Thursday, November 26, 2009
Doshi / BNCA / Pune
'Doshi' was screened in Pune at the IUCAA Auditorium on the 22nd of November. Dr. Bhanuben Nanavati College for Architecture for Women (BNCA) organized the event. The film was shown with 'Beginnings' and 'Karma' as bookends. Mr. BV. Doshi, Mr. Samar Nakhate, Mr. Nachiket Patwardhan and the two of us discussed the film after the show. BNCA has initiated an annual Kanvinde Memorial Lecture and this was the inaugural event along with a lecture by Mr. Doshi on Mr. Achyut Kanvinde's work.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Building Design, London
Doshi
Directed by Premjit Ramachandran
100 Hands
4 Stars
Doshi, directed by Bangalore-based film-maker Premjit Ramachandran, captures the intense energy and enigma behind the seminal Indian architect, now 82. Gripping interviews with Balkrishna Doshi, his former students, practitioners (including Graham Morrison of Allies & Morrison) and family members deal with critical questions on working as an architect within the Indian context.
Doshi has made an immense contribution to contemporary practice and polemic in India, which has been well documented in two monographs and countless publications. What is different about the film is that it is also about the philosophical underpinnings that inform the stuff of life, where architecture has a small but significant place.
Doshi looks with almost mystical wonder at the sequence of events that has led to where he is today. He stumbled into studying architecture at the suggestion of a schoolteacher. Later he travelled to London in 1951 to find himself participating in the activities of the Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM). There he was offered his first job with Le Corbusier in Paris, who was designing Chandigarh at the time.
“Corbusier had a profound impact on Doshi”, says Ramachandran, “but he has always sought to interpret Corbusier’s modernism through local conditions of site, climate and available technology.”
Apart from the practice of architecture, his most significant achievements include setting up two important institutions in Ahmedabad, Gujarat: the Centre for Environment, Planning & Technology (CEPT) in 1962, one of India’s best architecture schools; and the Vastu Shilpa Foundation in 1972, which conducts pioneering research into sustainability, traditional Indian settlements and available technology. He was also responsible for inviting Louis Kahn to design a campus for the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad.
The conversations explore the ideological foundations that ground his work. Sustainability, which is fundamental to his thinking, is practised in a holistic way ingeniously working with not only local climate, topography, availability of materials and skills — as seen at Sangath, his studio — but also in the adaptive quality of the built environment. Here the ability for incremental growth means that communities can thrive over generations without losing architectural quality — as seen at the LIC housing project in Ahmedabad.
This aspect, completely alien to UK nimbyism, is also not easily found in the works of Doshi’s contemporaries in India. His fascination with how people behave in public space, including memories of his own childhood “always wanting to be outside, playing” gave spatial order to the campus for CEPT and the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. It was here that he set up the right conditions for social interaction between students.
“His ability to at once tackle architecture as both a modern structured and rigorous artefact as well as an intangible, archaic and philosophical idea made the work seem more rooted than his contemporaries,” says Bijoy Ramachandran, who conceived and researched the film.
The film ends with Doshi at Sarkhej, an ambitious 15th century “heritage” complex in Gujarat, asking larger questions on the role of the professional in making a socially relevant architecture, where communities can rejoice in the public realm. Submissiveness to the developer is not a problem restricted to India only, and so his question gains an international significance: “What, ideologically, is our contemporary heritage?”
The film’s only missed opportunity is that it fails to acknowledge the team behind the name. Some of the testimonies are reminiscent of those in My Architect, the film about Louis Kahn, where mesmerised individuals fervently eulogise the film’s subject, which viewers may find difficult. Despite this, the critical content, delectable cinematography and musical score leave you inspired.
Link.
Directed by Premjit Ramachandran
100 Hands
4 Stars
Doshi, directed by Bangalore-based film-maker Premjit Ramachandran, captures the intense energy and enigma behind the seminal Indian architect, now 82. Gripping interviews with Balkrishna Doshi, his former students, practitioners (including Graham Morrison of Allies & Morrison) and family members deal with critical questions on working as an architect within the Indian context.
Doshi has made an immense contribution to contemporary practice and polemic in India, which has been well documented in two monographs and countless publications. What is different about the film is that it is also about the philosophical underpinnings that inform the stuff of life, where architecture has a small but significant place.
Doshi looks with almost mystical wonder at the sequence of events that has led to where he is today. He stumbled into studying architecture at the suggestion of a schoolteacher. Later he travelled to London in 1951 to find himself participating in the activities of the Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM). There he was offered his first job with Le Corbusier in Paris, who was designing Chandigarh at the time.
