Acclaimed architect and Padma Bhushan Awardee Balkrishna Doshi is no more. He was 95. His last rites will be held at 2.30 pm on Tuesday at Thaltej crematorium on the SG Highway in Ahmedabad.
He was the founder of the CEPT University in Ahmedabad. Having worked under big names like Le Corbusier and Louis Khan, Doshi was an institution in himself. Apart from Padma Bhushan, he was a recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the first Indian to have received it.
In 2022, he received the Royal Institute of British Architects' Royal Gold Medal. As a special case, the team had come down to Ahmedabad and he was handed over the gold medal at his residence, located less than two kilometres away from CEPT University. He had studied from the J J School of Arts, Mumbai.
Among his designs include IIM-Bangalore, IIM-Udaipur and Hussin-Doshi ni Gufa, which later on came to be known as Amdavad ni Gufa.
Doshi was awarded the Agha Khan Award for Architecture for the Aranya Low Cost Housing Scheme that he developed in Indore. A team of young architects has been working in his office Sangath, set up by him.
The family sent out a note on social media to inform about Doshi’s demise. The family said that no one loved life more than him. “Anand Karo” – Celebrate life – as he would always say, said the family in the message. They also said that he had so many people that he loved dearly and who loved him back.
Doshi is survived by his wife Kamala and three daughters Tejal, Radhika and Maneesha. Tejal is a textile designer, Radhika is a fashion designer and architect, and Maneesha is a painter. Doshi lived with his wife in Ahmedabad and the daughters took turns to be with their parents, more so after the onset of Covid-19.
During his interviews given in the past to THE WEEK, Doshi had said that he sees architecture as a celebration of life and said that it is fast disappearing today. He had said that today architecture is all about fulfilling a certain set of concrete functions and obligations. He had refused to comment on the Central Vista Project.