (1940), and the
Electricity House (c. 1940) do not bear the typical stylistic imprint of these architects;
rather, the Art Deco and the International Style architecture seem to have inspired all
three buildings.
The Postindependence Era
Ashram Road, the main traffic artery connecting all bridgeheads along the west bank of
the Sabarmati River, begins near the Subhas Bridge to the north and ends near Sardar
Bridge to the south. A host of important civic structures are located along this road,
including Charles Correa’s Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya (1963), located less than 100
yards from the Hriday Kunj (heart grove) in the Sabarmati Ashram, where Gandhi
resided from 1917 to 1930. Built around 20-foot-square modules only 7 feet high with
Entries A–F 55
hutlike structures that are interconnected and with courtyards, this modest and inspiring
edifice holds letters, photographs, and other documents of Gandhi. Kanvinde’s Darpana
Dance Academy (1968) fits beautifully with nature and its surroundings. To the south of
the Gandhi Bridge lies the wellknown Mill Owners’s Association Building by Le
Corbusier. The southernmost crossing of the river at Sardar Bridge is the cultural
prescient of Ahmedabad; Le Corbusier’s recently refurbished museum, or the Sanakar
Kendra (1954–57), the reinforced-concrete folded plate structure of Tagore Memorial
Theater (1962) by Doshi, and the rambling National Institute of Design Campus (1961)
by Gautam and Gira Sarabahi are all located here.
The westward growth of suburban Ahmedabad continued rapidly in the
postindependence period. A number of welldesigned private residences can be found in
these neighborhoods, including the Shodhan Villa (1951–54) by Le Corbusier, which,
according to his Oeuvre complète, “recalls the ingenuity of the Villa Savoye…in a tropical Indian
setting.”
A number of educational and research institutions beyond these suburbs represent
significant contemporary architecture of Ahmedabad, including the Gujarat University
main buildings (1947) by Atmaram Gajjar (1901–61); a fine range of projects by
architect Doshi, including the Institute of Indology (1957–62), science buildings (1959–
62) for Gujarat University, the School of Architecture (1966–68), the Gandhi Labor
Institute (1980–84), and the Hussain-Doshi Gufa (1992–94), a mosaiccovered cavelike
exhibition structure; the Ahmedabad Textile Industries Research Association Facility
(1950–52) and the Physical Research Laboratory (1954) by Kanvinde; and the Newman
Hall (1970) and the Indian Space Research Organization (1975), two beautiful brick
complexes, by Hasmukh Patel. The Nehru Center for Environmental Education (1988–
90) by Neelkanth Chhaya (1951) and the Entrepreneur Development Institute (1985–87)
by Bimal Patel (1960) represent projects by young Indian architects. Louis Kahn’s
brooding brick complex of the Indian Institute of Management has served as an
inspiration to many of these projects.
Although the recent urban growth of Ahmedabad has not been very coherent and is
continuing in a rather uncontrolled fashion, a few housing projects provide attractive and
affordable places to live. For example, the Ahmedabad Study Action Group’s Housing
Rehabilitation Project (1973–75) provides housing for about 2,500 flood-affected
families in the southern suburb of Vasna. It combines a series of housing clusters around
a sequence of open spaces, well suited for community activities. In his Life Insurance
Corporation Project (1973–76), Doshi employed a stackable urban row house model that
allows users to expand their units. Architect Kamal Mangaldas’s (1938) narrow-front row
house project for Sanjay Park (1985) and the duplex-type Gulmohur Luxury Housing
(1986) support a sense of community and self-sufficiency by organizing rows of housing
around a cluster of amenities. However, such projects are few and far between.
Nevertheless, these enlightened housing and architectural projects distinguish
Ahmedabad from other rapidly expanding Indian cities.
