ISKCON Temple , Delhi

ISKCON Temple, designed and built by Achyut Kanvinde who in 1993 agreed to accept a pro-bono commission to build this temple complex for the followers of Srila Prabhupada, one of the largest temple complexes in India. It comprises numerous rooms for priests and for service renders. It has many halls that are used for its administration purposes. Primary deity: Radha Parthasarathi (Krishna andRadha)

Architectural styles: Hindu temple architecture

Achyut Kanvinde -- milk processing plant for the National Dairy Board, Mehsana, India,
An Architecture of Independence: The Making of Modern South Asia shows how architects responded to the nation-building effort in these countries. The exhibition features the work of four leading architects -- Achyut Kanvinde, Balkrishna Doshi, and Charles Correa of India, and Muzharul Islam of Bangladesh. Each created an authentic modern Indian architecture that is based on modern architecture of the West, but at the same time preserves and reinterprets Indian tradition. It also reveals the wide impact these architects have had on South Asian architectural culture through their teaching, writings, professional activities and affiliations, and social activism.

Muzharul Islam -- National Library, Dhaka, Bangladesh Here the central volume of the library, which houses the concrete stacks in which books are stored, is contained by concrete walls. Enveloping this core on three sides are unornamented structures of brick that are cut away at the corners. The cuts continue toward the center of the building, allowing air to circulate and light to penetrate to the librarys heart so as to moderate the hot, humid Bangladesh climate. Islam, like Kanvinde, has stripped the structure down to its unembellished essence; however, where Kanvinde boldly features the concrete of which his milk processing plant is made, Islam gives the concrete in his library a literally and figuratively supportive role.

Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

The aim of the Institute is to provide meaningful education, to conduct original research of the highest standard and to provide leadership in technological innovation for the industrial growth of the country.

PK Kelkar Library, IIT Kanpur, designed by Achyut Kanvinde

Halls of residence, faculty and staff houses and community buildings surround the central academic area to provide flexibility in movement and communication. The residential campus is planned and landscaped with a hope for environmental freedom. The Architectural design of IIT Kanpur is prepared by Mr.Achyut Kanvinde. The IIT Kanpur campus reflects cultural diversity of India.

University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore

The university included the agricultural colleges at Hebbal and Dharwad, Veterinary College at Hebbal and 35 research stations located in different parts of the state along with 45 ICAR projects which were with the State Department of Agriculture, Horticulture, Animal Husbandry and Fisheries.

The University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore campus designed by Kanvinde and Rai

Kanvinde: Function With Feeling

Schooled in the dry Functionalist approach to architecture, Achyut Kanvinde created spaces that were humane, buildings where you felt welcome and comfortable.He was among the earliest Functionalist architects in modern India. He was a self-effacing person, but his work helped shape some of the things we automatically expect in buildings today that they should function efficiently, should not waste space, and be elegant too. Kanvinde himself achieved this by seeking sculptural ideas in the functional needs of a building. For instance, at a dairy in Mehsana near Ahmedabad, he arranged ventilation shafts into an elegant arrangement of towers that make this industrial facility look elegant. By the end of his career he had managed to show that a Functionalist approach could also lead to humane spaces that is, spaces where you felt welcome and comfortable.

The lightness of logic

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It was a theme that never really left his architecture. It appears at the National Rationalist that he was, Kanvinde liked to reveal the internal functions in a building (for example, office block, walkway, auditorium) as separate masses. These were then arranged in ways that were functional from inside and elegant from outside. This analytical approach is evident in the buildings at IIT Kanpur that he designed in the 1950s. Here he clearly separates parts of buildings according to their material, and also achieves a delicacy of effect. The library, for instance, is a Reinforced Cement Concrete (RCC) frame with infill walls in exposed brick. By inserting gaps and shadows between the concrete and brick components, Kanvinde was able to make rough and heavy materials look lightnsurance Academy at Pune late in his career. On the one hand, the elevated walkways speak of a desire to float above the irregularity of the ground condition. On the other, they speak of efficient movement almost like on a conveyor belt.

FUNCTIONLISM AND KANVINDE

FUNCTIONLISM was an approach to architecture associated with the Bauhaus, a school of design founded in 1919 in Germany by Walter Gropius. Functionalists believed that the shape and form of a building should emerge out of the logical arrangement of spaces inside and not from any predetermined idea like symmetry. They believed a building should only have features that were functionally necessary, and no non-functional decoration. They also advocated using the latest technologies and industrial products in construction such as RCC and industrial doors and windows. Their buildings were asymmetrical, white, cuboid forms, with repetitive arrangements of windows. And yet they were elegant.

 REFERENCE

- WIKIPEDIA & OTHER

SITES

THE END