ANANT DAMODAR
INTRODUCTION
RAJE
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Anant Damodar Raje was born in 1929. he graduated from JJ School of
Arts in 1954. In 1960, he received a French scholarship to study the
industrial methods & techniques in prefabricated housing units. Between
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1964-1968, he worked in Louis Kahn’s office in Philadelphia, finally
settling down to establish his own practice in Ahmedabad. A
PHILOSOPHY N
Strongly influenced by Kahn, Raje, nevertheless, acknowledges the
wealth of architectural heritage that must be considered when building in
this country. He quotes Aldo Van Eyck to express his philosophy, “Space T
in the image of the man is place.” If a space cannot draw life to it, it can
never become a place. Space within a building must have a symbiotic
relationship so as not to repulse but draw life to them.
Raje also maintains an active interest in architectural education and is on
the visiting faculty of various schools of Architecture in India and abroad. R
Conceptual sketch of the IIFM
building
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Introduction…
Architectural history is a continual statement of the discipline of A
the building. The best of modern architects have reinforced that
tradition. In India, except in the work of a few, contemporary
architecture seems largely circumstantial, incidental, willful and N
often superficial, lacking in that quality essential to all good work- a
sense of place, a sense of fit, a sense of permanence- of transcending
time, and ultimately, a sense of order. A
· Raje’s work has also been rooted in the Discipline of Building.
His most mature work, the Indian Institute of Forest Management at
Bhopal, reflects the best of his understanding and immense skills. N
· If the early work was necessarily rooted in the Kahnian
vocabulary, as at the Management Development Centre at IIM T
Ahmedabad, the IIFM at Bhopal developed idioms that were
essentially of Raje: A sense of place and belonging in the landscape;
a philosophical interpretation of the nature of institutions made
explicit in a hierarchy of courts; and the elements of the building –
galleries, porches and rooms, that befit the nature of activities; each
made according to its character, in the discipline of structure and
material, and in the nuances of light.
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Influences of Louis-i –Kahn demonstrated in
Management Development Center
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Concept…
• There is in his work integrity between purpose and expression, building A
and landscape, part and whole, and the ultimate quality of all good
architecture through time- a sense of repose.
• If the disciplines of the mind are the underpinnings of all his work, it is
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his excellent understanding of the elements of building, and the laws of
construct, that give it the sense of ordered presence. A
• Yet, it is an order, enriched by the patina of materials he chooses, and his
sensitivity of light. There is in it a softness and quality of transcendence.
• If his philosophical premises owe a great deal to his mentor, Louis Kahn,
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his sensorial ability is more rooted in Wright. Raje knows better than most,
the essence of history and its continued presence. T
The Ravi Mathai Centre at IIM Ahmedabad, is an adjunct to the main
campus buildings designed by Kahn, and necessarily continues the same
disciplines and vocabulary of building; continuing the elements, materials,
language of construct and the ethos.
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The IIFM building, Bhopal
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“The history of Architecture has long since responded to the making of ‘places’, and places have inspired
the act of architecture. It takes centuries to build the traditions- the forms of which were not intended by anyone, but were worked out without
knowing.”
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Semi Wholesale Market, Vashi, New Bombay A
Architect : Anant Raje
Client : Maharashtra Agriculture and N
Fertilizer Corporation Limited
Consultant : Sharad R.'Shah (structure) A
Contractor : Nirdip Construction
Year of Completion : 1975 N
Area : 8800 m 2
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Only the first phase of this regional wholesale market has been built. For
political reasons, even this portion of the scheme is unused. Already in a
state of decay, it is, however, a rare building that transcends functional
obsolescence with the significance of its architectural design.
Layout of the overall facility
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MAIN FEATURES
• Explicit hierarchies of structural form and building functions lend organization to a sprawling complex. A
• Specific space types give identity to each activity - the farmers' warehouses, the main auction hall and the farmers'
market. J
• The low-rise complex is urban in concept and experience.
• Alley-like passages vaulted by concrete shells emerge on narrow streets, which open, in turn, on to squares meant for
gatherings.
