Aditya Prakash: The Indian Modernist

Ar. Aditya Prakash, Chandigarh

On August 12, 2008 city of Chandigarh (India) lost an eminent architect, designer, painter, a theater enthusiast, academician, Le Corbusier’s associate. He was Ar. Aditya Prakash.

News Release- Aditya Prakash, Indian Modernist

He was on his way to Mumbai for staging the play Life Never Retires, created by G.S. Channi, in which he played the central character. He died on the way, at Ratlam station.

Aditya Prakash is well known in the world of modern architecture as Le Corbusier’s associate in the planning, design and building of the Chandigarh Capital Project which was initiated by the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru.

Known internationally for its architecture and urban planning, Chandigarh is home to numerous architectural projects of Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Edwin Maxwell Fry, Jane Drew, Matthew Nowicki, and Albert Mayer. Nehru famously proclaimed Chandigarh to be “unfettered by the traditions of the past, a symbol of the nation’s faith in the future.”

Le Corbusier with Pandit Nehru

Designed in a grid pattern, Chandigarh stands out from the rest of India with its clean lines, broad avenues and imposing government buildings built on a vast scale in concrete with columns, ramps, sculpted roof lines and screens to protect against the punishing sun.

Prakash joined the Chandigarh Capital Project in November of 1952 as one of the nine architects on the team. He had just finished studying architecture at the London Polytechnic, and became an A.R.I.B.A. in 1951.

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Holistic Reality: Mumbai’s Cybertecture Egg

Mumbai's Cybertecture Egg

India has been on world architecture news for a while now. Antilla has hardly left the headlines,  Cybertecture Egg has already taken a place on top.

Talk of intelligent design- this building will surpass all that fall in this category. You will see it built by 2010.

The concept. The concept was inspired by considering the world as an ecosystem allowing life to evolve. Elements of the design and intelligence systems will work together to give the building’s inhabitants the ‘best space to work in’.

The design. The 32,000 sq m egg-shaped building will accommodate 13 floors of offices bringing together “iconic architecture, environmental design, intelligent systems, and new engineering to create an awe-inspiring landmark in the city.”

Within the building, there will be a series of innovative systems such as ‘cybertecture health’ which is designed to keep track of the inhabitant’s health including blood pressure and weight. The data collected may be retrieved and sent to a doctor if deemed necessary.

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Piano to Build at Corbu’s Ronchamp Chapel

Construction plans for the site of Le Corbusier’s chapel of Notre Dame du Haut (1954) in Ronchamp (France) commissioned by the Association Oeuvre Notre Dame du Haut (the same organization that commissioned the chapel by Le Corbusier), has ignited a serious debate and disagreement between organizations seeking to preserve Le Corbusier’s legacy.

The New Plan. The new plan calls for the replacement of an existing visitor’s center and asphalt parking lot with a new visitor center dug into the hillside and a landscaped parking lot. It also features a new facility to host 12 Poor Clare nuns and their visitors. The convent—to be located primarily underground, about 300 feet west of the chapel—would contain small, independent residential units and an oratory open to pilgrims. According to the association, the overall goal of the project is to rehabilitate the site and ensure it remains a place of worship.

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Pashkov House: Moscow’s Jewel Now Restored

Paskov House one of architectural jewels of Russia was under restoration for 19 years, was closed down due to its dilapidated state. Pashkov House is named after its first owner Petr Yegorovich Pashkov, the lieutenant commander of the Life Guards of Semenovsky Regiment and the son of Peter the Great’s batman.

Pashkov House

Designed by Vasily Bazhenov (1737-1799), one of Russia’s greatest architects, this mansion was erected between 1784 and 1786 for the wealthy Pashkov family. The central building is topped by a round belvedere and flanked by two service wings. The current building is a reconstruction of a private mansion that was badly damaged in the disastrous fire of 1812, which swept through the city as the first of Napoleon’s troops were arriving.

In the 19th century it housed the Rumyantsev collection of art and rare manuscripts and a library, and from 1925it has been a part of the Lenin Library, the second largest in the world, after the Library of Congress, and a magnet for international scholars, even during the Soviet era. Following the 1917 revolution, the museum was closed and the art collection was transferred to the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and the Pushkin Museum of Fine Art. The manuscripts were donated to the Russian State Library which now owns this building. Pashkov House is off-limits to the general public, but after years of neglect, the government finally pledged funds for restoration work, which began in 2003. Money for the state-financed restoration finally started to flow after the visit from Vladimir V. Putin, the former president.

In a city where architectural monuments are readily torn down or gaudily renovated beyond recognition, Pashkov House, which reopened in October after an $80 million renovation, is one of the few restoration projects lauded by preservationists.

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Antilla Stands High As World’s First Billion Dollar Home

To everyone’s surprise, price tagged at $ 2 Billion, Antilla (named after the mythical island) is in India and is world’s first billion dollar home. Indeed, like its name, it houses stuff that surrounds myth!

Owner is India’s richest, Mukesh Ambani of Reliance fame whose net worth was 43 Billion in March of this year and was the 5th richest in the world.

The only remotely comparable high-rise property currently on the market is the 70 million dollar triplex penthouse at the Pierre Hotel in New York, designed to resemble a French chateau, and climbing 525 feet in the air.

When the Ambani residence is finished in January, completing four years of design and construction, it will be 27 story and 550 feet high (height which normally houses 60 floors) with 400,000 square feet of interior space. (Click on the picture to see a video).

