Modern Temples for Post-independence India: Institutional Architecture of Achyut Kanvinde

Abstract

This dissertation maps the institutional architecture of Indian modernist Achyut Kanvinde (1916–2002) against visions for a modern India, in particular that of Nehru. Within dominant narratives on Indian modernism, Kanvinde is viewed as a key agent in the dissemination of Euro-American disciplinary models to India; however the precise nature of this localisation remains unexplored. This study works in this gap. Through a close reading of four key institutional projects conceived and realised over five decades (1948–1998), it traces Kanvinde’s adaptation of international modernist themes to the post-independence nation building imperatives, associated social and cultural ideals and material and technological possibilities. The method draws on recent trends in critical historiography in which non-Western and particularly postcolonial modernist practices are considered as key agents in the evolution and revitalisation of the global history of modernism. The research accordingly employs a triangulated analytical approach, whereby postwar disciplinary history and associated architectural themes on the one hand and local political context on the other, frame a close architectural reading of Kanvinde’s work. Distinct government-driven institutional building types:laboratory, university campus, factory and museum – form the subject of each chapter and give focus to a synthesised account of the relationship between architecture, social program and state ideology. This research challenges and extends existing scholarship on Kanvinde. Resisting the dominant representation of his career in terms of three discrete styles – early, mid and late modern – the dissertation foregrounds thematic continuities, both disciplinary and ideological. And beginning with the generalised characterisation of Kanvinde as a Nehruvian architect, it adds detail and nuance to the precise nature of this implied association. The dissertation argues that as modernist themes are marshalled by Kanvinde in the service of a highly context-specific conception of institutions, unique localisations result. The localisations occur through juxtaposition, synthesis, amplification and at times negation of modernist priorities producing highly personal yet resolutely contemporary architecture – modern temples that foster secular yet elevated public life in post-independence India.