AGRICULTURAL BUILDINGS
The critic Robert Venturi has referred to gas stations and other vernacular structures
located along commercial strips as “decorated sheds.” His use of the name of a utilitarian,
work-oriented structure suggests that sheds, barns, and other such structures are most
importantly utilitarian; nevertheless, they also possess meaning that is based on a
definable structural program. Buildings used in American agriculture possess clear
structural forms, but their emphasis as work buildings also allows them to function as a
material artifact of changes in the social and economic context of labor on the American
farm.
The agricultural landscape is a composite of many structures designed around the
natural cycles of planting, harvest, and maintenance that define farm labor. Such
component structures might include those designed for a specific animal (such as chicken
houses), specific storage (milk houses or springhouses), limited processes (smokehouses,
summer kitchens, sugarhouses, evaporators), grain and fodder storage (granaries,
corncribs, silos), and even fencing. Most important, however, such structures are
sublimated in the overall layout to the central barn. The American plantation serves as an
example that did not use the central barn and instead relied on sprawling compounds of
smaller buildings around one central home (the big house); most American agriculture,
however, operates on a central plan defined by the barn.
The American barn is one of the nation’s most ubiquitous architectural signifiers. In
addition to its obvious utilitarian function, to many observers the barn is a symbol of the
rugged individualism that Thomas Jefferson and others connected to the American
yeoman farmer. The barn and the farm that it supports became one of the most flexible
mechanisms for American expansion. A closer analysis of specific barn styles and types
reveals overall diversity while suggesting continuity between region, ethnic groups, and
general agricultural function.
Prior to 1900, barns were primarily wood, although sometimes constructed from brick
or stone. Most barns function as a mixed-use facility, prioritizing storage, shelter, and
ventilation. Many barn styles integrated stables and other areas to shelter animals. Often,
silos or areas in which to store feed were then also integrated into the site. Crib barns, for
instance, contained storage facilities within the structure; more often, tall, cylindrical
Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture 52
silos would be incorporated into the overall plan in order to free up the interior space for
storing machinery. Thus the program of the American barn prioritizes functionality.
Barns, like many of the site’s supporting structures, followed the most general design
patterns. Plank framing supported expansive walls, which were then normally covered in
planking. Traditional Anglo-American joining (based on carving joints to make them
interlock), of course, served as the ancestor of the better-known balloon frame, which
replaced such joints with nails. Standardized parts, simplified joints, and two-story studs
and bearers link the balloon-frame form to traditional carpentry. In such a design,
studding was placed at a minimum. As tools and mechanization changed by 1900,
balloon framing became a standard form, and even as materials changed in the 20th
century, the balloon frame remained the norm. Although many farmers or agricultural
corporations have opted for manufactured buildings sided in fiberglass or aluminum
panels, the structural support remains extremely similar to the original balloon frame.
Flooring, however, has added structural support by incorporating a solid cement founding
where formerly dirt or planks served the facility.
Prefabrication, as an architectural pattern, grew out of increased technology. By the
turn of the century, the timber-rich Pacific Northwest, upper Midwest, and Southeast
were the headquarters of corporations that sold prefabricated, mail-order farm buildings
and commercial structures. During World War II, the Seabees, a portion of the U.S.
Navy, created prefabricated, all-purpose buildings that could be manufactured in the
United States and shipped anywhere. The Quonset hut was made from preformed wooden
ribs sheathed with corrugated sheet steel and fitted with pressed-wood interior linings.
After use in the war, more than 170,000 of these structures would return to the United
States for use in agriculture and industry. Prefabrication had even more application in the
utilitarian world of agricultural structures than in the suburban countryside, where it
would be applied by William Levitt (1947) and others.
As agriculture expanded westward, infrastructural links became major components in
connecting the agricultural hinterland to railroad corridors. Following the completion of
the transcontinental railroad in 1869, the entire American West would be linked by
technology as “hinterland” to Chicago and other developing shipping centers. The
program of the rural, agrarian landscape remains dominated by this economic
relationship. Most prolific, grain elevators serve as tremendous storage facilities at
railroad termini. Industrial architecture of the early 1900s was widely influenced by
European modernism and particularly Walter Gropius, including these massive
compounds for grain storage and transshipment of steel or concrete tubes (from one to
hundreds). Located in towns and shipping ports, these facilities became fully automated
with electricity in the 20th century.
