A world-class architectural preservation controversy is brewing in India, where the administration of the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad announced plans to demolish 14 of the 18 student dormitories designed by architect Louis Kahn and built in the 1960s and 1970s.
After local and international protests, an online meeting to start seeking new tenders for the demolition was canceled.
Kahn, one of the most important American architects in history, is best known for masterpieces such as the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, and the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, as well as the Philips Exeter Academy Library in Exeter, NH, and the First Unitarian Church in Rochester, NY (he also had three famous families, spoke with bricks and died on the men’s bathroom floor at Penn Station).
The red brick student dormitories exposed in Ahmedabad are essential to the holistic design of the institute’s campus and are considered one of the architect’s best works – with repetition, geometry and manipulation of light and shadow. They exemplify Kahn’s ability to design buildings in “response to the cultures, climates and traditions of their respective places,” said historian William JR Curtis, who wrote articles for the Architectural Record and The Architectural Review in support of preserving the bedrooms.
In a statement, the World Monuments Fund asked the institute’s management to reconsider, citing the project’s influence on the “modern development of Indian higher education” and the environmentally sensitive design that remains an example of how to build for a local climate. “Conceived as a whole, the Kahn campus must be preserved in its entirety to protect the aesthetic, functional and symbolic values imbued in it,” said the statement.
Dormitory supporters include the Indian Architecture Council, as well as architects and academics, including Pritzker Prize winners in Architecture Rafael Moneo, Alejandro Aravena and Balkrishna Doshi (the architect who brought Kahn to India in the early 1960s), who posted an open letter. A Change.org petition had more than 12,000 signatures on Thursday afternoon.
The director of the management institute, Errol D’Souza, defended the demolition plans in a letter to alumni, calling the structures “unviable” because of issues such as “concrete and slabs falling from the roofs”; brick deterioration causing cracks and water infiltration; and structural issues resulting from a 2001 earthquake.
The school had already commissioned an extensive building restoration project, but changed course with a plan to build again.