- The Doshi director, Vastu Shilpa, has developed a list of “must-see” architectural sites in the city of Ahmedabad so that visitors to the director can see the city and appreciate the context in which Doshi is designing its houses.
2. From 1951 to 1955, B.V. Doshi worked as an architectural apprentice directly for Le Corbusier in his atelier in Paris. To this day, Doshi keeps a portrait of the Swiss architect beside images of Goddess Durga and Lord Ganesha at the entrance of his house.
3. Le Corbusier spoke Broken English to Doshi. But the Indian architect later recalled, “Conversation becomes more visual and spatial when you don’t know the language.”
4. With Le Corbusier he got his unpaid work based on a non-traditional qualification: his handwriting. In 2017, Doshi told the India Times he was not being asked to apply a portfolio, but “an application of my own handwriting.”
5. He first visited America in 1959, on a grant from the Graham Foundation.
6. Doshi played a major role in the construction of Chandigarh, Punjab ‘s current state capital (Chandigarh now acts as the joint state capital for Punjab and Haryana). He was tasked with creating living spaces for the thousands of humble servants of government. It has given way to his continuing interest in creating the safest, most functional and low-cost shared rooms.
7. In the 1960s Doshi opened The School of Architecture at Ahmedabad with an innovative program, known as the Environmental Design and Development Center (CEPT) from 1972 onwards. As an early adjunct faculty member Louis Kahn served!
8. A closer look at some of Doshi’s work’s structural aspects shows a realistic and common use of bearing walls — these dense walls serve as powerful thermal masses in India’s hot climate.
9. He was a member of the international collective Team 10 from 1967-1971.
10. Doshi partnered with Moshe Safdie and Iranian architect Nader Ardalan and Harvard professor Josep Lluis Sert to write the Environment Bill of Rights, presented by Iran ‘s government at the 1976 UN-Habitat Conference on Human Settlements in Vancouver
11. The studio he designed in 1979-81 shows how Doshi ‘s attempts to mix modern tendencies with traditional Indian methods have progressed. A local tradition of mosaics made from recycled ceramic tiles was employed for Sangath.