Technology has allowed the contemporary agricultural landscape to sprawl over land
often hostile to farming. Hydraulic management allows vast tracts of the American West,
particularly the Great Plains and California’s Central Valley, to produce enough goods to
feed the entire world. Located west of the isohyetal line of 20 inches, such locations lack
the necessary rainfall for agriculture. Building on hydraulic concepts developed by
natives of the Southwest and of Utah Mormons, federal subsidies initiated by the 1902
Reclamation Act have helped to finance infrastructure that spreads the limited water
resources of the West among the arid regions. Additionally, many farmers in the Great
Plains have drilled into aquifers, including the Ogallala, and then planted circular fields
Entries A–F 53
irrigated by center-pivot watering systems. The extension of agriculture into such regions
is a technological wonder of American society; however, it also makes farmers
precariously dependent on the management of a limited resource.
Patterns in agricultural buildings have not all solely followed a program of utility. As
large agricultural corporations have taken over lands of the midwestern and western
United States, preservationists throughout the nation have sought to preserve the image of
the independent yeoman farmer. Most often, this effort has seen organizations such as the
National Farmland Trust raising funds to preserve older farmsteads that are threatened by
suburban or urban expansion. Another social change to the farm structure relates to
Venturi’s idea of the decorated shed. For many years, the largest shed, the barn, was
viewed as a billboardin-the-making. Tobacco companies often painted an entire side of
the barn with advertisements for Mail Pouch or Red Man. As part of the antismoking
furor of the late 1990s, these billboards were banned and removed. The barn has
consistently belied its status as purely a utilitarian structure to inspire and exhibit social
ideas and ideals.
located along commercial strips as “decorated sheds.” His use of the name of a utilitarian,
work-oriented structure suggests that sheds, barns, and other such structures are most
importantly utilitarian; nevertheless, they also possess meaning that is based on a
definable structural program. Buildings used in American agriculture possess clear
structural forms, but their emphasis as work buildings also allows them to function as a
material artifact of changes in the social and economic context of labor on the American
farm.
The agricultural landscape is a composite of many structures designed around the
natural cycles of planting, harvest, and maintenance that define farm labor. Such
component structures might include those designed for a specific animal (such as chicken
houses), specific storage (milk houses or springhouses), limited processes (smokehouses,
summer kitchens, sugarhouses, evaporators), grain and fodder storage (granaries,
corncribs, silos), and even fencing. Most important, however, such structures are
sublimated in the overall layout to the central barn. The American plantation serves as an
example that did not use the central barn and instead relied on sprawling compounds of
smaller buildings around one central home (the big house); most American agriculture,
however, operates on a central plan defined by the barn.
The American barn is one of the nation’s most ubiquitous architectural signifiers. In
addition to its obvious utilitarian function, to many observers the barn is a symbol of the
rugged individualism that Thomas Jefferson and others connected to the American
yeoman farmer. The barn and the farm that it supports became one of the most flexible
mechanisms for American expansion. A closer analysis of specific barn styles and types
reveals overall diversity while suggesting continuity between region, ethnic groups, and
general agricultural function.
Prior to 1900, barns were primarily wood, although sometimes constructed from brick
or stone. Most barns function as a mixed-use facility, prioritizing storage, shelter, and
ventilation. Many barn styles integrated stables and other areas to shelter animals. Often,
silos or areas in which to store feed were then also integrated into the site. Crib barns, for
instance, contained storage facilities within the structure; more often, tall, cylindrical
Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture 52
silos would be incorporated into the overall plan in order to free up the interior space for
storing machinery. Thus the program of the American barn prioritizes functionality.
