B.V. Doshi

Pritzker Prize-winning Indian architect who fused modernism with vernacular traditions.

Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi (1927–2023) revolutionized South Asian architecture by blending Le Corbusier's modernism with India's cultural heritage. His Sangath Studio in Ahmedabad—with its vaulted roofs and water channels—exemplifies sustainable design decades before it became mainstream.

Doshi's life work focused on affordable housing. The 1989 Aranya Low-Cost Housing project provided 80,000 residents with adaptable living spaces, influencing UN-Habitat policies. His educational buildings like IIM Bangalore used local stone and passive cooling, reducing energy use by 70% compared to glass towers.

As founder of CEPT University, Doshi nurtured a generation of context-sensitive architects. His 2018 Pritzker Prize—Asia's first—highlighted his philosophy: Architecture must belong to its soil. The hybrid concrete-brick construction of Tagore Hall (1967) demonstrated this ethos, merging Brutalist forms with Rajasthani craftsmanship.

Doshi's late-career projects like Amdavad Ni Gufa (1994), a cave-like art gallery collaborating with MF Husain, show his unceasing innovation. His notebooks, digitized by the Tagore Archives, reveal a mind constantly reconciling global ideas with local realities.