The Indology building in Ahmedabad was one of Doshi's first public buildings as a solo artist outside of Corb's office.

At this stage, Doshi is deep in the shadow of his previous employer, although some individual developments are already starting to surface - mainly in the idea to store the collection of Indological documents in an open-to-outsideair basement, preserving the climatic conditions under which they'd previously been kept. There are also some ideas about the site section being intended to draw breezes up and over the central plaza; I'm not sure how successful all of this ended up being, but it does suggest priorities slightly displaced from those of the old boss. Also, the peripheral ambulatory/shade zone is typologically Indian, and for good reason of thermal comfort, as any of my Georgian friends who've spent time on a good deep porch in the Summer can probably understand. Given that it's materialized in concrete, though, it also reads as a kind of thickening of the brise-soleil into occupiable space (as opposed to the bold thickening of the sun-breakers' mass into sculptural elements in Corbusier's Indian buildings). But at that point we're chasing ourselves in circles - wasn't the brise-soleil itself in some sense inspired by these kinds of interstitial spaces, sheltered behind screens, in vernacular architecture? The composition, meanwhile, is quite familiar - this is a near cousin to the elevation of the unbuilt Governor's Mansion for Chandigarh. Doshi was closely attached to that project, so perhaps he used this building as a chance to work out an idea that didn't get realized a few years before. Check out the brutal exposed concrete (weathering horribly in this climate) and the complex but abstract articulation that breaks the composition down, into what I suspect are Modulor-sized units. The elevation has a charming brittleness with all those thin vertical elements - - like a house of sticks re-rendered as a house of stone. This isn't quite Doshi at his most Brutalist, but even so, we get a real sense here of an already-divergent sensibility. Steele, if I remember correctly, suggests that Doshi would take a hard look at his own early projects, particularly in terms of performance under the climate, and began modulating his work in response. This seems basically correct to me; there are certain elements in this building that you will not see again in Doshi, particularly the vast, brutal plaza between the museum block and the Institute. While a scenic setting for photos of marching monkeys, it wouldn't be at all pleasant in full sun. (Speaking of full sun - this batch of photos will alternate between "day" and "evening"; I first visited in the very late afternoon and took what shots I could; I then had to meet someone near this building on another day and figured I'd pick up some more well-lit views.)