However, all of this has not been without its share of controversies. Antilla is being built on land sold to Ambanis’ to be used as orphanage by Waqf Board.The land measuring 11793 sq yards was sold in 2004 by the trust for a charitable purpose of looking after the destitutes and orphan children belonging to the Khoja Mohammedan community. The land was given to the Maharashtra State Board of Waqf by Jivagi Raje Scindia in 1957. The MoU was signed with four companies namely Antillia Commercials, Saphire Realtors, Rockline Constructions and Baun Foundation trust.

The Waqf Board has told the Supreme Court that it sold the property thinking it was to be used for an orphanage and that commercial buildings are not allowed on Waqf land. Property having a market value of Rs 400 crore was sold only for Rs 21.05 cr to M/s Antillia Commercial, a company of Reliance group of Industries. Rs 16 crores were also paid to Waqf Board for No Objection Certificate.

The Supreme Court on Friday decided not to intervene in the construction of the building on Waqf board land in Mumbai and has directed the matter back to the Bombay high court.

Critics have also said that showing off such extravagant wealth in a country rife with poverty is insensitive and ethically questionable. This is excessive and ostentatious given that more than 65 percent of Mumbai’s 18 million residents live in tenements.

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Neutra’s VDL Threatened With Closure

Seventy-five years ago, in Los Angeles, with a no-interest loan from Dutch philanthropist Dr CH Van Der Leeuw, Viennese-American architect Richard Neutra, rightly called ‘second only to Frank Lloyd Wright’, built a radical “glass house” with rooftop and balcony gardens on Silverlake Boulevard.

This is the place where Neutra had designed hundreds of projects over the four continents among which are some of the finest schools, public buildings and distinguished residences. So many architects were trained here and whose careers started in this office/studio.

Neutra’s residence played host to cultural figures like Frank Lloyd Wright, Lazlo Moholy Nagy, Jorn Utson, Charles and Ray Eames; religious figures like Robert Schuler and J Krishnamurti; scientists like Rene Dubos and Linus Pauling; and to political figures and activists like John Anson Ford, Frank Wilkinson and Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

VDL, as Neutra had named his residence, was very dear to him. His ashes were later scattered in the backyard.

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Skin + Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture

The idea of designers and architects working together is nothing new, from the Tokyo store collaboration between Prada and Rem Koolhaas to Hussein Chalayan’s techno virtuosity in morphing dresses into chairs.

We all live in buildings and wear clothes. Traditionally, fashion and architecture have remained quite distinct. However, since 1980s the two disciplines have become closer than ever before.

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First Peep Into Beijing’s ‘Bird’s Nest’ Stadium

Beijing’s $500-million Olympic stadium opens its doors to the media. Finishing touches are still being added to the 91000 seat venue.

Bird’s Nest, as it has been nicknamed, cost more than 500 million US Dollars and took fours years to build. It is called ‘Bird’s Nest’ due to the structural form of its roof. The interwoven structural elements of the facade produce a single surface, upon which further elements are arranged in a chaotic manner to blur the distinction between the primary structure and the secondary structure. The roof is saddle-shaped, and the geometry is developed from a base ellipse of which the major and minor axes are 313 meters and 266 meters respectively. The outer surface of the facade is inclined at approximately 13° to the vertical.

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Death Defying Architecture: A Reality?

Architects Arakawa and Madeline Gins believe that you have a right not to die. Reversible destiny comes as part of their services to you as an architect and designers.

“We believe we can help extend your lives,” architects’ claim.

They recently completed a house (not for mortals) in East Hamoton, New York. The house is called Bioscleave House which literally implies Life Extending Villa. Children are forbidden to enter this house, and even adults have to sign a waiver before they enter the house. The house comes with its own ‘User’s Manual’. The house is meant to lead its users into a perpetually “tentative” relationship with their surroundings, and thereby keep them young.

Click on the picture for a Slide Show on Bioscleave House

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The New Fields of Dreams: Super-Stadiums

A sports business model that originated in America and is now spreading across the globe. Hungering for the kind of revenue needed to field top teams, a wave of stadium construction is sweeping through sports. But not just any stadiums. Super-stadiums.

The formula: Build new facilities with fewer seats and more luxury boxes, charge higher prices, earn more revenue, hire better players and reap more wins. Then turn around and raise ticket prices. Teams are finding it’s a circle you have to be a part of.

Click on the picture to take a peek into 10 New Super- stadiums.

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At $3 Billion GM Building is Most Valuable in the World

$3 billion-one, $3 billion-two, and $3 billion- its is. A building to sell for $3 billion does sound insane but this insanity is nearing to become a reality. Larry Silverstein, developer of ground zero, has bid $3 billion for General Motors Building on Fifth Avenue, in the Manhattan District in New York.

Indeed, with its commanding view of Central Park and its Fifth Avenue address, the building is a trophy property and a symbol of New York corporate power since General Motors moved its boardroom and some 3,300 employees there 40 years ago. Since then, though, G.M.’s presence has shrunk to three floors from 26, and its contractual naming rights for the property expire in 2010.

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Johnson is In- Gehry is Out; Jon Jerde is In- Gehry is Out

This week in news we find two of Frank Gehry’s projects declared obsolete- Winton Guest House in Minnesota, and Santa Monica Place mall in Santa Monica.

In early 2007, the University of California, Irvine, razed one of his buildings—a computer science center—to make way for a new engineering complex, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported at the time.

Mike and Penny Winton, the original clients of Winton Guest House, sold the guest house as well as their main residence, a 1954-vintage house by famous architect Philip Johnson, to Kirt Woodhouse, a real estate developer, in 2002. Woodhouse divided the 12-acre property into three separate lots, and was able to sell Johnson-designed residence but not one by Gehry’s . It stayed on the market for too long with no buyers.

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