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Semi Wholesale Market….
• The farmers' warehouses are grouped in long ranks, each has an office, a A
storage space and a sleeping loft with an attached washroom.
• The auction hall is a large vaulted canopy divided in two distinct parts
by an inclined incision in the roof volume. It floats above an open
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platform, which can be readily reached by delivery trucks.
• The general market halls are organized for the semi-wholesale A
distribution of produce purchased at the auction. Smaller offices overlook
these spaces from an upper level.
• A Spartan palate of materials - cement-faced masonry with vaults and N
roofs surfaced with scintillating white china mosaic - emphasizes the
severe simplicity of the forms employed.
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Plan & Sections of the Building
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Vault detail, Auction Hall Auction Hall
Management Development Centre, Ahmedabad A
Architect : Anant D. Raje
Client : Indian Institute of Management N
Consultants : Sharad R. Shah (structure), Stein
Doshi and Bhalla (services) A
Contractor : Gannon Dunkerley and Company
Limited
Year of Completion : 1982
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Area : 4500 m2
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The honour of carrying on the work of a master was a difficult challenge well
met in this prestigious academic building. The Management Development
Centre is the last important element to be added to Louis Kahn's campus for
the Indian Institute of Management left incomplete at his death in 1975.
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Junction of the East wing and the Central
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CONCEPT
block
• The architect has shown due respect for that powerful context by assiduously employing Kahn's brick vocabulary. But the
building stands its own ground.
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• It even takes Kahn's ideas on the intrinsic order of materials and light a step further. The play of light on fair-faced concrete is
exploited originally, for example, in the elegant light shafts that pierce the central academic block of the complex. E
Management Development Centre…
• Taut planes of concrete - like stretched parchment - retain a narrow A
interface between the major spaces in the dark brick core of the building.
MAIN FEATURES
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• The complex is organized around a landscaped court.
• Two wings of guest rooms extend from the teaching block to complete
the long sides of the quadrangle, the fourth side enclosed with a brick wall
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and a screen of trees.
• The symmetrical positioning of a pair of descending stairs in the N
concourse of the academic wing creates a large veranda-like terrace on the
central axis of the block.
• Broad arches frame the view of the court. The comfortable, domestic T
scale of the quadrangle is established by manipulating its levels.
• Despite a masterful fidelity to the formal language of Kahn, this
intimate, introverted composition is a refreshing exception to the Site Plan and Section
overbearing weight and masculinity of the earlier campus buildings - a
landmark in itself. R
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Guest room wing flanking upper and lower courts
Farmers' Training Institute, Palanpur, Gujarat A
Architect : Anant D. Raje
Client : National Dairy Development Board N
Consultants: National Dairy Development Board
(structure and services) A
Contractor : C. J. Kansara
Year of Completion : 1983 N
Area : 1100 m2
CONCEPT T
• This little campus is one in a network of rural training facilities operated by
the National Dairy Development Board.
• It provides short-term instruction in applied agricultural technology to
farmers and rural development workers in the important milk-producing region
of northern Gujarat. R
• The campus accommodates groups of 15 to 20 trainees at a time. Monk-like,
they are encouraged in their studies by the self-contained isolation of the
institute. General View
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• Sleeping, eating, instruction, social activity and all daily functions revolve around the tiny cloister. This monastic analogy
extends to the architecture in various respects. Spatial orientation is consistently inward looking. E
Farmer’s Training Institute…
MAIN FEATURES A
• The curving sweep of the east wall decisively seals off the most public
exposure of the building.
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• One slips through a small gap to enter, only to arrive in a large
windowless forecourt removed by several more courts and ante-chambers
from the principal study and living spaces. A
• The dining loggia and casual activity spaces look in on the central
quadrangle.
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• The two classrooms address a smaller, exclusive light court. In a
manner reminiscent of monks' cells in European charterhouses, the L-
shaped dormitories look in on semi-contained verandas in lieu of direct T
views of the rural landscape.
