Post Independence Architecture Of India

Alchemy of Time, Place and People

- Yatin Pandya

Architecture is alchemy of time and place, people and politics, era and ethos. A Response to the given Culture, Climate and Construction. As three dimensional edifice withstanding its time and space- often transcending the same, architecture is not only the resolute response to the user needs, or responsive to site and locale context but as such architecture remains to be the manifestation of the collective thinking shaped by the nuances of time and place. It being the critical thinking, political visions, emergent policies, world views, course of events and so on...Therefore building should not be seen as an object or an edifice but rather an integral synthesis of the cultural, climatic and constructional context. In such a light the post independence architectural response can be classified in several phases of its approach and thinking. 

Phase of 1947 – 1957 Euphoria of Political Freedom,1958 – 1971 Following the Masters Path,1972 – 1985 The Age of Introspection, 1986 – 1991 Search for Alternative Indian Idiom, 1992 – 2006 Probing Identity in the World Market and 2006 – 2015 Resurgence within Global Village.

May it be Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram structures evolved to house allied functions of the ashram; Laurie Baker’s buildings and campuses using vernacular syntax and traditional wisdom, Claude Batley’s fusion of Indian as well as classical European elements, Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn’s modernism for labour Intensive context and hot climate conditions of India; or Indian master’s explorations in reinterpreting the Indian architectural syntax..are not about creating objects in isolation but are representations of ideology and thinking of time and place and therefore must be seen, inferred and understood vis a vis wider national context. 

1947 – 1957 Euphoria of Political Freedom: