The Discovery Of India: An Architect's Journey

Pune based iconic architect Christopher Charles Benninger, the founder of the practice CCBA Designs, has added a new vocabulary to modern Indian architecture. In this essay, he artistically and pungently shares with us his beliefs in architecture, his life-evolution and most importantly, pointers to the way forward. Architecture+Design feels privileged to bring to you this very ‘straight from the heart’ writing penned down by the Master —

- Christopher Charles Benninger

1.0 A BRAHMACHARYA IN AMERICAN

Christopher Benninger was born to a professor of economics, Laurence Benninger, who devoted his life to analytical research, writing and teaching, bringing Christopher into the milieu of an academic community at an early age. His mother, heir of the French family de Guibert, a gentile family of artists, dramatists and writers introducing him to modern dance, painting, creative writing and statecraft, with an ‘uncle’, Adlai Stevenson, the Governor of Illinois, Democratic Party candidate for President twice, and United States Ambassador to the United Nations. At the Embassy in New York, Christopher met many ‘thought leaders’ of the time, like Sir Robert Jackson, Chairman of the United Nations Refugee Relief Commission, who introduced him to the Ekistics Movement, gifting him a lifetime subscription to the Ekistics Journal. As a youngster, Christopher was active in the civil rights movement, and chose many friends from amongst the South Asian student community, like Meer Mobasher Ali, his roommate, who became the first Bangladeshi Dean of Architecture in BUET in Dhaka.