Elite hands in Architecture

Prakhar Gupta
6 min readNov 10, 2020

Renowned architects are those who have stood out from their peers for one reason or another. Their claim to fame could be their unique psyche, their captivating impact driven projects, the fact that they are public figures, or some specific professional achievements and awards that they may have.

Being an engineering undergrad student who loves to gaze night sky, read books meanwhile playing guitar and crunching my mind around stock market; i was always fascinated about architectural structures and designs since childhood but didn’t pursued architectural field; so as to get some insight in the life of some of the finest Indian architects ; in this article that also happens to be my very first :) ; i have tried to enlist some of them !

1. Hafeez Contractor

Contemporary, unabashedly in favor of glamorous buildings, slated by critics as unoriginal yet enthusiastically sought-after by public and private projects alike, Hafeez Contractor is definitively one of the most controversial forces shaping the skylines of contemporary urban India. He has been awarded with Padma Bhushan by the Government of India. He received his graduate diploma in architecture from the Academy of Architecture from University of Mumbai and master’s degree was from Columbia University, where he won a scholarship.

He has designed Main — 42 in Kolkata , The Imperial in Mumbai, Dr. L.H. Hiranandani Hospital in Mumbai ,British Gas, Hiranandani Gardens in Mumbai Infosys GEC & SDB 4- Mysore and 23 Marina in Dubai, which is also the world’s tallest all-residential building.

2. Chitra Vishwanath

Chitra Vishwanath is an Indian architect based in Bengaluru who works on themes related to ecology and architecture. She has been working with other architects on many projects in India and Africa. She is now the Principal Architect and Managing Director of BIOME Environment Solutions Private Limited (her architectural firm running since 1991) .She has been involved in more than 500 projects encompassing construction of buildings of all sizes and water harvesting and sanitation structures with specific relevance to the ecology of the sites. With earth as a basic material input in construction she has designed and built many structures.

In order to promote her theme of mud architecture of buildings as an environmentally sound proposition, Vishwanath built her own mud house in an area of 135 square metres (1,450 sq ft) in Bengaluru.

3. B V Doshi

Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi studied at the J. J. School of Architecture, Mumbai. He is a well — noted architect because of his contributions to the evolution of architectural discourse in India especially south asian architecture. Dr. Doshi has received several international and national awards and honors like: Padma Shri from Government of India, Pritzker Prize 2018, Honorary doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania ,France’s highest honor for the ‘Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters’, and for Architecture for Aranya Community Housing.

Some Best Works of B V Doshi are IIM Banglore, NIFT Delhi, Sangath in Ahmedabad, Amdavadni Gufa in Ahmedabad. numerous dairy buildings under NDDB (such as Dudhsagar Dairy plant in Mehsana) and many other buildings.

4. Brinda Somaya

Brinda Somaya is another brilliant Indian architect, who believes that development and progress must proceed without straining the cultural and historic environment. She completed her B.Arch from Mumbai University and Master of Arts from Smith College in Northampton, US. She was awarded the Indian Institute of Architects — Baburao Mhatre Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement. Also, she was named an Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University in 2017.

Some of her most famous works include Mumbai and Holiday Inn, Bangalore Tata Consultancy Services in Indore, Nalanda International School — Vadodara ,Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, The Kensington Club in Nasik.

5. Raj Rewal

Raj rewal is an architect and urban design consultant. His approach to architecture, responds to the complexities of rapid urbanization, the demands of climate, cultural traditions, as well as building crafts and technologies. He attended the Delhi School of Architecture in New Delhi and the architectural association school of architecture for one year and the Brixton school of building, London.

His works include a wide range of building types, including: The Parliament Library, and the Asian Games Village, all located in New Delhi, India, Ismaïli Centre in Lisbon, Portugal ,The Nehru Pavilion, Scope office complex, Central Institute of Educational Technology, World Bank building, The National Institute of Immunology.

6. Achyut P. Kanvide

Achyut Purushottam Kanvinde was an Indian architect who worked in functionalist approaches with elements of Brutalist archirecture. He received the Padma Shri in 1974. graduated in architecture from Sir J.J. School of Arts, Mumbai then sent by the Government of India to study at Harvard. In 1985, he was the winner of the IIA “Baburao Mhatre Gold Medal.

His firm has been responsible for IIT Kanpur, National Science Centre -Delhi, The National Council of Applied Economic Research in New Delhi, NII Pune.

7. Charles Correa

This well known architect and urban planner was famous for applying modernist design principles of contemporary times to local climates and building styles.

Correa studied at Saint Xavier’s College at the University of Mumbai, and later he went on to study at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Correa played an important role in planning and formation of Navi Mumbai. Unlike others planners he did not go for high rise buildings to solve the housing problems, instead he adopted low-rise solutions and emphasized on human scale. Correa was a firm believer that the buildings he created must respond to their surroundings, taking into consideration the particular needs of society and understanding and interpreting the local vernacular to create something truly appropriate. ‘Architecture is not a moveable feast, like music,’ Correa explained in an interview: ‘You can give the same concert in three different places, but you can’t just repeat buildings and clone them across the world.’ While his contemporaries were following in the footsteps of Mies van der Rohe back in the 1950s, Correa rejected the cold glass-and-steel structural style in favour of a more ‘human’ approach.

Mahatma Gandhi Sangrahalaya MG Memorial, Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly, Sonmarg apartments National Crafts Museum, Champalimaud centre for the unknown in Lisbon, Ismaili Centre in Toronto etc. are some famous works of him.

Charles Correa was named by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) as ‘India’s greatest architect’ in 1984 and it’s not hard to see why.

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Prakhar Gupta

Engg. student who loves to explore night sky, read books, play guitar, gaze architectural structures and crunch his mind around stock market.