Barns, like many of the site’s supporting structures, followed the most general design
patterns. Plank framing supported expansive walls, which were then normally covered in
planking. Traditional Anglo-American joining (based on carving joints to make them
interlock), of course, served as the ancestor of the better-known balloon frame, which
replaced such joints with nails. Standardized parts, simplified joints, and two-story studs
and bearers link the balloon-frame form to traditional carpentry. In such a design,
studding was placed at a minimum. As tools and mechanization changed by 1900,
balloon framing became a standard form, and even as materials changed in the 20th
century, the balloon frame remained the norm. Although many farmers or agricultural
corporations have opted for manufactured buildings sided in fiberglass or aluminum
panels, the structural support remains extremely similar to the original balloon frame.
Flooring, however, has added structural support by incorporating a solid cement founding
where formerly dirt or planks served the facility.
Prefabrication, as an architectural pattern, grew out of increased technology. By the
turn of the century, the timber-rich Pacific Northwest, upper Midwest, and Southeast
were the headquarters of corporations that sold prefabricated, mail-order farm buildings
and commercial structures. During World War II, the Seabees, a portion of the U.S.
Navy, created prefabricated, all-purpose buildings that could be manufactured in the
United States and shipped anywhere. The Quonset hut was made from preformed wooden
ribs sheathed with corrugated sheet steel and fitted with pressed-wood interior linings.
After use in the war, more than 170,000 of these structures would return to the United
States for use in agriculture and industry. Prefabrication had even more application in the
utilitarian world of agricultural structures than in the suburban countryside, where it
would be applied by William Levitt (1947) and others.
As agriculture expanded westward, infrastructural links became major components in
connecting the agricultural hinterland to railroad corridors. Following the completion of
the transcontinental railroad in 1869, the entire American West would be linked by
technology as “hinterland” to Chicago and other developing shipping centers. The
program of the rural, agrarian landscape remains dominated by this economic
relationship. Most prolific, grain elevators serve as tremendous storage facilities at
railroad termini. Industrial architecture of the early 1900s was widely influenced by
European modernism and particularly Walter Gropius, including these massive
compounds for grain storage and transshipment of steel or concrete tubes (from one to
hundreds). Located in towns and shipping ports, these facilities became fully automated
with electricity in the 20th century.
Technology has allowed the contemporary agricultural landscape to sprawl over land
often hostile to farming. Hydraulic management allows vast tracts of the American West,
particularly the Great Plains and California’s Central Valley, to produce enough goods to
feed the entire world. Located west of the isohyetal line of 20 inches, such locations lack
the necessary rainfall for agriculture. Building on hydraulic concepts developed by
natives of the Southwest and of Utah Mormons, federal subsidies initiated by the 1902
Reclamation Act have helped to finance infrastructure that spreads the limited water
resources of the West among the arid regions. Additionally, many farmers in the Great
Plains have drilled into aquifers, including the Ogallala, and then planted circular fields
Entries A–F 53
irrigated by center-pivot watering systems. The extension of agriculture into such regions
is a technological wonder of American society; however, it also makes farmers
precariously dependent on the management of a limited resource.
Patterns in agricultural buildings have not all solely followed a program of utility. As
large agricultural corporations have taken over lands of the midwestern and western
United States, preservationists throughout the nation have sought to preserve the image of
the independent yeoman farmer. Most often, this effort has seen organizations such as the
National Farmland Trust raising funds to preserve older farmsteads that are threatened by
suburban or urban expansion. Another social change to the farm structure relates to
Venturi’s idea of the decorated shed. For many years, the largest shed, the barn, was
viewed as a billboardin-the-making. Tobacco companies often painted an entire side of
the barn with advertisements for Mail Pouch or Red Man. As part of the antismoking
furor of the late 1990s, these billboards were banned and removed. The barn has
consistently belied its status as purely a utilitarian structure to inspire and exhibit social
ideas and ideals.
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