How India’s push to modernise threatens its signature buildings
This story is from January 3, 2021
How India’s push to modernise threatens its signature buildings
The IIM Ahmedabad complex designed by Kahn
You say to brick, “What do you want, brick?” Brick says to you, “I like an arch.” If you say to brick, “Arches are expensive and I can use a concrete lintel over an opening. What do you think of that, brick?” Brick says: “I like an arch.” Louis Kahn
This odd imaginary conversation with a brick was often used by American architect Louis Kahn to explain to students how they must use material around them to find inspiration. So the irony was not lost on anyone when Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A) director Errol D’Souza proposed the destruction of the Kahn-designed campus by describing the bricks as “second class” and having an “inbuilt efflorescence” (salt deposit on masonry).