The Artisan Builders Of Ahmedabad

Meet the creatives tapping into Ahmedabad's design history to create its future.

- By PRASAD RAMAMURTHY

“MF HUSAIN PAID MANY SURPRISE VISITS. BV Doshi and Atul Dodiya were regular guests. Bhupen Khakhar would bring his theatre artist friends. We always had an eclectic mix of people at our home,” recalls photographer, furniture and lighting designer Anuj Ambalal, about life in the 1980s in Ahmedabad. A time when the city was teeming with art and design legends, and who came to meet his father, the reputed painter and pichwai collector Amit Ambalal.

“The city had an energy that came from the questioning nature of creative people and from an exchange of perspectives, and that spirit remains today,” Ambalal adds. A bonhomie was evident at Ahmedabad Commons, an annual event where buildings of interest, including private homes, are opened up to architecture enthusiasts for one weekend. At a standing-room-only event, I witnessed the camaraderie between creative practitioners visiting BandukSmith Studio, run by award-winning architects Sachin Bandukwala and Melissa Smith. It was akin to being the proverbial fly on the wall.

But then, I am in Ahmedabad to explore its creative side, the legacy of which is fairly well-known but merits enumerating. The National Institute of Design, India’s first design school, was founded in 1961 with aid from the Sarabhai family who ran Calico Mills. (A pop culture reference, should you need one, is