Architect Anant Raje (19292009)

Anant Raje (19292009) was a well-known architect, intellectual and teacher.

He graduated in 1954 from the J.J. School of Fine Arts, Mumbai.

He started his architecture studio in India in 1969, upon returning from working with Louis Kahn in Philadelphia.

Rajes association with the School of Architecture, CEPT University, was consistent throughout the period of his
independent practice.

He also taught at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad and at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.

He was Visiting Professor at several universities in the United States, Europe and Australia, and he lectured
extensively at architecture schools in India and around the world.

Raje received several professional and academic awards, including the Distinguished Professors Award from the
Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT), Ahmedabad in 1987, the Indian Institute of Architects
(IIA) Baburao Mhatre Gold Medal for Architecture in 1993, and the

Master Award for Lifetime Contribution in Architecture from J.K. Industries, India in 2000.

Design principal:

Raje follows Kahn in many aspects: Building within a Building, Expression of Material, Expression of Construction,
Arched Openings, Precise works of brick masonry, Scale of open spaces.

Believed in designing based on transition from spontaneous to formal spaces.

Excellent understanding of the elements of building, and the laws of construction, that give it the sense of ordered
presence.

Enriched by the patina (exterior) of materials he chooses and his sensitivity of light.

Raje believes in the essence of history and its continued presence in design.

Conceptualization of any project before it went for drawing and construction stage.

Combination of romanticism (the natural surroundings around the building) and monumentality (buildings out of

heavy, solid materials and forms ) resulting in humane spaces

Use of large open spaces in the outer skeleton for natural ventilation and lighting.

Most of his buildings were of brick masonry and exposed concrete surfaces.

He used geometric patterns to emphasize the faade of the building.

Simple, functional, platonic forms and compositions.

Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal . Architect: Anant D. Raje

1. Building on his smaller scale institutional an experiment Anant Raje has conceived this large government project
with a combination of romanticism and monumentality unprecedented in recent Indian architecture.
2. The architects deep veneration for Louis Kahn is undisguised, but he has allowed himself exceptional license to
distort and enrich Kahns idiom.
3. The primary inspiration is historical.
4. Just as Louis Kahn turned to Roman ruins as a source of architectural forms and relationships, this campus derives
its complex assemblage of spaces, elements and arched masonry from classical Deccan architecture.
5. The enigmatic majesty of the ruined palace of Mandu as captured in the architects sketches is translated into
contemporary structures more delicate in mass and proportion, but characterized all the more by that gaunt and
haunted quality of a ruin.
6. The plan: a formal base order half effaced by an overlay of autonomous, sometimes colliding geometries, like
successive archaeological deposits on single site.
7. Bordering the complex is a linear reflecting pool that serves as the datum for the composition.
8. A series of monumental loggia make the transition from this water body (spontenous spaces) and its esoteric
formalism to the more mundane complex of office and teaching blocks behind(formal spaces).
9. Structural order is determined by functional and symbolic criteria.
10. 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.
11. The dense congregation of 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.
12. Structural order is determined by functional and symbolic criteria.
13. The experience of a ruin, with the silence and the presence of the past is captured in this complex by; varying
geometry of the foot print (like in an archeological site), pavilions bordering the water body, and the oversized
openings.
14. Two large courts are created to act as extended learning areas, one with the class rooms and library bordering and
the other with faculty offices and admin functions.
15. Building is clad on the exterior with kota stones of varying color, inside face is grit finished plaster.
16. Precision, which is the hallmark of Rajes architecture, is evident in formal, spatial and at craft level.

Management Development Centre, Ahmedabad, 1982, Area: 4500 M2

1. The honor of carrying on the work of a master was a difficult challenge well met in this prestigious academic
building.
2. The Management Development Centre is the last important element to be added to Louis Kahns campus for
the Indian Institute of Management left incomplete at his death in 1975.
3. The architect has shown due respect for that powerful context by assiduously employing Kahns brick
vocabulary.
4. It Kahns ideas on the intrinsic order of materials and light a step further.
5. The centre is a self-contained school with library facilities, shared with the main institute.
6. 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.
7. Taut planes of concrete like stretched parchment retains a narrow interface between the major spaces in the
dark brick core of the building.
8. The complex is organized around a landscaped court.
9. Two wings of guest rooms extend from the teaching block to complete the long sides of the quadrangle
10. Two circulations spines each serving thirty-two rooms on either side, for a total of one hundred and twentyeight participants. The two spines are connected through foyers and a concourse to lounges and dining halls.
11. The C-shaped double-storied structure so formed encloses a terraced courtyard
12. The fourth side enclosed with a brick wall and a screen of trees.
13. The symmetrical positioning of a pair of descending stairs in the concourse of the academic wing creates a large
veranda like terrace on the central axis of the block.
14. Board arches from the view of the court.
15. The comfortable, domestic scale of the quadrangle is established by manipulating its levels.
16. Despite a masterful fidelity to the formal language of Kahn, this intimate, introverted composition is refreshing
exception to the overbearing weight and masculinity of the earlier campus buildings - a landmark in itself.