• Construction is simple and powerful: rough-dressed stone bearing walls
with clearly rendered slabs, arches and linters in reinforced concrete.
Floors and work areas in the kitchen and bathrooms are veneered with
polished green sandstone.
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Plan & Section
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Farmer’s Training Institute…
• This empirical, stylistically timeless rendering of masonry brings
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coherence to the more obtuse logic behind the forms and
organization of Southwest exposure. N
• All larger spaces, such as the charming dining hall, are open
loggias, which the client intends to enclose owing to, the perennial
infiltration of hot winds and dust. A
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Dining Hall Loggia
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Entry to Classrooms
Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal A
Architect : Anant D. Raje
Client : Indian Institute of Forest Management N
Consultants : Spectral Services Consultants Pvt.
Ltd., New Delhi A
Year of Completion : 1989
Area : 65 hectares N
CONCEPT
Exterior View
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• Building on his smaller-scale institutional experiments including the
diminutive Farmer's Training Institute at Palanpur, Gujarat.
• Anant Raje conceived this large government project with a combination of
romanticism and monumentality unprecedented in recent Indian architecture.
• The architect's deep veneration for Louis Kahn is undisguised, but he has
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allowed himself exceptional license to distort and enrich Kahn's idiom in
comparison to his Management Development Centre.
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• Contemporary images are secondary in their influence of the design; the
primary inspiration is historical.
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Exterior View
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Institute Of Forest Management…
MAIN FEATURES A
• This campus derives its complex assemblage of spaces, elements and
arched masonry from classical Deccan architecture.
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• The enigmatic majesty of the ruined palace of Mandu - as captured in
the architect's sketches - is translated into contemporary structures more
delicate in mass and proportion, but characterized all the more by that A
gaunt and haunted quality of a ruin.
• The plan is a palimpsest: a formal base order half effaced by an overlay
of autonomous, sometimes colliding geometries, like successive
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archaeological deposits on a single site.
• Bordering the complex is a linear reflecting pool that serves as the
Plan & Section
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datum for the composition.
• A series of monumental loggia make the transition from this water body
and its esoteric formalism to the more mundane complex of office and
teaching blocks behind.
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Site Model of The Complex E
Institute Of Forest Management…
• Structural order is determined by functional and symbolic criteria. A
• The plan is resolved into distinct components, some of which are repeated,
as in the faculty offices, or skewed off the base grid and distinguished by their
own geometry. N
• The dense congregation of own structures creates a romantic sequence of
semi-enclosed and open-to-sky spaces intimate enough in scale to be a useful,
sun-protected extension of the architectural environment.
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Library Block
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Vanishing Façade of The Block
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COMMERCIAL COMPLEX, Indore A
This Project is urban and addresses itself to critical dimensions sadly
lacking in much of urban architecture in India today. N
CONCEPT
•This project attempts an Urban definition, of the making of a civic A
realm of street and court, of terraces and galleries, and of urban mass
that define urban spaces.
•The language of building is once again rooted in the disciplines of N
construct, and of elements of the building.
•Urban Architecture has an obligation to the public realm, not to the T
individual building alone.
•It has an obligation to disciplines that evolve from the nature of the
activity, individual and collective, private and public, and to the nature Axonometric View
of elements of urbanity that express the scales of human interaction.
This Project attempts these definitions.
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Model of The Complex
Commercial Complex…
MAIN FEATURES
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• An extension to an ongoing housing complex near the city center, the design
accommodates the development of a total area of approximately 16500 sq m. of N
this, about 5800 sq m is allocated to housing, the rest being offices, shopping
arcades, etc.
• The project is a major urban design statement in Indore which could extend its A
limits to integrate within itself.
• a transport terminal for Inter-State Buses, Transport existing shopping streets, N
and most of the unrelated planning efforts that have resulted in truncated urban
design design development.
• It is, therefore, just the beginning of an effort to bring in large scale T
pedestranization with links to major surface transport centers and parking lots
within and around the periphery of this section of the city.
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Plans & Elevation
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Sections