“Corbusier had a profound impact on Doshi”, says Ramachandran, “but he has always sought to interpret Corbusier’s modernism through local conditions of site, climate and available technology.”
Apart from the practice of architecture, his most significant achievements include setting up two important institutions in Ahmedabad, Gujarat: the Centre for Environment, Planning & Technology (CEPT) in 1962, one of India’s best architecture schools; and the Vastu Shilpa Foundation in 1972, which conducts pioneering research into sustainability, traditional Indian settlements and available technology. He was also responsible for inviting Louis Kahn to design a campus for the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad.
The conversations explore the ideological foundations that ground his work. Sustainability, which is fundamental to his thinking, is practised in a holistic way ingeniously working with not only local climate, topography, availability of materials and skills — as seen at Sangath, his studio — but also in the adaptive quality of the built environment. Here the ability for incremental growth means that communities can thrive over generations without losing architectural quality — as seen at the LIC housing project in Ahmedabad.
This aspect, completely alien to UK nimbyism, is also not easily found in the works of Doshi’s contemporaries in India. His fascination with how people behave in public space, including memories of his own childhood “always wanting to be outside, playing” gave spatial order to the campus for CEPT and the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. It was here that he set up the right conditions for social interaction between students.
“His ability to at once tackle architecture as both a modern structured and rigorous artefact as well as an intangible, archaic and philosophical idea made the work seem more rooted than his contemporaries,” says Bijoy Ramachandran, who conceived and researched the film.
The film ends with Doshi at Sarkhej, an ambitious 15th century “heritage” complex in Gujarat, asking larger questions on the role of the professional in making a socially relevant architecture, where communities can rejoice in the public realm. Submissiveness to the developer is not a problem restricted to India only, and so his question gains an international significance: “What, ideologically, is our contemporary heritage?”
The film’s only missed opportunity is that it fails to acknowledge the team behind the name. Some of the testimonies are reminiscent of those in My Architect, the film about Louis Kahn, where mesmerised individuals fervently eulogise the film’s subject, which viewers may find difficult. Despite this, the critical content, delectable cinematography and musical score leave you inspired.
Link.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Monday, August 31, 2009
Friday, May 8, 2009
Sale
The DVD (+Audio CD) will be available for sale from the 15th of May. Contact Hundredhands at 080-25593606 (or email touch@hundredhands.com) to get hold of a copy. :)
Sunday, May 3, 2009
The Final Cut
The film is now officially complete. No more going back to the drawing board. All the drawing is done, the hands have tired. We went back to the original cut, made it a little tighter (its now 74 minutes long) and added a few more photographs, done a bit of juggling in the structure. I must say its looking quite nice now. I have seen the film over a 100 times and I still enjoy Mr. D's voice (and Bijoy and me know every single word in the film).
There was a screening at MLR Convention Centre on the 1st of May. The response was fantastic. The students loved it and we had a lovely Q&A after. These things feel good. Unfortunately Bijoy wasn't there with me. I took Prakash along instead. We are planning another bigger screening on the 15th. Lets see if it pans out. The DVD's will be available for sale. And as a special extra, it comes along with the original soundtrack of the film and two short films on Doshi's beginnings and his outlook on the Bharat Diamond Bourse collapse. Both very engaging, even more thanks to Mr. Trent Reznor's themes.
So, there...
There was a screening at MLR Convention Centre on the 1st of May. The response was fantastic. The students loved it and we had a lovely Q&A after. These things feel good. Unfortunately Bijoy wasn't there with me. I took Prakash along instead. We are planning another bigger screening on the 15th. Lets see if it pans out. The DVD's will be available for sale. And as a special extra, it comes along with the original soundtrack of the film and two short films on Doshi's beginnings and his outlook on the Bharat Diamond Bourse collapse. Both very engaging, even more thanks to Mr. Trent Reznor's themes.
So, there...
Thursday, January 29, 2009
15 and a half months later...
So, today seems like another little milestone in this Doshi project. I managed to finally find the solution for this nagging problem. The film is now complete and we are going to send a copy to Mr. D tomorrow. I hope he likes it and I hope he understands where we are coming from re: the insertion of his failure with the Bharat Diamond Bourse into the film. It makes him human. Earlier the film was a glory picture, he came across like God.
We also applied for the Jan Vrijman fund in Amsterdam. If that comes through we'll have some money to do the audio post-production and final mix. Lets see what's in store for us.
We also applied for the Jan Vrijman fund in Amsterdam. If that comes through we'll have some money to do the audio post-production and final mix. Lets see what's in store for us.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
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