Amogh N P
✦ In loving memory of Amogh N P — Architect · Designer · Visionary ✦
B.Arch Curriculum · Semester 5

Contemporary Architecture

How architecture arrived at the present — and how India found its own modern voice. From the British-built Indo-Saracenic palaces of the princely states, through Le Corbusier's raw-concrete Chandigarh and Louis Kahn's brick at Ahmedabad, to the first generation of Indian masters — Doshi, Correa, Rewal, Kanvinde, Baker — and the worldwide currents of High-Tech and Post-Modernism that ran alongside them, ending with the sustainable, parametric and commercial practice shaping Indian cities now.

5Units
6Outcomes
2Credits
FreeForever
Start with Unit I All student courses
Unit II · India finds its voice

Modern Architecture in India

Once Corbusier and Kahn had shown the way, a first generation of Indian architects built a modernism of their own — climate-rooted, vernacular-aware, socially engaged. B.V. Doshi and Charles Correa led it: Doshi's half-sunken Sangath and his Aranya housing, Correa's 'form follows climate', open-to-sky terraces and mandala plans. Around them stood Raj Rewal's monumental Hall of Nations, Achyut Kanvinde's Bauhaus campuses, Uttam Jain's Rajasthani stone, Laurie Baker's cost-effective brick, and Anant Raje, who completed Kahn's IIM.

B.V. DoshiCharles CorreaRaj RewalLaurie BakerAnant RajeQuiz
Open the lesson

The syllabus

Five units, from the Raj's Indo-Saracenic to Indian practice today.

Transcribed from the official B.Arch syllabus. All 5 units are live as full interactive lessons, each with original diagrams, a self-assessment quiz and a study task.

1

Unit 1 — Pre- & Post-Independence

Live

Architecture of the princely states and the colonial period — the Indo-Saracenic of Jaipur, Calcutta, Chennai and Mysore — and the two manifestos of post-independence modern India: Le Corbusier's Chandigarh and the Ahmedabad of Corbusier, Louis Kahn and B.V. Doshi.

CO1CO3
2

Unit 2 — Modern Architecture in India

Live

The first generation of Indian modern masters — B.V. Doshi and Charles Correa; Raj Rewal, Achyut Kanvinde and Uttam Jain; Laurie Baker's cost-effective architecture and Anant Raje, Kahn's Indian disciple — and the climate-rooted, vernacular-modern language they forged.

CO3CO2
3

Unit 3 — High-Tech Architecture

Live

The last phase of modern architecture — Richard Meier, Charles Moore, Bernard Tschumi and Frank Gehry — and the British-born High-Tech (Structural Expressionism) of Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and Michael Hopkins, who made structure, services and technology the architecture itself.

CO4CO2
4

Unit 4 — Post-Modern Architecture

Live

The reaction against the International Style — modernism versus post-modernism, Jencks's 'double coding' and the 'death of modernism', Venturi's complexity and contradiction and the 'decorated shed' — through Robert Venturi, Michael Graves and James Stirling.

CO4CO2
5

Unit 5 — Recent Trends in India

Live

Current Indian practice and recent trends — Sanjay Mohe, Christopher Benninger, Hafeez Contractor, Chitra Vishwanath and Sanjay Puri — read across sustainability and green rating, continued critical regionalism, parametric design, conservation, and the commercial high-rise.

CO6CO5

Course outcomes

What you should be able to do after completing all five units (CO1–CO6, from the syllabus).

1
Understand

Understand pre- and post-independence architecture in India — the colonial Indo-Saracenic of the princely states, and the post-independence modernism of Chandigarh and Ahmedabad.

2
Apply

Apply a familiarity with the contemporary forces and directions in architecture across the world and in India.

3
Understand

Understand the post-independence modern architecture of India — Doshi, Correa, Rewal, Kanvinde, Uttam Jain, Laurie Baker and Anant Raje — alongside developments elsewhere.

4
Understand

Understand the later directions of modern architecture worldwide — late modernism and deconstruction, the High-Tech movement, and Post-Modernism.

5
Apply

Apply an understanding of alternate and recent practice — sustainability, critical regionalism, parametric design and the commercial high-rise.

6
Apply

Gain knowledge of the recent trends in architecture and design and relate them to the work of contemporary Indian architects.

Topics and outcomes follow the published B.Arch syllabus (L2 · T0 · S0; 100 marks). Every diagram is produced originally by Studio Matrx for teaching, and the history is cross-checked against the cited references and award/UNESCO records — no published manual figures are reproduced. We also flag the myths the textbooks repeat — that Chandigarh was Corbusier's from scratch, that IIM Ahmedabad is Corbusier's (it is Kahn's), and the true authors of "less is a bore" and the inside-out Pompidou.

Image credits

Every photograph is a verified Creative-Commons or Public-Domain work from Wikimedia Commons, used with attribution. The hand-drawn diagrams are original Studio Matrx work.

The concrete, the brick, the glass.

How architecture reached the present — and how India found its own modern voice. Read the five units top to bottom, study the diagrams, then test yourself.

Open Unit I Back to Students

Studio Matrx is a tribute to Amogh N P. The curriculum is free, forever.